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We investigate a meta-absorber composed of impedance-matched rods for the broadband acoustic absorption. However, with a slow longitudinal wave speed, the absorber's density is high to keep the characteristic impedance matching with that of water. To obtain a lightweight high efficiency absorber, we analyze the influence of characteristic impedance and loss factor on absorption behaviors and find that the characteristic impedance matching is not necessary and the low characteristic impedance structure can also attain the efficient absorption performance, and the high dissipation can reduce the density required for an efficient absorption. Based on this, we propose a meta-absorber composed of low characteristic impedance rubber rods in parallel coated by a rubber cover layer and backed with a stepped resin base. By the combination of the transfer matrix method and transmission line impedance transfer equation, the acoustic performance of meta-absorber is analyzed. Compared with the characteristic impedance matching rods, the low characteristic impedance rods can release restrictions on design to attain better acoustic behaviors with a lower density. Further, the integration of rods with designed lengths can motivate coherently coupled weak resonances to obtain a broadband absorption. Finally, an optimized meta-absorber is tested in a water-filled impedance tube and the experimental results agree well with the theoretical results which can achieve a broadband low frequency quasi-perfect absorption (α > 0. 9) in a deep subwavelength region (λ /158 at 950 Hz) with the density close to that of water. Our work finds a new mechanism that low characteristic impedance absorbing materials can achieve the high efficiency absorption with a slow longitudinal wave speed and low density and promise broad applications in the sound stealth of marine vehicles. [Display omitted] • Low characteristic impedance structures achieving an efficient sound absorption. • High losses reducing the structure density required for an efficient absorption. • Slow sound speed of a slender rod decreasing the resonant frequency. • Coherently coupled weak resonances attaining a broadband strong absorption. • Experimental verifications of the broadband low frequency meta-absorber. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The underwater acoustic screens made of periodically perforated rubber layers with metal plates are often used to enhance reflections and reduce transmissions of sound in water, under high hydrostatic pressure. Previous studies have tended to focus on the acoustic response of finite-thickness structures of the screens, rather than on the wave propagation properties of the corresponding infinite crystal structures. In this work, a numerical method, which combines finite element method and the layer-iteration technique, is developed to study the complex band structure of the infinite crystals and the acoustic response of the finite-thickness structures for the screens. Numerical results for the screens with elastic and viscoelastic rubber materials are presented for analyzing the features of propagation modes, band gaps, and attenuation of the waves in the screens. Reflection, transmission and absorption spectra of the screens are compared with the corresponding complex band structure of the infinite crystals in detail for providing a comprehensive understanding of the wave propagation and attenuation properties of the screens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elastic metamaterials are popularly sought to realize numerous special functions such as vibration control and wave manipulation among which sound absorption is a typical task fulfilled by acoustic metamaterials. Inverse designing metamaterials with machine learning approaches has been under the spotlight thanks to the data-driven experience-free advantages and become one of the important design paradigms. Nevertheless, the existing works mostly concentrate on validating the reproduction accuracy of the neural networks on trained data and very few have explored their ability on designing for enhanced properties. To this end, our work studies the competence of the proposed inverse design framework in enhancing the acoustic performance of a three-dimensional mixed-size cavity-based waterborne sound absorptive metamaterial. With forward and inverse networks in the framework, the target sound absorption spectra (100-10000 Hz) are taken as inputs into the inverse network during training and a corresponding structure is output with the best matching spectra which is subsequently fed into the forward network for acoustic property evaluation and loss calculation. The trained forward network is shown to possess excellent generalization capabilities by highly accurately predicting for structures with “unseen” beyond-range parameters compared to the training set. Most importantly, the inverse network is delightfully capable of spontaneously adopting beyond-range structural parameters to ensure meeting the acoustic target whose mean sound absorption coefficient is higher than any of the data in the training set, hence inverse designing for enhanced performance. The inverse design accuracy is dramatically improved from only 9.2% of mean squared errors being <0.0001 to 99.6% with beyond-range exploration. A case study is presented to demonstrate the significant difference beyond-range exploration makes for inverse designing aiming at enhanced performance. It is hoped that this work will serve as an inspiration for the design and optimization of elastic metamaterials with enhanced performance for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxidative stress and lipid metabolism disorder caused by estrogen deficiency are regarded as the main causes of postmenopausal atherosclerosis, but the underlying mechanisms remain still unclear. In this study, ovariectomized (OVX) female ApoE−/− mice fed with high‐fat diet were used to imitate postmenopausal atherosclerosis. The atherosclerosis progression was significantly accelerated in OVX mice, accompanied by the upregulation of ferroptosis indicators, including increased lipid peroxidation and iron deposition in the plaque and the plasma. While both estradiol (E2) and ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin‐1 alleviated atherosclerosis in OVX mice, with the inhibition of lipid peroxidation and iron deposition, as well as the upregulation of xCT and GPX4, especially in endothelial cells. We further investigated the effects of E2 on ferroptosis in endothelial cells induced by oxidized‐low‐density lipoprotein or ferroptosis inducer Erastin. It was found that E2 exhibited anti‐ferroptosis effect through antioxidative functions, including improving mitochondrial dysfunction and upregulating GPX4 expression. Mechanistically, NRF2 inhibition attenuated the effect of E2 against ferroptosis as well as the upregulation of GPX4. Our findings revealed that endothelial cell ferroptosis played a pivotal role in postmenopausal atherosclerosis progression, and the NRF2/GPX4 pathway activation contributed to the protection of E2 against endothelial cell ferroptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of China's express delivery industry, the number of express packaging has proliferated, leading to many problems such as environmental pollution and resource waste. In this paper, the process of reverse logistics network design for express packaging recycling is given as an example in the M region, and a four-level network containing primary recycling nodes, recycling centers, processing centers, and terminals is established. A candidate node selection model based on the K-means algorithm is constructed to cluster by distance from 535 courier outlets to select 15 candidate nodes of recycling centers and processing centers. A node selection model based on the NSGA-II algorithm is constructed to identify recycling centers and processing centers from 15 candidate nodes with minimizing total cost and carbon emission as the objective function, and a set of Pareto solution sets containing 43 solutions is obtained. According to the distribution of the solution set, the 43 solutions are classified into I, II, and III categories. The results indicate that the solutions corresponding to Class I and Class II solutions can be selected when the recycling system gives priority to cost, Class II and Class III solutions can be selected when the recycling system gives priority to environmental benefits, and Class III solutions can be selected when the society-wide recycling system has developed to a certain extent. In addition, this paper also randomly selects a sample solution from each of the three types of solution sets, conducts coding interpretation for site selection, vehicle selection, and treatment technology selection, and gives an example design scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deep coal reservoir is in a high in-situ stress regime, and the drop in pore pressure during the coalbed methane extraction can induce significant slippage effect and effective stress change. Both of them play a competitive role in permeability evolution. In our research, coal seepage experiments under variable bulk stress and pore pressure paths are performed to investigate the slippage effect and effective stress effect during gas migration in deep coal seams. The results show that the gas flow pattern changes from effective stress–control to slippage effect–control during the increase of bulk stress. Because of the dual pore structure and rich clay, coal presents microscopically inhomogeneous assemblage in mechanical and seepage properties. It makes the effective stress coefficient (ESC) for permeability, κ , always greater than 1, up to 1.94–2.64. By substituting the elastic modulus of the bedding for that of the clay in the coal, the clay-particle model can be used to explain the κ > 1. The linear-Klinkenberg equation is no longer applicable to the correction of gas slippage effect in deep coal reservoir, but conforms to the double-slip-Klinkenberg equation. Slippage effect weakens the stress sensitivity of permeability. As the effective stress increases, the slippage coefficient b increases accordingly, and the slippage effect becomes more pronounced. The gas flow pattern in deep coal reservoir is basically in the region of slippage flow, and the slippage effect cannot be ignored in gas migration. Furthermore, the anisotropy of κ is weakened in deep coal reservoirs, and the intrinsic permeability of coal, k ∞ , has the strongest stress sensitivity to σ 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • GANs newly used for topological design of metaporous materials for sound absorption. • Huge acceleration (~0.04s/design) for design process enabling instantaneous designing. • Successful designs of broadband sound absorption checked by simulation and experiment. • Creative configurations and rich local features generated in GANs-designed patterns. • AI-guided designing/optimizing as new possibility for AI-materials interdiscipline. The topological design and optimization of metaporous materials is one of the key challenges in the field of sound absorption. Limited by the expensive computational cost, it is particularly disadvantaged when instantaneous multiple designs are required. In recent years, an increasing number of research fields are harnessing machine learning approaches thanks to their experience-free manner and outstanding efficiency. Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), as a type of machine learning algorithms, enjoy the special benefit of powerful generative capability, making them brilliantly suitable for designing purposes. Additionally, it can fully explore the data distribution space with enormous computational power and create brand new designs. In this work, GANs are newly employed for the topological design of metaporous materials for sound absorption. Trained with numerically prepared data, they successfully propose designs with high-standard broadband absorption performance, verified by simulation and experiment. The designing process is dramatically accelerated by hundreds of times using GANs (100 designs in 4.372 s). This allows GANs to easily provide more structures and configurations, and achieve instantaneous multiple solutions, giving designers more choices to satisfy various constraints such as mass or porosity. In addition, GANs are demonstrated remarkably capable of generating creative configurations and rich local features. This work proposes a new designing principle, illustrates the value of machine learning in guiding the designing and optimizing process in the mechanical world, and opens new possibilities for the future of AI-materials interdisciplinary research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Columnaris disease continues to inflict substantial losses among freshwater cultured species since its first description one hundred years ago. The experimental and anecdotal evidence suggests an expanded range and rising virulence of columnaris worldwide due to the warming global climate. The channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) are particularly vulnerable to columnaris. A recently developed live attenuated vaccine (17–23) for Flavobacterium columnare (now Flavobacterium covae sp. nov.) demonstrated superior protection for vaccinated catfish against genetically diverse columnaris isolates. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms and patterns of immune evasion and host manipulation linked to virulence by comparing gene expression changes in the host after the challenge with a virulent (BGSF-27) or live attenuated F. covae sp. nov. vaccine (17–23). Thirty-day-old fry were accordingly challenged with either virulent or vaccine isolates. Gill tissues were collected at 0 h (control), 1 h, and 2 h post-infection, which are two critical time points in early host-pathogen interactions. Transcriptome profiling of the gill tissues revealed a larger number (518) of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in vaccine-exposed fish than those exposed to the virulent pathogen (321). Pathway analyses suggested potent suppression of early host immune responses by the virulent isolate through a higher expression of nuclear receptor corepressors (NCoR) responsible for antagonizing macrophage and T-cell signaling. Conversely, in vaccinated fry, we observed induction of Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CAMKII), responsible for clearing NCoR, and commensurate up-regulation of transcription factor AP-1 subunits, c-Fos, and c-Jun. As in mammalian systems, AP-1 expression was connected with a broad immune activation in vaccinated fry, including induction of CC chemokines, proteinases, iNOS, and IL-12b. Relatedly, divergent expression patterns of Src tyrosine kinase Lck, CD44, and CD28 indicated a delay or suppression of T-cell adhesion and activation in fry exposed to the virulent isolate. Broader implications of these findings will be discussed. The transcriptomic differences between virulent and attenuated bacteria may offer insights into how the host responds to the vaccination or infection and provide valuable knowledge to understand the early immune mechanisms of columnaris disease in aquaculture. • Gene expression divergence in catfish to virulent and vaccine isolates of columnaris. • NCoR gene upregulation induces host immune suppression by virulent isolate. • CAMKII and AP-1 gene induction associated with immune activation in vaccinated fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In underground coal mining, coal failure generally occurs due to the relatively weak strength of the coal and the high applied mining-induced stresses. The outer complex geological conditions (i.e., tectonic structure and water intrusion) and internal structural anisotropy of the coal introduce uncertainty in predicting its mechanical properties and failure behavior. In this study, laboratory investigations of the mechanical properties and failure behavior of dry and water-saturated anisotropic coal samples subjected to different true-triaxial loading stresses were conducted. The effects of water weakening, intermediate stress, and structural anisotropy on the mechanical properties and failure behavior of the coal were systematically studied. The results indicate that the presence of water significantly reduced the strength, elastic modulus, and strength anisotropy of the coal. The maximum stress at failure first increased and then decreased with increasing intermediate stress. The residual strength-to-peak strength ratios and failure plane angles of the coal showed a linear increase with increasing intermediate stress. When the coal samples were loaded in the bedding plane direction, the brittleness of the coal was higher than when they were loaded in the other two cleat plane directions. In addition, when the coal samples were loaded in the butt cleat plane direction, the brittleness of the coal decreased with increasing intermediate stress. Two typical failure modes of the dry and water-saturated coal samples were observed: shear and mixed splitting and shear failures. The dominant failure mode of the coal also varied with the loading direction relative to the weakness planes, which could be well recognized and predicted by the acoustic emission (AE) characteristic curves. To further reveal the fracture mechanism, the microcrack patterns of the coal were further identified based on the AE parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigations of the directional permeability evolution of intact and fractured coal are conducted under different simulated geological conditions. The effects of fracture geometry, water adsorption and stress conditions on the permeability evolution of coal as a function of stress are systematically studied. The results indicate that permeability anisotropy is more pronounced in fractured coal than in intact coal. The permeability order, i.e., the k fa > k bu > k be relationship, is maintained following the introduction of macrofractures into coal. The fracture compressibility in the butt cleat plane flow direction is higher than that in the other two flow directions for both intact and fractured coal. The presence of water in coal can reduce the permeability by up to one order of magnitude, and a more significant permeability decrease is observed in coal specimens containing rough macrofractures. Permeability hysteresis for both intact and fractured coal is somewhat dependent on the stress condition. The hysteresis effect of coal is more significant under triaxial stress conditions and less pronounced under true-triaxial stress conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cane toad ( Rhinella marina ) is an invasive amphibian in several parts of the world. Much of the research performed on assessing the dispersal potential of invasive species has focused immunity. Invaders are predicted to rely less on pro-inflammatory immunity, allowing them to allocate energy to dispersal. Elevated stress may play a role in regulation of immune responses used by invasive species. RNA sequencing of spleen tissue from cane toads subjected to an acute LPS challenge revealed genes coding for cytokines involved in typical innate responses such as phagocytic cell recruitment, extravasation, inflammation, and lymphocyte differentiation were significantly upregulated, while toads receiving transdermal application of corticosterone in addition to an LPS injection showed downregulation of genes involved with cell mediated immunity. These results indicate hormonal changes associated with acute stress may alter investment into mounting cell-mediated or humoral responses while allowing for prolonged phagocytic innate responses in this invasive species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rhamnose-binding lectins (RBLs) are crucial elements associated with innate immune responses to infections and have been characterized from a variety of teleost fishes. Given the importance of RBL in teleost fishes, we sought to study the diversity and expression profiles of RBLs in an important cultured fish, Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) following experimental infection with Streptococcus agalactiae , a major cause of streptococcosis in farmed tilapia. In this study, four predicted RBL genes were identified from Nile tilapia and were designated as OnRBL3a, OnRBL3b, OnRBL3c, and OnRBL3d. These OnRBLs were composed of two tandem-repeated type five carbohydrate recognition domains (CRDs), classified as type IIIc, and all clustered together phylogenetically. OnRBL-CRDs shared conserved topology of eight cysteine residues, characteristic peptide motifs of -YGR- and -DPC- (or -FGR- and -DTC-), and similar exon/intron organization. OnRBLs had the highest expression in immune-related tissues, gills, intestine or liver. However, the changes of OnRBL expression in the gills and intestine at 2 h, 4 h and 24 h post S. agalactiae challenge were modest, suggesting that tilapia may not mediate the entry or confront the infection of S. agalactiae through induction of RBL genes. The observed expression pattern may be related to the RBL type and CRD composition, S. agalactiae pathogenesis, the accessibility of ligands on the bacterial surface, and/or the species of fish. OnRBLs characterized in this study were the first RBL members identified in Nile tilapia and their characterization will expand our knowledge of RBLs in immunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recently developed attenuated vaccine for Flavobacterium columnare has been demonstrated to provide superior protection for channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus , against genetically diverse columnaris isolates. We were interested in examining the mechanisms of this protection by comparing transcriptional responses to F. columnare challenge in vaccinated and unvaccinated juvenile catfish. Accordingly, 58 day old fingerling catfish (28 days post-vaccination or unvaccinated control) were challenged with a highly virulent F. columnare isolate (BGSF-27) and gill tissues collected pre-challenge (0 h), and 1 h and 2 h post infection, time points previously demonstrated to be critical in early host-pathogen interactions. Following RNA-sequencing and transcriptome assembly, differential expression (DE) analysis within and between treatments revealed several patterns and pathways potentially underlying improved survival of vaccinated fish. Most striking was a pattern of dramatically higher basal expression of an array of neuropeptides (e.g. somatostatin), hormones, complement factors, and proteases at 0 h in vaccinated fish. Previous studies indicate these are likely the preformed mediators of neuroendocrine cells and/or eosinophilic granular (mast-like) cells within the fish gill. Following challenge, these elements fell to almost undetectable levels (>100-fold downregulated) by 1 h in vaccinated fish, suggesting their rapid release and/or cessation of synthesis following degranulation. Concomitantly, levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1b, IL-8, IL-17) were induced in unvaccinated fish. In contrast, in vaccinated catfish, we observed widespread induction of genes needed for collagen deposition and tissue remodeling. Taken together, our results indicate an important component of vaccine protection in fish mucosal tissues may be the sensitization, proliferation and arming of resident secretory cells in the period between primary and secondary challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Predict the sound absorption curve from 300 Hz to 3000 Hz (50 Hz interval) with one single deep learning network. • Build residual connection network blocks to obtain network models of different depths. • Determine the most suitable network hyperparameter via constantly monitoring the overfitting level of all the models. • Exploit cross-validation to train the network to the best performance. Obtaining the airborne sound absorption coefficient is essential for studying the sound absorption performance and sound absorption mechanism of acoustic metamaterials. The most commonly used method for numerical calculation of airborne sound absorption coefficient is Finite Element Method (FEM). However, when the number of samples is relatively large, especially when the internal geometric structure of the samples is complicated, the calculation cost of FEM becomes exponentially high. Compared with FEM, machine learning algorithms show great potential in efficiently and intelligently predicting material properties. Taking images representing the topological structure of acoustic metamaterials (along with their airborne sound absorption performance simulated by FEM) as input, we propose a deep convolutional neural network to predict the broadband airborne sound absorption curve of the metaporous materials from 300 Hz to 3000 Hz with the interval of 50 Hz. To avoid overfitting, the network hyperparameter with favorable generalization capability is determined via constantly monitoring the overfitting level of the network. In addition, cross-validation is exploited to train the network to the best performance. Designed in such a compact manner where only one network is sufficient to predict for a whole absorption curve with a large range, the network is marvelously computationally economic and efficient and shows excellent prediction accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • SAP-net with CNN to predict the sound absorption coefficient of metaporous materials. • Enormous acceleration achieved (7ms/image) for the prediction process. • Trained SAP-nets show outstanding accuracy with MAE averagely smaller than 0.02. • SAP-net's ability to learn the underlying mechanism of topology-performance linkage. • New fast and accurate tool for investigating sound absorption and designing materials. Airborne sound absorption coefficient is the premise for investigating the sound absorption performance or mechanism of metaporous materials. The common numerical evaluation approach is FEM which is relatively computationally costly particularly when processing complex structures or a large batch of data. Rapidly developing deep learning algorithms, on the other hand, show a promising trend in the data-driven manner to learn and predict material parameters efficiently and precisely. We propose SAP-net based on deep convolutional neural network to predict the sound absorption coefficient at a specific frequency of an input image representing the topological structure of metaporous materials. Trained with FEM-prepared data for six frequency points, SAP-net demonstrates outstanding evaluation speed of 0.007 s/image and brilliant prediction accuracy with mean absolute errors all smaller than 0.019 (the smallest 0.008 at f = 1000 Hz). Meanwhile, the fact that SAP-net remains accurate when predicting for images that are essentially different from those in the training data shows its capability of learning and capturing the underlying physical mechanism linking the topological structure to the sound absorption performance. In conclusion, SAP-net provides an extraordinarily fast and accurate approach for the investigation of sound absorption performance, which is expected to accelerate the examination and design process of materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common chronic gastrointestinal disorder, but its diagnosis and treatment remain obscure. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), as potential biomarkers, have attracted increasing attention in digestive diseases. Here, we present a comprehensive research status, development trends, and valuable insights in this subject area. The literature search was performed using Web of Science Core Collection. VOSviewer 1.6.20, Citespace 6.2.R4, and Microsoft Excel 2021 were used for bibliometric analysis. A total of 124 articles were included in the analysis. Overall, publication patterns fluctuated. Globally, People's Republic of China, the USA, and Germany were the top three contributors of publications. Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, University of California, Mayo Clinic, and University of California, Los Angeles contributed the highest number of publications. The pathways and specific mechanisms by which ncRNAs regulate transcription and translation and thus regulate the pathophysiological processes of IBS are the main research hotspots in this field. We found that microRNA (miRNAs) are intricately involved in the regulation of key pathologies such as viscera sensitivity, intestinal permeability, intestinal mucosal barrier, immunoinflammatory response, and brain-gut axis in the IBS, and these topics have garnered significant attention in research community. Notably, microecological disorders are also associated with IBS pathogenesis, and ncRNA may play an important role in the interactions between host and intestinal flora. This is the first bibliometric study to comprehensively summarize the research hotspots and trends related to IBS and ncRNAs (especially miRNAs). Our findings will help understand the role of ncRNAs in IBS and provide guidance to future studies., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Selective breeding for production traits has yielded relatively rapid successes with high-fecundity aquaculture species. Discovering the genetic changes associated with selection is an important goal for understanding adaptation and can also facilitate better predictions about the likely fitness of selected strains if they escape aquaculture farms. Here, we hypothesize domestication as a genetic change induced by inadvertent selection in culture. Our premise is that standardized culture protocols generate parallel domestication effects across independent strains. Using eastern oyster as a model and a newly developed 600K SNP array, this study tested for parallel domestication effects in multiple independent selection lines compared with their progenitor wild populations. A single contrast was made between pooled selected strains (1-17 generations in culture) and all wild progenitor samples combined. Population structure analysis indicated rank order levels of differentiation as [wild - wild] < [wild - cultured] < [cultured - cultured]. A genome scan for parallel adaptation to the captive environment applied two methodologically distinct outlier tests to the wild versus selected strain contrast and identified a total of 1174 candidate SNPs. Contrasting wild versus selected strains revealed the early evolutionary consequences of domestication in terms of genomic differentiation, standing genetic diversity, effective population size, relatedness, runs of homozygosity profiles, and genome-wide linkage disequilibrium patterns. Random Forest was used to identify 37 outlier SNPs that had the greatest discriminatory power between bulked wild and selected oysters. The outlier SNPs were in genes enriched for cytoskeletal functions, hinting at possible traits under inadvertent selection during larval culture or pediveliger setting at high density. This study documents rapid genomic changes stemming from hatchery-based cultivation of eastern oysters, identifies candidate loci responding to domestication in parallel among independent aquaculture strains, and provides potentially useful genomic resources for monitoring interbreeding between farm and wild oysters., Competing Interests: None declared., (© 2024 The Author(s). Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Deep generative models applied to the generation of novel compounds in small-molecule drug design have attracted a lot of attention in recent years. To design compounds that interact with specific target proteins, we propose a Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (GPT)-inspired model for de novo target-specific molecular design. By implementing different keys and values for the multi-head attention conditional on a specified target, the proposed method can generate drug-like compounds both with and without a specific target. The results show that our approach (cMolGPT) is capable of generating SMILES strings that correspond to both drug-like and active compounds. Moreover, the compounds generated from the conditional model closely match the chemical space of real target-specific molecules and cover a significant portion of novel compounds. Thus, the proposed Conditional Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (cMolGPT) is a valuable tool for de novo molecule design and has the potential to accelerate the molecular optimization cycle time.

Zero-shot sketch-based image retrieval (ZS-SBIR) is an important computer vision problem. The image category in the test phase is a new category that was not visible in the training stage. Because sketches are extremely abstract, the commonly used backbone networks (such as VGG-16 and ResNet-50) cannot handle both sketches and photos. Semantic similarities between the same features in photos and sketches are difficult to reflect in deep models without textual assistance. To solve this problem, we propose a novel and effective feature embedding model called Attention Map Feature Fusion (AMFF). The AMFF model combines the excellent feature extraction capability of the ResNet-50 network with the excellent representation ability of the attention network. By processing the residuals of the ResNet-50 network, the attention map is finally obtained without introducing external semantic knowledge. Most previous approaches treat the ZS-SBIR problem as a classification problem, which ignores the huge domain gap between sketches and photos. This paper proposes an effective method to optimize the entire network, called domain-aware triplets (DAT). Domain feature discrimination and semantic feature embedding can be learned through DAT. In this paper, we also use the classification loss function to stabilize the training process to avoid getting trapped in a local optimum. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods, our method shows a superior performance. For example, on the Tu-berlin dataset, we achieved 61.2 + 1.2% Prec200. On the Sketchy&#95;c100 dataset, we achieved 62.3 + 3.3% mAPall and 75.5 + 1.5% Prec100.

Abnormal thyroid hormone secretion is the most important feature of hypothyroidism and plays an important role in lipid metabolism. However, their connection has not been clearly established. This study aimed to identify the serum biomarkers and metabolic pathways associated with hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. The study enrolled discovery and validation sets of 175 and 300 participants, respectively, to identify and validate the serum biomarkers of hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism via ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry lipidomics through univariate and multivariate analyses. Eight and six biomarkers were identified for hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, respectively. Spearman correlation analysis was used to assess the correlation between the biomarkers and thyroid dysfunction indicators; subsequently, metabolic pathway and network analyses were performed for these biomarkers. Most biomarkers exhibited significant correlation with thyroid dysfunction indicators, mainly being enriched in the glycerophospholipid (GPL) metabolism. The diagnostic accuracies of the biomarkers and biomarker panels were assessed via receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. All the biomarkers demonstrated good diagnostic performance, and the hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism biomarker panels reached an area under the curve value of 1.000. The results were validated using the validation set. Therefore, our findings revealed that thyroid dysfunction primarily affects the human metabolism via the GPL metabolism, thus providing a theoretical basis for the clinical prevention and control of thyroid dysfunction., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2023 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

The eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica is a major aquaculture species for the USA. The sustainable development of eastern oyster aquaculture depends upon the continued improvement of cultured stocks through advanced breeding technologies. The Eastern Oyster Breeding Consortium (EOBC) was formed to advance the genetics and breeding of the eastern oyster. To facilitate efficient genotyping needed for genomic studies and selection, the consortium developed two single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays for the eastern oyster: one screening array with 566K SNPs and one breeders' array with 66K SNPs. The 566K screening array was developed based on whole-genome resequencing data from 292 oysters from Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico populations; it contains 566,262 SNPs including 47K from protein-coding genes with a marker conversion rate of 48.34%. The 66K array was developed using best-performing SNPs from the screening array, which contained 65,893 oyster SNPs including 22,984 genic markers with a calling rate of 99.34%, a concordance rate of 99.81%, and a much-improved marker conversion rate of 92.04%. Null alleles attributable to large indels were found in 13.1% of the SNPs, suggesting that copy number variation is pervasive. Both arrays provided easy identification and separation of selected stocks from wild progenitor populations. The arrays contain 31 mitochondrial SNPs that allowed unambiguous identification of Gulf mitochondrial genotypes in some Atlantic populations. The arrays also contain 756 probes from 13 oyster and human pathogens for possible detection. Our results show that marker conversion rate is low in high polymorphism species and that the two-step process of array development can greatly improve array performance. The two arrays will advance genomic research and accelerate genetic improvement of the eastern oyster by delineating genetic architecture of production traits and enabling genomic selection. The arrays also may be used to monitor pedigree and inbreeding, identify selected stocks and their introgression into wild populations, and assess the success of oyster restoration., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: Both thyroid-stimulating immunoglobulins immunoassay (TSI IA) and thyrotrophin receptor antibody immunoassay (TRAb IA) are commonly used for the diagnosis of Graves' disease (GD). The aim of the present study was to compare the clinical diagnostic performance of these two methods., Methods: Sera were obtained from 1103 subjects presenting a variety of clinical conditions from three centers: 100 subjects with untreated GD, 200 with treated GD, 62 with autoimmune thyroid disease(AIT), 216 with other thyroid diseases (OTHER-T), 214 with non-thyroid autoimmune diseases (NTAD), 191 with other diseases (OD), and 120 healthy subjects (HS). Both TSI and TRAb IAs were performed for all 1013 serum samples. Bioassay was performed for 86 samples whose TSI results were inconsistent the TRAb assay results., Results: Comparing untreated GD patients with the control groups (AIT, NTAD, OTHER-T, OD, and HS) resulted in an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.992 for the TSI IA and 0.989 for the TRAb IA with no statistically significant difference observed between these AUC values (P = 0.2733). The best TSI CDP (clinical decision point) value was 0.42 IU/L. The differences in sensitivity (100% vs. 95%, P = 0.7991) and specificity (97.1% vs. 97.6%, P = 0.9426) between the TSI and TRAb IA were not statistically significant. TSI IA had a higher agreement with the TSI bioassay than TRAb IA., Conclusion: The clinical diagnostic performance of the TSI IA for diagnosing Graves' disease was very similar to that of the TRAb IA. TSI IA can be used to diagnose GD in the Chinese.

Culture of the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is rapidly expanding. Combined with their continuing role as an environmental sentinel species and ecological model, this trend necessitates improved molecular tools for breeding and selection, as well as population assessment and genetic conservation. Here, we describe the development and validation of two panels of 58 single nucleotide polymorphism markers (SNPs) for the species. Population analyses revealed three distinct populations, based on F ST values and STRUCTURE, among wild oysters sampled from Delaware Bay (1), northwest Florida (2), Alabama (2), Louisiana (2), and the Texas Gulf Coast (3), consistent with previous microsatellite and mtDNA analyses. In addition, utilizing the developed panels for parentage assignment in cultured oysters (Rutgers, New Jersey) resulted in a highly accurate identification of parent pairs (99.37%). The SNP markers could, furthermore, clearly discriminate between hatchery stocks and wild-sourced individuals. The developed SNP panels may serve as an important tool for more rapid and affordable genetic analyses in eastern oyster.

Deguelin, the main components from Mundulea sericea, was reported to suppress the growth of various cancer cells. However, the effect of Deguelin on tumor cell invasion and metastasis and its mechanism still unclear so far. In this study, we investigated the effects of Deguelin on the cell invasion in human lung cancer A549 and H460 cells. Our results demonstrate that Deguelin can significantly inhibited cell proliferation, cell migration and cell invasion. Moreover, Deguelin could also affected reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton and decreased filopodia and lamellipodia formation. Furthermore, deguelin-treated tumors showed decreased the tumor metastasis related genes such as CD44, MMP2 and MMP9 at protein and mRNA levels and the content of CEA, SCC, NSE, CYFAR21-1. In addition, Deguelin down-regulated protein expression of Rac1 and Rock1, which are impotent in actin cytoskeleton rearrangements and cell motility. Together, our results suggest that Deguelin inhibit tumor growth and metastasis of lung cancer cells and might be a candidate compound for curing lung cancer.

A statistical associating fluid theory for potential of variable range has been recently developed to model dipolar fluids (SAFT-VR+D) [Zhao and McCabe, J. Chem. Phys. 2006, 125, 104504]. The SAFT-VR+D equation explicitly accounts for dipolar interactions and their effect on the thermodynamics and structure of a fluid by using the generalized mean spherical approximation (GMSA) to describe a reference fluid of dipolar square-well segments. In this work, we apply the SAFT-VR+D approach to real mixtures of dipolar fluids. In particular, we examine the high-pressure phase diagram of hydrogen sulfide+n-alkane binary mixtures. Hydrogen sulfide is modeled as an associating spherical molecule with four off-center sites to mimic hydrogen bonding and an embedded dipole moment (micro) to describe the polarity of H2S. The n-alkane molecules are modeled as spherical segments tangentially bonded together to form chains of length m, as in the original SAFT-VR approach. By using simple Lorentz-Berthelot combining rules, the theoretical predictions from the SAFT-VR+D equation are found to be in excellent overall agreement with experimental data. In particular, the theory is able to accurately describe the different types of phase behavior observed for these mixtures as the molecular weight of the alkane is varied: type III phase behavior, according to the scheme of classification by Scott and Konynenburg, for the H2S+methane system, type IIA (with the presence of azeotropy) for the H2S+ethane and+propane mixtures; and type I phase behavior for mixtures of H2S and longer n-alkanes up to n-decane. The theory is also able to predict in a qualitative manner the solubility of hydrogen sulfide in heavy n-alkanes.

In order to investigate the effect of sodium selenite on the action of cisplatin inhibiting transformation of human T lymphocytes, explore the influence of cisplatin and sodium selenite on rRNA gene transcription activity of lymphocytes and to explore the relationship between transformation of T cells and rRNA gene transcription activity, cisplatin was administered to the culture of lymphocytes after incubation for 24 hours with three different dosages (0.05, 0.2, and 0.5 mg/L). The culture was also supplemented with sodium selenite (0.05 mg/L) at the beginning of the cell culture or at the same time as cisplatin was administered for different treatment. The slide specimens were prepared using cytogenetical method after the cells were cultured for 72 hours, and then, the changes of the transformation rate of T lymphocytes and frequencies of Ag-NORs that reflect rRNA gene transcription activity were investigated. The results showed that the rate of T lymphocyte transformation in the groups treated with both sodium selenite and cisplatin were significantly increased (p < 0.01) as compared with that in the groups without sodium selenite supplementation and suffering exposures to cisplatin alone at corresponding dose, up to or over the rate of negative control group. There were no significant differences in the ratios of lymphocyte transformation between the groups pre-treated by sodium selenite and the groups treated by both sodium selenite and cisplatin on the condition that the other treatments were the same. There were no remarkable differences (p > 0.05) in the frequencies of Ag-NOR and satellite association among the all groups. This study indicated that sodium selenite supplementation can preclude the inhibition of transformation of T lymphocytes in vitro by cisplatin, regardless the pre-treatment by sodium selenite or co-treatment with cisplatin.