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Purpose LncRNA-BF368575 is a novel long non-coding RNA, its biological function in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unknown. Methods The expression levels of lncRNA-BF368575 in HCC tissues and cell lines were evaluated by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). In situ hybridization (ISH) was performed to determine the expression of lncRNA-BF368575 in a tissue chip containing 89 paired HCC and para-cancerous tissues. Fractionation of nuclear and cytoplasmic RNA was performed to determine the subcellular localization of lncRNA-BF368575. Cell viability and colony-forming ability were determined by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay and colony formation assay. Tumor growth in vivo was detected using the xenograft model. The molecular mechanisms of lncRNA-BF368575 were investigated using Western blotting and RNA-Binding Protein Immunoprecipitation (RIP). Results The results showed that lncRNA-BF368575 was increased in most HCC tissues and cell lines. Moreover, the lower lncRNA-BF368575 expression level is a favorable prognostic factor in disease-free survival (DFS). LncRNA-BF368575 is mostly localized in the cytoplasm. In vitro and in vivo experiments showed that downregulation of lncRNA-BF368575 suppressed cell proliferation and colony-forming activity, yet overexpression of lncRNA-BF368575 leads to an opposite result. Furthermore, lncRNA-BF368575 activates the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway by increasing the expression of p-PI3K(Tyr607), p-AKT(Thr308), p-mTOR(Ser2448), p-4E-BP1(Thr37/46), p-S6(Ser235/236). LY294002 could reverse the biological functions of lncRNA-BF368575. RIP shows that LncRNA-BF368575 could bind to p-mTOR(Ser2448), p-AKT(Thr308), and p-4E-BP1(Thr37/46). Conclusion Our study demonstrates that lncRNA-BF368575 enhances HCC proliferation and growth both in vitro and vivo via activating the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway, which implicates that our findings may provide a potential target for HCC treatments.

Background: As an important part of the promotion of immunization programs and the suppression of infectious diseases, paid vaccines can prevent a variety of diseases and meet the needs of different populations. However, few studies focus on the public’s intention to pay for vaccination. Methods: The survey was conducted from 10 July to 15 September 2021, adopting a cross-sectional survey in China. We used a multi-stage sampling strategy to recruit participators from 120 cities. Participants filled out questions which assessed their intentions to pay for vaccination. A linear regression analysis was given to identify the predictors associated with the subjects’ attitudes. Results: There were 11,031 residents who finished our questionnaire. Chinese residents’ intention to receive paid vaccines scored 74.5 points. Residents who were male (β = −0.03) and older (30–44 (β = −0.03) or 45–59 (β = −0.06) or ≥60 (β = −0.08)), living alone (β = −0.03), who had moderate to severe anxiety (β = −0.03) or severe anxiety (β = −0.03) were more likely to refuse vaccination, while those who lived in Western China (β = 0.03) who had higher PSSS scores and HLS-SF12 index might acquire the intention to pay for vaccination. Conclusions: The study found that gender, age, region, living alone, anxiety, social support, and health literacy were the main influencing factors of residents’ attitudes. Governments and health institutions should take targeted measures to improve the health literacy and mental health of the population in order to facilitate the implementation of vaccination withdrawal and immunization policies.

BackgroundThe triglyceride and glucose (TyG) index has been proposed as a surrogate indicator of insulin resistance. By far, the associations of the TyG index with hypertension stages, phenotypes, and progressions remain unclear.MethodsThe data originated from two waves (2011 and 2015) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Participants with systolic blood pressure ≥ 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90 mmHg and/or using antihypertensive medications were considered hypertensive. After excluding those under antihypertensive medications, hypertension stages were classified as stage 1 and stage 2, and phenotypes were classified as isolated systolic hypertension (ISH), isolated diastolic hypertension (IDH), and systolic diastolic hypertension (SDH). Multinomial logistic regression was used to investigate the associations of the TyG index with hypertension stages and phenotypes, together with their progressions from 2011 to 2015.ResultsAt baseline in CHARLS 2011, a total of 8,209 participants were recruited, among whom 3,169 (38.6%) were hypertension. Compared with individuals with the lowest quartile (Q1) of TyG index, those with the highest quartile (Q4) were significantly associated with increased risks of stage 1 hypertension (odds ratio [OR] 1.71, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.38-2.13), stage 2 hypertension (1.74, 1.27-2.38), ISH (1.66, 1.31-2.11), IDH (2.52, 1.26-5.05), and SDH (1.65, 1.23-2.23). Similar results were found when the TyG index was used as a continuous variable. From 2011 to 2015, a higher baseline TyG index was revealed to be significantly associated with the progressions from normotension to stage 1 (for Q4 vs Q1: 1.45, 1.05-2.00; for per-unit: 1.39, 1.16-1.65), normotension to ISH (for per-unit: 1.28, 1.04-1.56), and normotension to IDH (for Q4 vs Q1: 3.46, 1.42-8.44; for per-unit: 1.94, 1.27-2.97).ConclusionsThe TyG index was significantly associated with different hypertension stages, phenotypes and their progressions. Our findings highlight the importance of the TyG index as a potential surrogate indicator for early hypertension screening and management.

Satellite-based measurements are of crucial importance for the accurate global-scale estimation of precipitation at fine spatiotemporal resolutions. Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global...

Inhibition of protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) has been attempted as a promising anti-cancer strategy. However, there is still no currently available PDI inhibitors approved for clinical use. Here, we isolated seven high yield alkaloids from Stephaniae tetrandrae Radix (STR), a medical herb frequently prescribed in anti-tumor condition, and identified two potent natural PDI inhibitors, dicentrine and dicentrinone. Among the seven alkaloids isolated, dicentrinone (1), dicentrine (2), tetrandrine (4), and fangchinoline (5) could significantly reduce cell viability in a dosage dependent manner detected by MTT assay in human hepatoma cells. To examine whether the candidate compounds are potent PDI inhibitors, we performed insulin turbidity assay and found dicentrine and dicentrinone, but not tetrandrine and fangchinoline, could effectively inhibit PDI activity, with IC50 of 56.70 μM and 43.95 μM respectively. Meanwhile, dicentrine and dicentrinone failed to further reduce the cell number index when co-treated with siRNA of PDI, suggesting the compounds behave as PDI inhibitors. Furthermore, dicentrinone and dicentrine have been successfully docked to the active pocket of PDI (PDB #3UEM) by molecular docking, suggesting the existence of physical interaction between compounds and PDI. Our results suggested that dicentrine and dicentrinone may be developed into safe PDI inhibitors.

To investigate the dynamics of the wind–vehicle–bridge (WVB) system in the multi-body dynamics framework, which avoids the large computation cost of programming the motion equation of complex vehicle models and improves the calculation efficiency, an advanced hybrid method is proposed to optimize the WVB system coupling vibration analysis model. The dummy body coupling (DBC) method is integrated to build the connection between the MBS and the FE model, which cannot change the mechanical characteristics of the MBS vehicle model and the bridge FE model. The proposed method makes full use of the high efficiency of the established structure modeling, the powerful wheel–rail analysis function, and vehicle modeling in the multi-body dynamics framework. The complex bridge is modeled by a number of elements to reflect the actual dynamic characteristics of structure, which cannot satisfy the requirement of calculation in the multi-body dynamics framework. Thus, to avoid forming the wheel–rail relationship function, the bridge modeling as a finite element model would be transferred into multi-body dynamics coupling model of the WVB system as a flexible body. The verification of the relationship among the sub-systems of the multi-body model of the WVB system is investigated by analysis of the wind–vehicle, wind–bridge, and vehicle–bridge sub-systems. Finally, a dynamic analysis of the WVB system based on the proposed method is carried out for a double-track railway continuous bridge, in which the effects of different vehicle speeds and the incoming wind directions are studied. The simulation of the WVB system by the hybrid method has a high computational efficiency and strong practicability.

A series of new β-carboline derivatives containing an imidazolium moiety were designed and synthesized via the reaction of β-carboline-1-carboxaldehydes, acetyl chloride, primary amine, and formaldehyde. The antitumor activity of the synthesized compounds was examined against lung carcinoma (A549), gastric carcinoma (BGC-823), murine colon carcinoma (CT-26), liver carcinoma (Bel-7402) and breast carcinoma (MCF-7) cells. The results indicated that most compounds exhibited significant antiproliferative activity, in some cases greater than that of cisplatin, and compound 3z was found to be the most potent antiproliferative agent against A549, BGC823, CT-26, Bel-7402 and MCF-7 cell lines with an IC(50) value of 2.7 ± 0.4, 2.7 ± 0.6, 2.4 ± 0.2, 3.2 ± 0.2, and 5.6 ± 0.3 μM, respectively. Combined with favorable in vitro potency, the antitumor efficacies of the selected compounds in mice were also evaluated. Compound 3z exhibited potent antitumor activity with a tumor inhibition rate of 48.6% in sarcoma 180 models. Preliminary investigations on the mechanisms of action revealed that compound 3z could dramatically inhibit EA.hy926 cell tube formation in a dose-dependent manner. Further investigation of the preliminary mechanism of action demonstrated that compound 3z had obvious angiogenesis inhibitory effects in the chicken chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay. The results of the docking study showed a good fitting of the new compounds 3o and 3z to the active site of VEGFR-2 with a docking score energy of −11.31 kcal per mole and −11.26 kcal per mole, respectively.

BackgroundTranscutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a non-invasive neuromodulation technique with promising therapeutic potential in the context of epilepsy, pain, and depression and which may also have beneficial effects on social cognition. However, the underlying mechanisms of taVNS are unclear and evidence regarding its role in social cognition improvement is limited.ObjectiveIn order to investigate the impact of taVNS on social cognition we have studied its effects on gaze towards emotional faces using an eye-tracking task and also on release of the neuropeptide oxytocin which plays a key role in influencing social cognition and motivation.MethodsA total of fifty-four subjects were enrolled in a sham-controlled, participant-blind crossover experiment, consisting of two treatment sessions, separated by one week. In one session participants received 30-min taVNS (tragus), and in the other, they received 30-min sham (earlobe) stimulation with the treatment order counterbalanced across participants. Gaze duration towards the faces and facial features (eyes, nose, and mouth) were measured together with resting pupil size. Additionally, saliva samples were taken for the measurement of oxytocin concentrations by enzyme-linked immunoassay.ResultsSaliva oxytocin concentrations increased significantly after taVNS compared to sham stimulation, while resting pupil size did not. In addition, taVNS increased fixation time on the nose region irrespective of face emotion, and this was positively correlated with increased saliva oxytocin concentrations.ConclusionOur findings suggest that taVNS biases visual attention towards socially salient facial features across different emotions and this is associated with its effects on increasing endogenous oxytocin release.

Learning depth from spherical panoramas is becoming a popular research topic because a panorama has a full field-of-view of the environment and provides a relatively complete description of a scene. However, applying well-studied CNNs for perspective images to the standard representation of spherical panoramas, i.e., the equirectangular projection, is suboptimal, as it becomes distorted towards the poles. Another representation is the cubemap projection, which is distortion-free but discontinued on edges and limited in the field-of-view. This paper introduces a new framework to fuse features from the two projections, unidirectionally feeding the cubemap features to the equirectangular features only at the decoding stage. Unlike the recent bidirectional fusion approach operating at both the encoding and decoding stages, our fusion scheme is much more efficient. Besides, we also designed a more effective fusion module for our fusion scheme. Experiments verify the effectiveness of our proposed fusion strategy and module, and our model achieves state-of-the-art performance on four popular datasets. Additional experiments show that our model also has the advantages of model complexity and generalization capability.The code is available at https://github.com/alibaba/UniFuse-Unidirectional-Fusion., IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters and ICRA 2021; Demo: https://youtu.be/9vm9OMksvrc; Code: https://github.com/alibaba/UniFuse-Unidirectional-Fusion

Through this investigation, we have demonstrated a low-cost preparation method of zeolite NaA from coal gangue. The well-developed zeolite NaA of 87.56% crystallinity was successfully prepared by hydrothermal alkali activation method, which required low alkali concentration (1.8 mol/L) compared to other researches (3–6 mol/L). The characterization results of product prepared at different conditions suggest that the purity and crystallinity of zeolite NaA are high at low alkali concentration and longer crystallization time. The Ca2+ exchange value of synthesized zeolite attained 265 mg CaCO3/g compared to commercial zeolite, which is typically 340 mg CaCO3/g. The basic structure parameters and thermal stability have also been studied. The results suggest that the obtained zeolite has a potential to be used as hard water softening agent. Moreover, the result of Rietveld quantitative phase analysis and Box-Behnken's response surface methodology showed that the weight fraction of zeolite NaA in product can reach 71.9%, and the crystallinity can attain 88.14% at the optimal condition of n(SiO2)/n(Al2O3) of 2.60, NaOH(aq) concentration of 1.86 mol/L at 95 °C for 10.08 h.

Power load parameters are one of the most important parameters for power system model. The load has the characteristics of time‐varying, diversity and non‐linearity. Therefore, obtaining the load parameters accurately is crucial to the safe and stable operation of the power system. The research in this paper is based on the synthesis load model which takes into account the impedance of distribution network. The multi‐fault curves identification method and chaos‐whale algorithm are adopted to improve the accuracy and practicability of load parameter identification. First, the algorithm proposed in this paper applies chaos algorithm to whale algorithm, and uses the randomness and ergodicity of chaos algorithm to make up for the shortcomings of the whale algorithm that the solution accuracy is not high and it is easy to fall into local optimum. Secondly, the identification method of multi‐fault curves is to select several different faults for parameter identification, and the average value of each group of results obtained is regarded as the final result. Then compared with single curve identification, the multi‐fault curves method is more superior. Finally, the accuracy of the results is verified by other faults. Simulation results show that the method is reliable to a certain extent.

This paper presents an experimental study concerning the relevance of mechanical characteristics and bedding planes of sand. The study was carried out using a new method of specimen fabrication based on the capillary effect. A series of triaxial tests were performed to study the stress-strain behavior of sand under different bedding plane tilting angles. The results show that the peak deviatoric stress and the volumetric strain are significantly different under different bedding plane tilting angles due to the inherent anisotropy of sand, and the difference between their peak strengths can reach 30%. The specimen reached the failure stage more easily and the peak strength was lower, reaching the residual state earlier when the bedding plane tilting angle was close to 45°-ϕ/2. The equation proposed in this study can thus reasonably reflect the relationship between the bedding plane tilting angle and the peak strength. The inherent anisotropy due to the bedding plane of sand may have a significant influence on the deformation of building foundations; therefore, neglecting this factor may lead to unsafe designs.

Cellulose nanofiber (CNF)/zinc borate (ZB) aerogels were successfully prepared via a facile and simple freeze-drying method. The thermal and combustion behavior of synthesized CNF aerogels and CNF/ZB aerogels were systematically investigated via various experimental techniques, including TGA-DTG analysis, micro-scale combustion calorimetry, cone calorimeter, etc. It was known that the CNF aerogels mainly undergo smoldering combustion. The flame retardancy of CNF aerogels was observed remarkably improved with the introduction of ZB, where the formed carbon layer at the sample surface can prevent heat penetration. It was known from micro-scale calorimeter (MCC) test that the burning of CNF/ZB could not last over 20 s, where peak heat release rate and total heat release decrease by 35.1% and 16.3%, respectively, after 2 wt% ZB was added. Meanwhile, the presence of ZB did not affect the porous structure of CNF, which can be proved by the slightly increased thermal conductivity from 0.0276 to 0.0298 W/m K. Flame retardancy of ZB shows its advantages for cellulose aerogels as the improved flame retardancy by ZB will not compromise its original thermal insulation function. The research outcomes of this study provide a new insight for the flame retardancy of cellulose aerogels.

Selenium sulfide (SeS2) cathodes have attracted much concerns as an optimized choice comparing to sulfur and selenium for lithium and sodium storage. However, it also suffers from poor cycling stability due to the dissolution of reaction intermediate products. In this study, N-doped Interconnected carbon aerogels was applied as an efficient SeS2 host by infiltrating selenium sulfide into its microporous structure (denoted as SeS2@NCAs), which could effectively accommodate the volume change of SeS2 during cycling and alleviate the dissolution of reaction intermediate products. Therefore, as for Na storage, the SeS2@NCAs cathode delivers a superior long-term cycling performance of 536 mA·h·g−1 at a current density of 0.5 A·g−1 after 1,000 cycles with only 0.04% capacity decline per cycle and a high rate performance (524 mA·h·g−1 at 2 A·g−1 and 745 mA·h·g−1 at 0.1 A·g−1 retained), indicating the remarkable cycling stability of SeS2@NCAs cathodes.

Automatic segmentation of the cancerous esophagus in computed tomography (CT) images is a computer-assisted method that can improve the efficiency of the diagnosis and treatment. Due to the diversity of the cancer stage and location, the anatomical structure of the cancerous esophagus is various. Moreover, the low contrast against surrounding tissues leads to a blurry boundary of the cancerous esophagus. Therefore, existing segmentation networks cannot achieve satisfactory results in automatic segmentation of the cancerous esophagus. In this article, we propose a novel 2.5D segmentation network named Eso-Net for the cancerous esophagus based on an encoder-decoder architecture. A 3D enhancement filter called Multi-Structure Response Filter (MSRF) is designed to extract 3D structural information as prior knowledge. Furthermore, dilated convolutions and residual connections are employed in the convolutional blocks of Eso-Net for multi-scale feature learning. With 3D structural priors, Prior Attention Modules (PAM) are incorporated into the network to facilitate the transmission of relevant spatial information. The experiments are conducted on the dataset from 30 esophageal cancer patients, and we report an 84.839% dice similarity coefficient, an 85.955% precision, an 83.752% sensitivity, and a 2.583mm Hausdorff distance. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other existing segmentation networks in this task and can effectively assist doctors in the diagnosis and treatment of esophageal cancer.

Background: Primary pulmonary sarcoma (PPS) accounts for less than 1.1% of all pulmonary tumors. Few data outcomes are reported. This study aims to clarify the predictive value of clinicopathologic features on the overall survival (OS) of PPS patients.Methods: Patients with primary pulmonary sarcoma (PPS) were collected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (from 2000 to 2015) and divided randomly into training and validation cohorts at a ratio of 1:1. Univariate Cox analysis and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) were implemented to identify prognostic factors related to overall survival of primary pulmonary sarcoma patients. Then, we performed multivariate Cox regression to establish a prognostic factors signature. The Kaplan- Meier (K-M) survival curves and time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to estimate the prognostic power of the signature. In addition, multivariate Cox regression screened out independent prognostic factors and constructed a nomogram. Results: PPS patients with training group were divided into low- and high-risk group based on risk score, and high-risk group had a shorter survival time. The validation group got the same result. (PConclusion: We constructed a risk prognosis model based on PPS patients from SEER database. In addition, the construction of nomogram provides one more idea for clinical treatment.

The Tangshan region is one of the most seismically active areas in the North China, and the 1976 M 7.8 earthquake occurred on July 28th near the Tangshan fault zone. The Matouying Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) field is located ~90 km away from Tangshan City. Since the late 2020, preliminary hydraulic stimulation tests have been conducted at depths of ~3965–4000 m. Fluid injection into geothermal reservoir facilitates heat exchanger system. However, fluid injection may also induce earthquakes. In anticipation of the EGS operation at the Matouying uplift, it is essential to assess how the fault slip potential of the nearby active and quiescent faults will change in the presence of fluid injection. In this study, we first characterize the ambient stress field in the Tangshan region by performing stress tensor inversions using 98 focal mechanism data (ML ≥ 2.5). Then, we estimate the principal stress magnitudes near the Matouying EGS field by analyzing in situ stress measurements at shallow depths (~600–1000 m). According to these data, we perform a quantitative risk assessment using the Mohr-Coulomb framework in order to evaluate how the main active faults might respond to hypothetical injected-related pore pressure increases due to the upcoming EGS production. Our results mainly show that most earthquakes in the Tangshan seismic region have occurred on the faults that have relatively high fault slip potential in the present ambient stress field. At well distances of less than 15 km, the probabilistic fault slip potential on most of the boundary faults increase with continuing fluid injection over time, especially on these faults with well distances of ~6–10 km. The probabilistic fault slip potential increases linearly with the fluid injection rate. However, the FSP values decrease exponentially with increased unit permeability. The case study of the Matouying EGS field has important implications for the deep geothermal exploitation in China, especially for Gonghe EGS (in Qinghai province) and Xiong’an New Area (in Hebei province) geothermal reservoirs that are close to the Quaternary active faults. Ongoing injection operations in the regions should be conducted with these understandings in mind.

Introduction: There are currently no approved drug interventions for social behavior dysfunction in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Previous trials investigating effects of daily intranasal oxytocin treatment have reported inconsistent results and have not combined it with positive social interaction. However, in two preclinical studies we established that treatment every other day rather than daily is more efficacious in maintaining neural and behavioral effects by reducing receptor desensitization. Objective: We aimed to establish whether a 6-week intranasal oxytocin compared with placebo treatment, followed by a period of positive social interaction, would produce reliable symptom improvements in children with ASD. Methods: A pilot double-blind, randomized, crossover design trial was completed including 41 children with ASD aged 3–8 years. Primary outcomes were the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-2 (ADOS-2) and social responsivity scale-2 (SRS-2). Secondary measures included cognitive, autism- and caregiver-related questionnaires, and social attention assessed using eye-tracking. Results: Significant improvements were found for oxytocin relative to placebo in primary outcome measures (total ADOS-2 and SRS-2 scores, ps < 0.001) and in behavioral adaptability and repetitive behavior secondary measures. Altered SRS-2 scores were associated with increased saliva oxytocin concentrations. Additionally, oxytocin significantly increased time spent viewing dynamic social compared to geometric stimuli and the eyes of angry, happy, and neutral expression faces. There were no adverse side effects of oxytocin treatment. Conclusions: Overall, results demonstrate that a 6-week intranasal oxytocin treatment administered every other day and followed by positive social interactions can improve clinical, eye tracking, and questionnaire-based assessments of symptoms in young autistic children.

Water acts as the solvent for natural biotic and abiotic processes and in many technological contexts. The availability of water to participate in chemical and physical processes is captured by thermodynamic variables which track the energetic state of water such as water activity and water potential. Our understanding of the energetic state of water in relevant processes is limited by a lack of sensors capable of providing accurate and reliable ex situ and in situ measurements of water activity. To address this technology gap, we present applications of a microtensiometer (μTM): a biomimetic microelectromechanical system (MEMS) sensor capable of measuring water activity in liquid, vapor, and semisolid (e.g., hydrogels, cheese) phases. We developed packaging, measurement systems, and methodology to enable us to make water activity measurements previously inaccessible to tensiometry. We present measurements in two contexts: (1) a small benchtop unit for ex situ measurements and (2) a probe format for in situ measurements. We demonstrate that the μTM can accurately measure water activity in a diversity of complex samples and agrees with chilled mirror hygrometry, an industry standard for water activity measurement.

We study the hydrodynamic transport of electrons in a Weyl semimetal in a strong magnetic field. Impurity scattering in a Weyl semimetal with two Weyl nodes is strongly anisotropic as a function of the direction of the field and is significantly suppressed if the field is perpendicular to the separation between the nodes in momentum space. This allows for convenient access to the hydrodynamic regime of transport, in which electron scattering is dominated by interactions rather than by impurities. In a strong magnetic field, electrons move predominantly parallel to the direction of the field, and the flow of the electron liquid in a Weyl-semimetal junction resembles the Poiseuille flow of a liquid in a pipe. We compute the viscosity of the Weyl liquid microscopically and find that it weakly depends on the magnetic field and has the temperature dependence $\eta(T)\propto T^2$. The hydrodynamic flow of the Weyl liquid can be generated by a temperature gradient. The hydrodynamic regime in a Weyl-semimetal junction can be probed via the thermal conductance $G_q(B,T)\propto B^2 T$ of the junction., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures

Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) and Dioctyl phthalate (DnOP) are widely used as plasticizers in various industries for which the consequent health problems are of great concern. In this context, we treated HepG2 cells with DEHP or DnOP for 48 h. The results showed that DEHP and DnOP caused increase in oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA), Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and Aspartate transaminase (AST). The proteins NF⁃E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and haemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1), were significantly down-regulated. Subsequently, the mitochondrial structure was disrupted, and the ATP content, the mitochondrial copy number as well as the expression of the corresponding mitochondrial genes were also reduced. The expression of sirtuin 1(SIRT1), PPAR gamma co-activator 1 alpha (PGC-1α), Nuclear respiratory factor 1(Nrf1), Mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) on the SIRT1/PGC-1α pathway were significantly reduced. Finally, neither DEHP nor DnOP was found to induce apoptosis, but could significantly up-regulate Light chain 3 II (LC3II) levels. In conclusion, DEHP and DnOP could induce HepG2 cell damage via mitochondria, probably by causing oxidative stress, inhibiting the Nrf2 pathway and inhibiting the mitochondrial biogenesis pathway, which leads to excessive autophagy and cell death. DEHP and DnOP differ in the Nrf2 pathway, autophagic pathway and MAPK pathway, which may be structurally related.

As the nonlinear second harmonic signal generated by structural damage is often distorted by noise, the traditional damage index (nonlinear parameter β) will be distorted. Therefore, an improved Duffing-Holmes chaotic system is proposed to detect the weak second harmonic signal in the noise background, and the maximum Lyapunov exponent is used to quantify the damage degree. Experimental results show that Duffing chaotic system can detect weak second harmonic signal in strong noise background, and Lyapunov exponent has a good linear relationship with material damage degree. This method provides a feasible idea for early damage assessment of composite materials.

Atherogenic Index of Plasma (AIP) has been proposed as a novel marker of plasma atherogenicity, but its longitudinal predictive value in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) remains unclear. We aimed to assess the associations of AIP and its longitudinal transition with T2DM among middle-aged and older Chinese. Data were extracted from four rounds of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018). AIP was calculated as log10 (triglyceride/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol). Participants were classified into high and low AIP groups at baseline, and subsequently into four transition patterns during follow-up: maintained-high, maintained-low, high-to-low, and low-to-high AIP. Multivariable Cox frailty models were applied to explore the longitudinal transition patterns of AIP on the development of T2DM. A total of 8760 subjects without T2DM were selected in 2011, of which 981 developed T2DM until 2018. When compared with people with maintained-low AIP patterns, those with transition patterns of maintained-high AIP, high-to-low AIP, and low-to-high AIP were at around 1.5 times higher risk of T2DM (HRadj = 1.69, 1.32, and 1.47, respectively, all P

Verification code recognition system based on convolutional neural network. In order to strengthen the network security defense work, this paper proposes a novel verification code recognition system based on convolutional neural network. The system combines Internet technology and big data technology, combined with advanced captcha technology, can prevent hackers from brute force cracking behavior to a certain extent. In addition, the system combines convolutional neural network, which makes the verification code combine numbers and letters, which improves the complexity of the verification code and the security of the user account. Based on this, the system uses threshold segmentation method and projection positioning method to construct an 8-layer convolutional neural network model, which enhances the security of the verification code input link. The research results show that the system can enhance the complexity of captcha, improve the recognition rate of captcha, and improve the security of user accounting.

The microgrid based on the virtual synchronous generator (VSG) applies the virtual synchronous generator control strategy to provide inertia and damping to the system, but the inherent stability problems of power electronic devices cannot be avoided. The eigenvalue analysis method is a common stability research method. It can judge whether the system is in a stable state, and at the same time, it can draw the characteristics and key parameters of the system's oscillation, and optimize the system parameters based on the conclusion. The premise of eigenvalue analysis is to establish the state space model of the system. First of all, this paper comprehensively considers all aspects of VSG control strategy, and establishes a state space model of a single VSG. Secondly, based on the state space model of VSG, the state space modeling method of the microgrid based on the VSG is proposed. Finally, the results of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experiments verify the correctness and feasibility of the method, and provide a basis for further stability analysis and parameter optimization.

Background:This study aimed to investigate the income-related inequality of food preference and its mobility in the long run, and to quantify the determinants’ contributions of socioeconomic inequality mobility in food preference in China.Methods:The data were sourced from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) conducted in 2006, 2009, 2011 and 2015, respectively. A study sample of 3940 adults were included for analysis. Five preselected questions were used to construct a summary food preference index. Cross-sectional and longitudinal concentration indices were used to measure the income-related inequality in food preference at a certain time and for a period, respectively. Health-related income mobility index was used to measure the gap between cross-sectional and longitudinal income-related health inequality concentration indices. Decomposition analysis was used to decompose income mobility index into its determinants.Results:The mean scores of food preference increased from 17.641 in 2006 to 18.881 in 2015. The richest people had the highest mean scores of food preference compared to other income groups in each year. Age, gender, income, education, and dietary knowledge score were positively associated with healthy food preference. The concentration indices of food preference score on income in each year were all positive, indicating that there was pro-rich inequality in food preference score with the rich having higher preference scores in each period. The income mobility index of food preference was -0.1426 after 4 periods, indicating that the degree of pro-rich inequality in food preference was larger than that at the baseline in the long run. Decomposition analysis showed that being married and living in Western China made healthy food preference more concentrated among the rich in the long run. Whereas increasing age and dietary knowledge contributed to making healthy food preference behavior less concentrated among the rich in the long run.Conclusions:The cross-sectional measure of food preference score inequality was underestimated in the long run. Our study suggests that people with decreased income could be taken as targeted population in future public intervention measures, and narrowing the regional gap between Eastern and Western China could be strengthened in future Chinese policies.

Dual-function radar-communication (DFRC) system is flexible to be applied in a variety of scenarios. However, it is challenging to implement a low-cost low-complexity DFRC system due to the dynamic cooperation between radar sensing and communication tasks. In this paper, we propose to implement a low-complexity multiple input multiple output DFRC (MIMO-DFRC) system relying on the generalized spatial modulation (GSM) and the low-resolution sampling. To deal with the induced quantization distortion and dynamic antenna allocation, we formulate the radar sensing problem as an atomic norm-based convex problem, which can be solved by off-the-shelf solvers. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed MIMO-DFRC system can achieve delay and azimuth estimation with accuracy as low as about 10% of the resolution grids while employing 1-bit sampling.

Camera localization aims to estimate 6 DoF camera poses from RGB images. Traditional methods detect and match interest points between a query image and a pre-built 3D model. Recent learning-based approaches encode scene structures into a specific convolutional neural network (CNN) and thus are able to predict dense coordinates from RGB images. However, most of them require re-training or re-adaption for a new scene and have difficulties in handling large-scale scenes due to limited network capacity. We present a new method for scene agnostic camera localization using dense scene matching (DSM), where a cost volume is constructed between a query image and a scene. The cost volume and the corresponding coordinates are processed by a CNN to predict dense coordinates. Camera poses can then be solved by PnP algorithms. In addition, our method can be extended to temporal domain, which leads to extra performance boost during testing time. Our scene-agnostic approach achieves comparable accuracy as the existing scene-specific approaches, such as KFNet, on the 7scenes and Cambridge benchmark. This approach also remarkably outperforms state-of-the-art scene-agnostic dense coordinate regression network SANet. The Code is available at https://github.com/Tangshitao/Dense-Scene-Matching., Comment: CVPR2021

Significance Gaps in our ability to document local water relations in leaves compromise our ability to build complete models of leaf and plant function and our understanding of ecophysiological phenomena, such as response and adaptation to drought. Macroscopically, leaf water potential has been shown to impact vegetative growth and yield, susceptibility to disease, and, in extreme drought, plant viability, making it a promising candidate trait to improve water-use efficiency in plants. In this paper, we present a nanoscale sensor (AquaDust) that provides minimally disruptive measurements of water potential in leaves of intact plants at high spatial and temporal resolution. This creates opportunities for improving our understanding of the mechanisms coupling variations in water potential to biological and physical processes., Leaf water potential is a critical indicator of plant water status, integrating soil moisture status, plant physiology, and environmental conditions. There are few tools for measuring plant water status (water potential) in situ, presenting a critical barrier for developing appropriate phenotyping (measurement) methods for crop development and modeling efforts aimed at understanding water transport in plants. Here, we present the development of an in situ, minimally disruptive hydrogel nanoreporter (AquaDust) for measuring leaf water potential. The gel matrix responds to changes in water potential in its local environment by swelling; the distance between covalently linked dyes changes with the reconfiguration of the polymer, leading to changes in the emission spectrum via Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET). Upon infiltration into leaves, the nanoparticles localize within the apoplastic space in the mesophyll; they do not enter the cytoplasm or the xylem. We characterize the physical basis for AquaDust’s response and demonstrate its function in intact maize (Zea mays L.) leaves as a reporter of leaf water potential. We use AquaDust to measure gradients of water potential along intact, actively transpiring leaves as a function of water status; the localized nature of the reporters allows us to define a hydraulic model that distinguishes resistances inside and outside the xylem. We also present field measurements with AquaDust through a full diurnal cycle to confirm the robustness of the technique and of our model. We conclude that AquaDust offers potential opportunities for high-throughput field measurements and spatially resolved studies of water relations within plant tissues.