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To evaluate the safety and efficacy of tubeless percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) in patients with Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteriuria. We conducted a retrospective review of 84 patients with E. coli bacteriuria who underwent PCNL. Patients were divided into two groups according to whether a nephrostomy tube is placed at the end of the procedure. Preoperative clinical data, surgical outcomes, and postoperative complications were compared. Then, regression analysis of factors predicting success rate of PCNL in patients with E. coli bacteriuria was performed. After PCNL, residual fragments ≤ 4 mm were considered as success. At baseline, the two groups were similar with regard to age, gender, BMI, underlying disease, hydronephrosis, stone characteristics, and urinalysis. Postoperative fever occurred in 1 patient (3.8%) in the tubeless PCNL group, and in 5 patients (8.6%) in the conventional PCNL group (p > 0.05). There were no significant differences in terms of successful rate, decrease in hemoglobin, pain scores, blood transfusion, and hospitalization expenses. However, the tubeless PCNL group had significantly shorter operative time (60 vs. 70 min, p = 0.033), indwelling time of catheter (2 vs. 4 days, p < 0.001), and hospital stays (3 vs. 5 days, p < 0.001) than the conventional PCNL group. In the analysis of factors predicting success, the stone diameter, stone burden, and operative time were associated with success rate of PCNL. It is safe and effective to perform tubeless PCNL in patients with E. coli bacteriuria. Compared to conventional PCNL, tubeless PCNL accelerates patient recovery and shortens hospital stays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pasteurella multocida type A (PmA) mainly causes respiratory diseases such as pneumonia in bovines, leading to great economic losses to the breeding industry. At present, there is still no effective commercial vaccine against PmA infection. In this study, a mutant strain (PmCQ2Δ4555–4580) with brand-new phenotypes was obtained after serially passaging at 42 °C. Whole genome resequencing and PCR analysis showed that PmCQ2Δ4555–4580 missed six genes, including PmCQ2_004555, PmCQ2_004560, PmCQ2_004565, PmCQ2_004570, PmCQ2_004575, and PmCQ2_004580. Importantly, the virulence of PmCQ2Δ4555–4580 was reduced by approximately 2.8 × 109 times in mice. Notably, live PmCQ2Δ4555–4580 could provide 100%, 100% and 40% protection against PmA, PmB and PmF, respectively; and inactivated PmCQ2Δ4555–4580 could provide 100% and 87.5% protection against PmA and PmB. Interestingly, immune protection-related proteins were significantly upregulated in PmCQ2Δ4555–4580 based on RNA-seq and bioinformatics analysis. Meaningfully, by in vitro expression, purification and in vivo immunization, 12 proteins had different degrees of immune protective effects. Among them, PmCQ2_008205, PmCQ2_010435, PmCQ2_008190, and PmCQ2_004170 had the best protective effect, the protection rates against PmA were 50%, 40%, 30%, and 30%, respectively, and the protective rates against PmB were 62.5%, 42.9%, 37.5%, and 28.6%, respectively. Collectively, PmCQ2Δ4555–4580 is a potential vaccine candidate for the prevention of Pasteurellosis involving in high expression of immune protective related proteins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate drought forecasting is necessary for effective agricultural and water resource management and for early risk warning. Various machine learning models have been developed for drought forecasting. This work developed and tested a fusion-based ensemble model, namely, the stacking (ST) model, that integrates extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), random forecast (RF), and light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) for drought forecasting. Additionally, the ST model employs the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) algorithm to interpret the relationship between variables and forecasting results. Multi-source data that encompass meteorological, vegetation, anthropogenic, landcover, climate teleconnection patterns, and topological characteristics were incorporated in the proposed ST model. The ST model forecasts the one-month lead standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) at a 12 month scale. The proposed ST model was applied and tested in the German federal states of Brandenburg and Berlin. The results show that the ST model outperformed the reference persistence model, XGBboost, RF, and LightGBM, achieving an average coefficient of determination (R2) value of 0.845 in each month in 2018. The spatiotemporal Moran's I method indicates that the ST model captures non-stationarity in modeling the statistical association between predictors and the meteorological drought index and outperforms the other three models (i.e., XGBoost, RF, and LightGBM). Global sensitivity analysis indicates that the ST model is influenced by a combination of environmental variables, with the most sensitive being the preceding drought indices. The accuracy and versatility of the ST model indicate that this is a promising approach for forecasting drought and other environmental phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As prior information for precise nitrogen fertilization management, plant nitrogen content (PNC), which is obtained timely and accurately through a low-cost method, is of great significance for national grain security and sustainable social development. In this study, the potential of the low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) RGB system was investigated for the rapid and accurate estimation of winter wheat PNC across the growing season. Specifically, texture features were utilized as complements to the commonly used spectral information. Five machine learning regression algorithms, including support vector machines (SVMs), classification and regression trees, artificial neural networks, K-nearest neighbors, and random forests, were employed to establish the bridge between UAV RGB image-derived features and ground-truth PNC, with multivariate linear regression serving as the reference. The results show that both spectral and texture features had significant correlations with ground-truth PNC, indicating the potential of low-cost UAV RGB images to estimate winter wheat PNC. The H channel, S4O6, and R_SE and R_EN had the highest correlation among the spectral indices, Gabor texture features, and grey level co-occurrence matrix texture features, with absolute Pearson's correlation coefficient values of 0.63, 0.54, and 0.69, respectively. When the texture features were used together with spectral indices, the PNC estimation accuracy was enhanced, with the root mean square error (RMSE) decreasing from 2.56 to 2.24 g/kg, for instance, when using the SVM regression algorithm. The SVM regression algorithm with validation achieved the highest estimation accuracy, with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.62 and an RMSE of 2.15 g/kg based on the optimal feature combination of B_CON, B_M, G_DIS, H, NGBDI, R_EN, R_M, R_SE, S3O7, and VEG. Overall, this study demonstrated that the low-cost UAV RGB system could be successfully used to map the PNC of winter wheat across the growing season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A family of sets is called a star if there exists an element (a center) in each of its sets. Given a graph G and an integer r ⩾ 1 , let I r (G) be the family of independent sets of size r of G. A star S of I r (G) is maximum if no star of I r (G) is bigger than S. In 2011, Hurlbert and Kamat conjectured that in trees there exists a maximum star of I r (G) that is centered at a leaf for any r , and they also showed that this conjecture is true for r ⩽ 4. In 2021, Estrugo and Pastine proposed the following problem: Find which leaves are the centers of the maximum stars in caterpillars. In this contribution, we consider the problem on the maximum star of I r (G) for a connected graph G with at least one leaf. Firstly, we show that in unicyclic graphs with at least one leaf there exists a maximum star of I r (G) that is centered at a leaf for r ⩽ 4 , and there exists a counterexample in which the maximum star of I r (G) is not centered at a leaf for r ⩾ 5. Secondly, we show that in connected graphs having at least one leaf and at least two cycles, there exist two counterexamples in which the maximum stars of I r (G) are not centered at leaves for r ⩾ 3. Finally, we determine the centers of the maximum stars of I r (G) for three types of caterpillars, which partially solves the problem proposed by Estrugo and Pastine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High dense Al 4 SiC 4 –SiC ceramic composites with different SiC contents were hot pressed using self-synthesized Al 4 SiC 4 and commercial SiC powders without any sintering additives. The effect of SiC contents on the densification, microstructure, and mechanical properties of Al 4 SiC 4 -based ceramics was investigated. The anisotropic growth of Al 4 SiC 4 grains was inhibited by the pinning effect of the introduced SiC particles, while the weakly bonded interfaces were formed due to the thermal expansion mismatch between Al 4 SiC 4 and SiC. As a consequence, the mechanical properties of Al 4 SiC 4 -based ceramics were improved significantly. With the SiC contents increasing from 0 to 30 wt%, the flexural strength increased from 314 ± 7 to 466 ± 18 MPa and the fracture toughness increased from 4.8 ± 0.4 to 7.3 ± 0.3 MPa m1/2, respectively. The flexural strengths of Al 4 SiC 4 –SiC composites at elevated temperatures were also tested under an argon atmosphere. No strength degradation of Al 4 SiC 4 –SiC composites was observed at 1200 °C and a high strength retention rate of 96.3 % at 1400 °C was obtained. The above results demonstrate the application prospects of Al 4 SiC 4 –SiC ceramics as high-temperature structural materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims/Introduction: Gastric cancer, one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide, is affected by insulin resistance. The triglyceride glucose (TYG) index is considered a surrogate indicator of insulin resistance; however, its prognostic value in patients with gastric cancer remains obscure. This study aimed to determine whether the TYG index could predict the long‐term prognosis of patients with gastric cancer after radical resection gastrectomy. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed patients with gastric cancer who underwent radical resection gastrectomy. The preoperative TYG index was calculated using the patients' laboratory data. Patients were divided into two groups based on a high or low TYG index. We observed overall survival and evaluated the clinical application value of the index using Cox proportional hazards regression to calculate independent parameters. A prediction model was also established. Results: In total, 822 patients with gastric cancer were included. The high and low TYG index groups comprised 353 and 469 patients, respectively. The overall survival time was significantly longer in the high‐index group than in the low‐index group. In the multivariate analysis, TYG index, preoperative age, surgical procedure, tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage, N stage, and postoperative complications (all p < 0.01) were considered independent prognostic predictors. Based on the multivariate analysis, the riglyceride glucose (TYG) index hazard ratio was 0.70 (95% confidence interval, 0.54–0.89, p = 0.004). Conclusions: We established a model with a high clinical application value and clinical practice relevance to predict the prognosis of gastric cancer. In this model, TYG was an independent protective factor for gastric cancer prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to determine the trajectories of perinatal depression and their relationship with length of hospital stay (LOS), hospitalization costs, and adverse maternal and infantile outcomes. This longitudinal observational study included 525 participants. Perinatal depressive symptoms were assessed at four waves (from the first trimester to the postpartum period). LOS, hospitalization costs, and adverse maternal (sleep, fatigue, anxiety, perceived stress, and memory problems) and infantile outcomes of participants were obtained from medical records and self‐reported questionnaires. Trajectories of perinatal depressive symptoms were explored with latent class growth analysis. Associations between trajectories and adverse maternal and infant outcomes were explored with multiple linear regression and binary logistic regression models. The participants' average age was 29.6 ± 3.9 years. Five heterogeneous developmental trajectories of perinatal depressive symptoms were identified as follows: high‐level (7.05%), moderate‐increasing (12%), remission (15.05%), moderate‐level (37.14%), and low‐level (28.76%). The average LOS was 5.78 ± 2.13 days, and the average hospitalization costs were 12,695.27 ± 5457.51 yuan. Compared with the trajectory of low‐level depressive symptoms, the LOS, hospitalization costs, and likelihood of adverse outcomes of women with high‐level and moderate‐increasing depressive symptom trajectories increased. The findings capture the heterogeneity of perinatal depression in Chinese women. Women in the moderate‐increasing and high‐level trajectory groups had longer LOS, more hospitalization costs, and poor birth outcomes. Elucidating the trajectories of perinatal depression and their relationship with maternal and infant health outcomes provides important insights into the development of person‐centred care planning for women during pregnancy and postpartum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]