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Polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) are important toxic organic components in fine particulate matter (PM2.5), whereas the links between PM2.5 toxicity and associated PACs in ambient air are poorly understood. This study investigated the spatial–temporal variations of PACs in PM2.5 collected from 11 sampling sites across a Chinese megacity and characterized the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and cytotoxicity induced by organic extracts of PM2.5 based on cellular assays. The extra trees regression model based on machine learning and ridge regression were used to identify the key toxicants among complex PAC mixtures. The total concentrations of these PACs varied from 2.12 to 71.7 ng/m3 across the study city, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the main PACs. The spatial variations of the toxicological indicators generally resembled those of the PAC concentrations, and the PM2.5 related to waste treatment facilities exhibited the strongest toxic potencies. The ROS generation was highly correlated with high molecular weight PAHs (MW302 PAHs), followed by PAHs with MW

Summary: Memory processes are highly dependent on a cross-talk between brain regions via synchronized neural oscillations. Here, we present a protocol to perform multi-site electrophysiological recordings in vivo in freely moving rodents to investigate functional connectivity across brain regions during memory processes. We describe steps for recording local field potentials (LFPs) during behavior, extracting LFP bands, and analyzing synchronized LFP activity across brain regions. This technique also provides the potential to simultaneously assess single unit activity using tetrodes.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Wang et al.1 : Publisher’s note: Undertaking any experimental protocol requires adherence to local institutional guidelines for laboratory safety and ethics.

High-speed vehicles launched by surface or aerial platforms break the speed limit of traditional underwater weapons with the help of supercavity drag reduction technology and can effectively intercept and attack potential underwater threats with the advantage of high speed. This has become a hotspot of research worldwide. However, problems such as complex multiphase turbulence flow, unsteady evolution of the supercavity, and water entry impact load during the water-entry process of transmedium vehicles restrict the stable navigation of the supercavity vehicle and affect operational effectiveness. In this paper, from the aspects of unsteady supercavity flow patterns, trans-medium impact loads, and tail slaps of high-speed vehicles, the technical difficulties of stable water entry for trans-medium vehicles are summarized, the methods of load reduction for high-speed vehicles during the water-entry process are summarized, and the engineering applications of trans-medium supercavitating vehicles are summarized. Finally, the problems to be solved and future development tendencies of trans-medium vehicles are discussed.

Abstract Background We have previously demonstrated that the expression of kruppel-like transcription factor-4 (KLF-4) is upregulated in astrocytes following acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and found that KLF4 confers vascular protection against cerebral ischemic injury. However, the functional role of KLF4 in astrocyte after AIS is far from clear. Methods The intrinsic relationship between KLF4 and A1/A2 reactive astrocytes and the impact of astrocytic KLF4 on the activation of A1/A2 subtype astrocytes were evaluated in middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) mice and oxygen–glucose deprivation and restoration (OGD/R) astrocytes. Results Our results demonstrated that astrocytic KLF4 expression and complement C3-positive A1 and S100 calcium binding protein A10 (S100A10)-positive A2 astrocytes were induced in the ischemic penumbra following focal cerebral ischemia, and the time course of upregulation of astrocytic KLF4 correlated closely with the activation of A2 astrocytes. The dual immunofluorescent studies displayed that in the ischemic hemisphere, where the high levels of KLF4 were expressed, there were relatively low levels of C3 expressed in the reactive astrocytes and vice versa, but KLF4 was always co-stained well with S100A10. Mechanistic analyses revealed that astrocytic KLF4 inhibited the activation of A1 astrocyte but promoted A2 astrocyte polarization after OGD/R by modulating expressions of nuclear factor-kB. Conclusions Astrocyte-derived KLF4 has a critical role in regulating the activation of A1/A2 reactive astrocytes following AIS.

Abstract There are a lot of quantitative performance characterisation methods for composite insulators. However, how to apply the characterisation methods with different dimensions to comprehensively assess the health state of composite insulators remains a big problem for operators and researchers. A comprehensive health assessment model for composite insulators based on the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is proposed in this study. Fourteen composite insulators from four regions in Yunnan Province, China, and five quantitative characterisation indicators of the insulators, namely hardness, hydrophobicity, loss of hydrophobicity, recovery of hydrophobicity, and trap charge, are selected to verify the model. The results show that the Pearson correlation coefficient of the TOPSIS‐based comprehensive health score with operating time is 0.72, which is better than the other single indicator. By introducing the operating time into the TOPSIS‐based model, we can also obtain the ageing resistance performance of the composite insulator. This work provides a new idea to assess the health state and ageing performance of composite insulators.

Abstract Background Previous studies have demonstrated the important role of fatty acid desaturase 2 (FADS2) in governing tumorigenesis and tumor metastasis. Although FADS2 is an essential regulator of fatty acid metabolism, its prognostic and immunotherapeutic value remains uncertain. Methods The role of FADS2 was investigated across different types of tumors. Besides, the relationship between FADS2 and survival prognosis, clinicopathologic features, tumor-infiltrating immune cells, immunoregulatory genes, chemokines, chemokines receptor, tumor mutational burden (TMB), and microsatellite instability (MSI) was also explored. FADS2-related genes enrichment analysis was performed to further explore the molecular function of FADS2. Finally, the relationship between FADS2 expression and altered functional states in single-cell levels across different tumor cells was explored. Results FADS2 was increased in most tumor tissues. Elevated FADS2 expression was associated with a poor overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). FADS2 amplification was germane to worse progress-free survival (PFS). In addition, FADS2 correlated with the majority of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, immunoregulatory genes, and chemokines. Especially, FADS2 expression positively correlated with cancer-associated fibroblast (CAFs) infiltration. Gene Ontology and KEGG analysis demonstrated that FADS2 was involved in the fatty acid metabolic process, arachidonic acid metabolism, RAS, PPAR, and VEGF pathway. FADS2 had a positive relationship with tumor biological behaviors such as inflammation, cell cycle, proliferation, DNA damage, and DNA repair response in single-cell levels. Conclusions FADS2 can serve as a potential prognostic and immunotherapeutic biomarker for multiple tumors, revealing new insights and evidence for cancer treatment.

Abstract Spider-capture-silk (SCS) can directionally capture and transport water from humid air relying on the unique geometrical structure. Although there have been adequate reports on the fabrication of artificial SCSs from petroleum-based materials, it remains a big challenge to innovate bio-based SCS mimicking fibers with high-performance fog collection ability and efficiency simultaneously. Herein, we report an eco-friendly and economical fiber system for water collection by coating gelatin on degummed silk. Compared to the previously reported fibers with the best fog collection ability (~ 13.10 μL), Gelatin on silk fiber 10 (GSF10) can collect larger water droplet (~ 16.70 μL in 330 s) with ~ 98% less mass. Meanwhile, the water collection efficiency of GSF10 demonstrates ~ 72% and ~ 48% enhancement to the existing best water collection polymer coated SCS fibers and spidroin eMaSp2 coated degummed silk respectively in terms of volume-to-TCL (vapor–liquid-solid three-phase contact line) index. The simultaneous function of superhydrophilicity, surface energy gradient, and ~ 65% water-induced volume swelling of the gelatin knots are the key factors in advancing the water collection performance. Abundant availability of feedstocks and ~ 75% improved space utilization guarantee the scalability and practical application of such bio-based fiber. Graphic Abstract

In the face of explosive growth of wireless data and electronic devices, cognitive radio (CR) technology is an effective solution to identify spectrum resources underutilized by the primary user (PU). Moreover, cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) is the key function of CR technology to enhance the detection performance by exploiting spatial diversity via the observations of spatially located sensor nodes (SNs). However, in a classical cooperative paradigm, each SN is always required to report individual local decision about the PU status to the fusion center (FC) for the global decision-making. Such a static reporting model regardless of the surrounding environment is not conducive to achieving the cooperative gain and adapting to a large cognitive wireless sensor network (CWSN). In view of this, this paper proposes an efficient CSS to optimize the reporting time and the achievable throughput of CWSNs, in which consists of selective reporting, multi-bit quantization, data fusion, and dynamic parameter. First of all, SNs only report some necessary observations by means of selective reporting, and then encodes local observations into multi-bit binary codes and send them to the FC. Further, the received local observations are aggregated into a final decision about the PU status. To be specific, the bit number of binary data and the selective reporting range as a parameter are dynamically adjusted at each SN. At last, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed CSS algorithm significantly not only reduces reporting time, but also improves the achievable throughput of CWSNs while maintaining the CSS performance.

Fuzzing, an automated software testing technique, has achieved remarkable success in recent years, aiding developers in identifying vulnerabilities. However, fuzzing can also be exploited by attackers to discover zero-day vulnerabilities. To counter this threat, researchers have proposed anti-fuzzing techniques, which aim to impede the fuzzing process by slowing the program down, providing misleading coverage feedback, and complicating data flow, etc. Unfortunately, current anti-fuzzing approaches primarily focus on enhancing defensive capabilities while underestimating the associated overhead and manual efforts required. In our paper, we present No-Fuzz, an efficient and practical anti-fuzzing technique. No-Fuzz stands out in binary-only fuzzing by accurately determining running environments, effectively reducing unnecessary fake block overhead, and replacing resource-intensive functions with lightweight arithmetic operations in anti-hybrid techniques. We have implemented a prototype of No-Fuzz and conducted evaluations to compare its performance against existing approaches. Our evaluations demonstrate that No-Fuzz introduces minimal performance overhead, accounting for less than 10% of the storage cost for a single fake block. Moreover, it achieves a significant 92.2% reduction in total storage costs compared to prior works for an equivalent number of branch reductions. By emphasizing practicality, our study sheds light on improving anti-fuzzing techniques for real-world deployment.

The status of hormone receptors (HR) at the molecular level is crucial for accurate diagnosis and effective treatment of breast cancer. Meanwhile, mammography is an effective screening method for detecting breast cancer, which significantly improve survival. However, diagnosing the molecular status of breast cancer involves a pathological biopsy, which can affect the accuracy of the diagnosis. To non-invasively diagnose the hormone receptor (HR) status of breast cancer and reduced manual annotation, we proposed a weakly supervised deep learning framework BSNet which detected breast cancer with HR status and benign tumors. BSNet was trained on 2321 multi-view mammography cases from female undergoing digital mammography for the general population at Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital in Heilongjiang Province during the period 2017–2018 and was validated on the external cohort. The average AUCs of BSNet on the test set and the external validation set were 0.89 and 0.92, respectively. BSNet demonstrated excellent performance in non-invasive breast cancer diagnosis with HR status, using multiple mammography views without pixel annotation. Furthermore, we developed a web server (http://bsnet.edbc.org) for easy use. BSNet described high-dimensional mammography of breast cancer subtypes, which helped inform early management options.

Far-field detection has been widely used in biomedical diagnosis, security inspection, such as MRI, ultrasonic, SPECT, X-ray, etc. However, the near-field detection has yet to be well established. This paper proposed a sensor structure with series inductance and capacitor. The inductance is a differential-transformer-type inductor formed by winding two spiral inductors. The interdigital capacitor is redesigned and placed inside the inductor to reduce its overall size. With the presence of the digital capacitor, the resonance shifts to the lower frequency, and the amplitude of return loss is increased. The micro-fabricated resonator was realized through integrated passive device technology for sensitive detection and characterization of glucose. The experimental results verified the performance of the proposed biosensor as the radio frequency multi-parameter bio-detector, such as the resonance frequency and the reflection coefficient. The detection results vary in response to deionized water, following by the iterative measurements of the changing glucose concentrations (from 50 to 150 mg $\cdot $ dL $^{-1}$ ). The concentration of glucose solution changes from 50 mg $\cdot $ dL $^{-1}$ to 150 mg $\cdot $ dL $^{-1}$ . The experimental results show that the amplitude changes 32.1 dB, and the phase changes 60.88° at 1 GHz. The results indicate the proposed microwave sensor has an excellent biosensing performance.

The accurate, quantitative, and objective prediction of the brain age for premature infants will contribute to the exploration of brain maturity and catch-up growth. Traditional approaches rely heavily on a pediatrician’s clinical experience, which makes the whole process time-consuming and labor-intensive. To solve this problem, we propose a deep learning-based brain age prediction model for preterm infants via neonatal MRI for this purpose, and it is called as BAPNET for short. First of all, we collected a specific dataset including MR images of 281 preterm infants. Then, a pretraining model (DeepBrainNet) is applied as the main backbone, and transfer learning is utilized to enhance the baseline model by making knowledge transfer from the ImageNet dataset. The proposal can be viewed as a specific prediction model by absorbing knowledge enhancement from peripheral visual features. On a test set of 70 preterm infants held out from the original dataset, 2D-BPANET achieved results with an mean square error (MAE) of 1.15 and the 95% - 95% content tolerance interval for a difference (prediction and ground truth) of [−3.82, 3.39], whereas 3D-BPANET achieved better results with an MAE of 1.8 and a difference of [0.51, 3.09]. Meanwhile, we leverage heatmaps to verify the consistency between hindbrain regions and cortical fold regions outputted by our model and the latest studies of brain development in preterm infants. In conclusion, BPANET demonstrates that deep learning can estimate brain maturity in preterm infants and provides a reference standard for preterm infant brain development, which could be applied as a promising tool.

At present, tobacco leaf grading relies mainly on manual classification, which is highly intensive with respect to labor, materials, and cost; in addition, the performance of manual grading is poor. The realization of automatic grading is an urgent requirement in the tobacco industry. To address this need, we developed assembly line equipment and an RGB image classification method for tobacco grading. There is little difference in appearance between different grades of tobacco leaves, but there are some differences in high-level semantic features; therefore, tobacco grading is fundamentally a fine-grained visual categorization task. It is difficult to classify tobacco using hand-crafted image features. Therefore, in our method, we use a pyramid structure, attention mechanism, and angle decision loss function to improve the bilinear convolutional neural network (a fine-grained visual categorization framework) for tobacco grading. The feature extraction and classification model was trained using 66,966 images, to effectively extract high-level semantic features from a global tobacco image and multi-scale features from a local tobacco image. In an online test on assembly line equipment, the proposed model was able to classify six main grades of tobacco with an accuracy of 80.65%, which is higher than that of the state-of-the-art model. Additionally, the time required to classify each tobacco leaf was 42.1 ms. This work is of great significance for the industrial application of tobacco grading models and grading equipment, and it provides a theoretical reference for the quality grading of other agricultural products.

Spring phenology is a critical indicator to characterize vegetation dynamics and their responses to climate change. Spring phenology on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) has received extensive attentions as it has experienced one of the most rapid warmings. Warming-induced advancement of spring phenology has been revealed by many studies, however, the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. In this article, we derived the start of growing season (SOS) from the satellite solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and investigated the spatial and temporal variations of SOS over grasslands on the TP during 2001–2020. The temperature sensitivity (St) of SOS was then analyzed, i.e., the slope of a linear regression between the advanced SOS and preseason air temperature. Results showed an average advanced trend of 0.29 days per decade of SOS, although not statistically significant. Spatially, grasslands in eastern TP showed an earlier trend of SOS whilst those in western TP showed a later trend of SOS. The spatial distribution of St was much more affected by precipitation and air temperature, i.e., a 1 mm decrease of precipitation and 1 °C warming incur a decrease in St of 0.02 and 0.54 day/°C, respectively. Temporally, St showed a significant decrease with an average speed of 0.14 day/°C per year during 2001–2020, and the climate controllers show a high spatial heterogeneity. These findings improved our understanding of grasslands spring phenology responses to warming and help us clarify future global water and energy cycles.

Dynamic contingency analysis (DCA) for modern power systems is fundamental to help researchers and operators look ahead of potential issues, arrange operational plans, and improve system stabilities. However, since the system size and the number of contingency scenarios continue to increase, pursuing more effective computational performance faces many difficulties, such as slow algorithms and limited computing resources. This research accelerates the intensive computations of massive DCAs by implementing a two-level hierarchical computing architecture on graphical processing units (GPUs). The performance of the designed method is examined using four test systems of different sizes and compared with a CPU-based parallel approach. The results show up to 2.8x speedup using one GPU and 4.2x speedup using two GPUs, respectively. More accelerations can be observed once more GPUs are configured. It demonstrates that the proposed architecture can significantly enhance the overall computational performance of massive DCAs while maintaining a strong scaling capability under various resource configurations.

Abstract Radiochemotherapy (RCT) is a powerful treatment for cervical cancer, which affects not only malignant cells but also the immune and stromal compartments of the tumor. Understanding the remodeling of the local ecosystem induced by RCT would provide valuable insights into improving treatment strategies for cervical cancer. In this study, we applied single-cell RNA-sequencing to paired pre- and post-RCT tumor biopsies from patients with cervical cancer and adjacent normal cervical tissues. We found that the residual population of epithelial cells post-RCT showed upregulated expression of MHC class II genes. Moreover, RCT led to the accumulation of monocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells with increased pro-inflammatory features and CD16+ NK cells with a higher cytotoxic gene expression signature. However, subclusters of T cells showed no significant increase in the expression of cytotoxic features post-RCT. These results reveal the complex responses of the tumor ecosystem to RCT, providing evidence of activation of innate immunity and MHC-II upregulation in cervical cancer.

Abstract Background Evading apoptosis by overexpression of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins is a hallmark of cancer cells and the Bcl-2 selective inhibitor venetoclax is widely used in the treatment of hematologic malignancies. Mcl-1, another anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 family member, is recognized as the primary cause of resistance to venetoclax treatment. However, there is currently no Mcl-1 inhibitor approved for clinical use. Methods Paired parental and Mcl-1 knockout H1299 cells were used to screen and identify a small molecule named MI-238. Immunoprecipitation (IP) and flow cytometry assay were performed to analyze the activation of pro-apoptotic protein Bak. Annexin V staining and western blot analysis of cleaved caspase 3 were employed to measure the cell apoptosis. Mouse xenograft AML model using luciferase-expressing Molm13 cells was employed to evaluate in vivo therapeutic efficacy. Bone marrow samples from newly diagnosed AML patients were collected to evaluate the therapeutic potency. Results Here, we show that MI-238, a novel and specific Mcl-1 inhibitor, can disrupt the association of Mcl-1 with BH3-only pro-apoptotic proteins, selectively leading to apoptosis in Mcl-1 proficient cells. Moreover, MI-238 treatment also potently induces apoptosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells. Notably, the combined treatment of MI-238 with venetoclax exhibited strong synergistic anti-cancer effects in AML cells in vitro, MOLM-13 xenografts mouse model and AML patient samples. Conclusions This study identified a novel and selective Mcl-1 inhibitor MI-238 and demonstrated that the development of MI-238 provides a novel strategy to improve the outcome of venetoclax therapy in AML.

Key points 1. HCC patients suffering early postoperative recurrence have reduced survival than those without early postoperative recurrence. 2. The preoperative models for early postoperative recurrence prediction achieved good performance. 3. These models may help the clinician to go on treatment optimization and improve HCC prognosis.

Abstract Regional facial image synthesis conditioned on a semantic mask has achieved great attention in the field of computational visual media. However, the appearances of different regions may be inconsistent with each other after performing regional editing. In this paper, we focus on harmonized regional style transfer for facial images. A multi-scale encoder is proposed for accurate style code extraction. The key part of our work is a multi-region style attention module. It adapts multiple regional style embeddings from a reference image to a target image, to generate a harmonious result. We also propose style mapping networks for multi-modal style synthesis. We further employ an invertible flow model which can serve as mapping network to fine-tune the style code by inverting the code to latent space. Experiments on three widely used face datasets were used to evaluate our model by transferring regional facial appearance between datasets. The results show that our model can reliably perform style transfer and multi-modal manipulation, generating output comparable to the state of the art.

Aiming at the optimal allocation of irrigation water in a multi-water source project in a water resource shortage area, this study developed a water resource joint scheduling optimization model for the reservoir and the pumping station under deficit irrigation conditions. In the model, the maximum annual yield of the irrigation area was the objective function; the water supply, water spill of the reservoir and replenishment water of the pump station at each stage were the decision variables; and the total annual water supply of the system, the reservoir operation criteria, the water rights of the pumping station, and the water demand of the crop during the entire growth period were the constraint conditions. According to the characteristics of the model, a large system decomposition aggregation dynamic programming (DADP) method is proposed to transform the N + 1 dimensional dynamic programming problem into a N + 1 one-dimensional dynamic programming problem for solution. In addition, this study also uses the real-coded genetic algorithm (RGA) and DADP to compare the algorithms, and discusses the performance of the two algorithms from the optimization of the algorithm and the applicability of the algorithm. HIGHLIGHTS An optimization model for the joint operation of the reservoir and the pumping station in the water shortage area is established.; A new optimization method for a large-scale system model is proposed.; The complex nonlinear problem is transformed into a series of dynamic programming iterative operations.;

As a good fluorescent material, most I–III–VI ternary semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) do not contain heavy metal elements such as Cd and Pb and thus have low toxicity. In addition, they also have excellent data performance such as narrow band gap, large absorption coefficient, large Stokes shift, low self-absorption effect, and luminescence wavelength in the near infrared region. I–III–VI QDs also have a size-dependent luminescence in the visible and near-infrared ranges, and their fluorescence quantum yields can exceed 50% especially when coated with ZnS shells, thus offering great potential for applications in illumination, display, and bioimaging. The review focuses on the synthesis of group I–III–VI QDs, their properties, and applications. In the first part, we discuss the approaches to synthesize these QDs. In the second section, we provide an overview of the applications of I–III–VI QDs in food safety detection, with emphasis on the detection of heavy metal ions, foodborne pathogens, food additives, pesticide, and veterinary drug residues. The final section summarizes the current application prospects of ternary semiconductor QDs.

Abstract The gut microbiota plays an important role in pig health and performance, particularly in host growth and fecundity. In present study, the characteristics and diversity of gut microbiota in fine purebred boars from three-way crossbred “Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire” pigs were investigated using 16 S rRNA gene sequencing. The results showed that the three breeds of boars shared similar gut microbiota, yet there remain slight differences at the family/genus level. At the family level, Ruminococcaceae, Streptococcaceae and Lactobacillaceae have the highest abundance in Landrace, while Rikenellaceae and f_p_251_o5 have the highest abundance in Duroc. The abundance of Prevotellaceae, Lachnospiraceae and Spirochaetaceae in intestinal of Yorkshire were higher than that of Landrace and Duroc. In addition, ten and six biomarkers were identified in the microbiota across breeds and months of age, respectively. Moreover, we evaluated the effect of gut microbiota on boar semen quality, revealing that Duroc had the strongest sperm vitality, significantly associated with the genus Rikenellaceae_PC9_gut_group. In addition, the spermatogenesis ability and sperm production improved gradually along with increase of age. In conclusion, this study provides a reference for understanding the gut microbiota composition of purebred boars used for three-way crosses and their impact on semen performance.

Abstract Purpose To compare a deep learning model with a radiomics model in differentiating high-grade (LR-3, LR-4, LR-5) liver imaging reporting and data system (LI-RADS) liver tumors from low-grade (LR-1, LR-2) LI-RADS tumors based on the contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance images. Methods Magnetic resonance imaging scans of 361 suspected hepatocellular carcinoma patients were retrospectively reviewed. Lesion volume segmentation was manually performed by two radiologists, resulting in 426 lesions from the training set and 83 lesions from the test set. The radiomics model was constructed using a support vector machine (SVM) with pre-defined features, which was first selected using Chi-square test, followed by refining using binary least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. The deep learning model was established based on the DenseNet. Performance of the models was quantified by area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, specificity and F1-score. Results A set of 8 most informative features was selected from 1049 features to train the SVM classifier. The AUCs of the radiomics model were 0.857 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.816–0.888) for the training set and 0.879 (95% CI 0.779–0.935) for the test set. The deep learning method achieved AUCs of 0.838 (95% CI 0.799–0.871) for the training set and 0.717 (95% CI 0.601–0.814) for the test set. The performance difference between these two models was assessed by t-test, which showed the results in both training and test sets were statistically significant. Conclusion The deep learning based model can be trained end-to-end with little extra domain knowledge, while the radiomics model requires complex feature selection. However, this process makes the radiomics model achieve better performance in this study with smaller computational cost and more potential on model interpretability.

To clarify microscopic mechanisms of residual oil displacement by hydraulic pulsation wave, microscopic visualization experiments of hydraulic pulsation wave driving residual oil were carried out by using the microscopic visualization device of pulsating water drive. For the four types of residual oil left in the reservoir after water flooding, i.e. membrane, column, cluster, and blind end residual oils, hydraulic pulsation waves broke the micro-equilibrium of the interface by disturbing the oil-water interface, so that the injected water invaded into and contacted with the remaining oil in small pores and blind holes, and the remaining oil was pushed or stripped to the mainstream channel by deformation superposition effect and then carried out by the injected water. In the displacement, the pulsation frequency mainly affected the cluster and blind end remaining oil, and the hydraulic pulsation wave with a frequency of about 1 Hz had the best effect in improving the recovery. The pulsation amplitude value mainly affected the membrane and column residual oil, and the larger the amplitude value, the more remaining oil the hydraulic pulsation wave would displace. The presence of low intensity continuous flow pressure and holding pressure end pressure promoted the concentration of pulsating energy and greatly improve the recovery of cluster residual oil. The rise in temperature made the hydraulic pulsation wave work better in displacing remaining oil, improving the efficiency of oil flooding.

Abstract The Earth’s outer core is mainly composed of Fe and Ni. The geodynamo of the Earth’s core are closely correlated with the transport properties of the fluid in the Earth’s core. We selected the typical FeNi fluid, and systemically calculated its diffusion coefficient and viscosity under Earth’s core condition by quantum molecular dynamics simulation. The diffusion coefficients are almost constant along the core adiabatic curve. The self-diffusion coefficients of Ni along the core adiabatic curve range from 2.47 × 10−9 to 3.37 × 10−9 m2s−1. The diffusion coefficient increases with temperature increase, while viscosity decrease with temperature increase. The calculations on the transport properties suggest that the Ni impurities have a negligible effect on the diffusion coefficient and viscosity of Earth’s core.

Objective Understanding the morphology of the distal femur is essential for improving bone‐implant match in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and understanding the mechanisms behind knee kinematics. However, little is known about the asymmetry of the posterior condyles. Thus, this study aimed to thoroughly investigate asymmetries in sizes and shapes between the medial and lateral posterior condyles before and after femoral resections during TKA in osteoarthritic (OA) knees. Methods Three‐dimensional femoral models of 74 OA knees were constructed using computed tomography images. The morphologic measurements of the posterior condyle pre‐ and post‐simulated osteotomy for TKA included the radii of the posterior condyles fitted to a circle on the sagittal and axial planes of the femoral coordinate system, the inclination angle of the articular surface and resected surface, and the width and height of the resected surface. Differences in the data were assessed using Student's t‐test, and correlations were evaluated using the Pearson product–moment correlation. Results The radii of the medial posterior condyles fitted to the circle were, on average, 6 mm larger than those of the lateral condyles on the axial plane (p 0.107). Conclusions This study found asymmetrical inclination of the resected surface and coronal radii between the medial and lateral posterior condyles, which may relate to the posterolateral overhang of the lateral condyle after TKA and the progression of the knee OA. These findings provides valuable morphological information and may help improve the implant designs for TKA.

Transformations of alcohols, which are ubiquitous in chemistry and are native functionalities in many natural products and bioactive molecules, are cornerstones of organic synthesis. Here the authors describe photocatalyzed cross-couplings of activated alcohols with α-amino acids, providing a direct approach for a variety of unnatural amino acids.

Regional studies have found significant agglomeration effects of education development on economic growth. Regional favouritism is potentially closely related to public investment in education, further impacting regional growth. This paper provides significant empirical evidence on the potential impact of favouritism on education development in the Chinese context. Using data for 282 Chinese cities from 1996 to 2016 with treatment for endogeneity (Lewbel two-stage least squares estimator), the results provide evidence that Chinese provincial political leaders favour their birthplaces’ education resource development, and that the effect is larger for within-provincial impact and higher tier cities ranked by income.

Objective To explore the clinical characteristics, treatment protocol and prognosis of children with anti-complement factor H (CFH) autoantibody (Ab)-associated hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).Methods Clinical data of 8 patients with anti-CFH Ab-associated HUS who were admitted to Shandong Provincial Hospital from January 2011 to December 2020 were collected retrospectively.Results The age at disease onset ranged between 5.83 and 13.5 years, with a male: female ratio of 1.67:1. The time of onset was distributed from May to June and November to December. Digestive and upper respiratory tract infections were common prodromal infections. Positivity for anti-CFH Ab and reduced C3 levels were observed among all patients. Heterozygous mutation of the CHFR5 gene (c.669del A) and homozygous loss of the CFHR1 gene [loss2(EXON:2-6)] were found in two patients. All patients received early treatment with plasma exchange and corticosteroid therapy. Six patients were given immunosuppressive agents (cyclophosphamide and/or mycophenolate mofetil) for persistent proteinuria. The follow-up period was 12–114 months. Four of 8 patients achieved complete remission, 3 achieved partial remission, and 1 died. Relapse occurred in two patients.Conclusion Children with anti-CFH Ab-associated HUS were mainly school-aged and predominantly male, with onset times of summer and winter. Digestive and upper respiratory tract infections were common prodromal infections. Plasma exchange combined with methylprednisolone pulse therapy in the acute phase and cyclophosphamide or mycophenolate mofetil treatment for maintenance can be utilized in children with anti-CFH Ab-associated HUS if eculizumab is not available.

Context Bazi Bushen capsule (BZBS) has anti-ageing properties and is effective in enhancing memory.Objective To find evidence supporting the mechanisms and biomarkers by which BZBS functions.Materials and methods Male C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into five groups: normal, ageing, β-nicotinamide mononucleotide capsule (NMN), BZBS low-dose (LD-BZ) and BZBS high-dose (HD-BZ). The last four groups were subcutaneously injected with d-galactose (d-gal, 100 mg/kg/d) to induce the ageing process. At the same time, the LD-BZ, HD-BZ and NMN groups were intragastrically injected with BZBS (1 and 2 g/kg/d) and NMN (100 mg/kg/d) for treatment, respectively. After 60 days, the changes in overall ageing status, brain neuron morphology, expression of p16INK4a, proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 (Iba1), postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD95), CD11b, Arg1, CD206, Trem2, Ym1 and Fizz1, and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) factors were observed.Results Compared with the mice in the ageing group, the HD-BZ mice exhibited obvious improvements in strength, endurance, motor coordination, cognitive function and neuron injury. The results showed a decrease in p16INK4a, Iba1 and the upregulation of PCNA, PSD95 among brain proteins. The brain mRNA exhibited downregulation of Iba1 (p

C17H12INO3, monoclinic, P21/n (no. 14), a = 7.5319(5) Å, b = 7.9745(5) Å, c = 25.1313(17) Å, β = 98.459(7)°, V = 1493.04(17) Å3, Z = 4, Rgt(F) = 0.0272, wRref(F2) = 0.0595, T = 199.98(10) K.

Marine actinomycetes produce a substantial number of natural products with cytotoxic activity. Actinomycete strains have been isolated from sources including fishes, coral, sponges, seaweeds, mangroves and sediments. These cytotoxic compounds can be broadly categorized into four classes: polyketides; non-ribosomal peptides and hybrids; isoprenoids and hybrids; and others, among which the majority are polyketides (146 of 254). Twenty-two of the 254 compounds show potent cytotoxicity, with IC50 values at the ng/mL or nM level. This review highlights the sources, structures and antitumor activity of 254 natural products isolated from marine actinomycetes and first reported between 1989 and 2020.

Type 2 diabetes often presents with reproductive disorders, including reduced male and female fertility. Here they show that diabetes disrupts the APLN signaling axis in the testes and that spermatogenesis can be restored through treatment with an APLN antagonist.

IL-6 and RasGRP1 have been shown to have important functions during inflammation and cancer. Here the authors propose the protein and mRNA of RasGRP1 have opposing functions by promoting IL-6 mediated acute inflammation and inhibiting inflammation-associated cancer through mRNA and protein mechanisms respectively.

Abstract Circular planar spiral coils are wildly used for the magnetic coupling system in a high-frequency wireless power transfer system. The loss of the magnetic coupling system usually takes dominance in the whole system. This paper built the calculation model of magnetic field strength and coil loss, the proposed calculation model can effectively consider the mutual influence between the transmitter and receiver coil and accurately calculated the AC loss of WPT coils. Then, the effect of turn spacing on the AC resistance of coil is analyzed. It reveals that the proximity effect loss is greater when the coil is tightly wound, and the AC loss can be optimized by designing the turn spacing. Based on the above analysis, a double-layer coil method is proposed. This method can reduce the AC loss and improve the quality factor (Q) without changing the mutual inductance and footprint of coil at high frequency. The AC resistance of the double-layer coil method can be greatly reduced compared with the general method through simulation and experiment. The work efficiency of WPT system is increased by 4.3%, which verifies the accuracy and flexibility of theoretical analysis.

Abstract Objectives To quantify the dose-response relationship of changes in pelvic bone marrow (PBM) functional MR radiomic features (RF) during concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) for patients with cervical cancer and establish the correlation with hematologic toxicity to provide a basis for PBM sparing. Methods A total of 54 cervical cancer patients who received CCRT were studied retrospectively. Patients underwent MRI IDEAL IQ and T2 fat suppression (T2fs) scanning pre- and post-CCRT. The PBM RFs were extracted from each region of interest at dose gradients of 5–10 Gy, 10–15 Gy, 15–20 Gy, 20–30 Gy, 30–40 Gy, 40–50 Gy, and > 50 Gy, and changes in peripheral blood cell (PBC) counts during radiotherapy were assessed. The dose-response relationship of RF changes and their correlation with PBC changes were investigated. Results White blood cell, neutrophils (ANC) and lymphocyte counts during treatment were decreased by 49.4%, 41.4%, and 76.3%, respectively. Most firstorder features exhibited a significant dose-response relationship, particularly FatFrac IDEAL IQ, which had a maximum dose-response curve slope of 10.09, and WATER IDEAL IQ had a slope of − 7.93. The firstorder-Range in FAT IDEAL IQ and firstorder-10Percentile in T2fs, showed a significant correlation between the changes in ANC counts under the low dose gradient of 5–10 Gy (r = 0.744, -0.654, respectively, p

Critical examinations of specimens, with literature reviews, have shown that Rubus davidianus is conspecific with R. lambertianus. Therefore, we treat R. davidianus as a new synonym within Rubus. We propose a new name, Rubus loirensis Ti R. Huang nom. nov. to replace the later homonym of R. pycnanthus Genev. Additionally, lectotypification of three names, R. davidianus Kuntze, R. malifolius Focke and R. viburnifolius Franch., are designated here after examination of previous works.

Tunability of ferroelectric domain structure is significant in ferroelectric materials. Here, the authors present in-plane ferroelectricity in 2D Bi2TeO5 in which the ferroelectric domain size and shape can be continuously tuned by the Bi/Te ratio.

Here the authors delineate the dynamic changes in 3D genome and epigenome of differentiating macrophages and during infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. They reveal a role for NF-κB upon infection and identify SNPs in disease-susceptible loci, including rs1873613 that is located in the anchor of a dynamic chromatin loop.

The article aims to investigate the effects of ownership and capital structure on postacquisition operating performance. The article extends the ongoing literature from an operating loss perspective and provides empirical evidence on the probability of acquirers’ operating loss in relation to ownership and capital structure. The operating performance of publicly listed manufacturing firms in China was tracked up to five years since the completion of the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) during 2003–2014. The empirical results show that, in a five-year postacquisition period, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are more likely to experience operating loss than non-SOEs. The likelihood of the operating loss is negatively associated with ownership concentration, implying that concentrated ownership may serve as an effective corporate governance mechanism in the emerging economy and improve postacquisition performance. The rise in leverage increases the likelihood of postacquisition operating loss, indicating that the costs of debt may outweigh the benefits. The findings contribute to the literature on ownership, debt governance and post-M&A performance from an emerging economy perspective.

Cats are susceptible to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and risk transmitting viruses to naive cats or humans. Here, based on our novel adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccine, the immunogenicity of Sad23L-nCoV-S vaccine was evaluated in cats by prime-boost vaccinations. Five cats were primed with a dose of 108 plaque-forming units (PFUs) Sad23L-nCoV-S vaccine and then boosted with an equal dose of same vaccine at a 4-week interval. Cat serum neutralizing antibody (NAb) titers (the sample dilution at which 50% inhibitory concentration [IC50]) were measured as IC50 15,849 to wild-type strain, IC50 6,591 to Alpha, IC50 2,315 to Beta, IC50 2,744 to Gamma, IC50 1,848 to Delta, and IC50 318 to Omicron variants of pseudotyped SARS-CoV-2 viruses at week 6 post-prime vaccination. All NAb levels to these five variants were ≥IC50 49 from vaccinated cats at week 10, while 48.8% to Delta and 100% to Omicron variants were

Regression coefficients are crucial in the sciences, as researchers use them to determine which independent variables best explain the dependent variable. However, researchers obtain regression coefficients from data samples and wish to generalize to populations; without reason to believe that sample regression coefficients are good estimates of corresponding population regression coefficients, their usefulness would be curtailed. In turn, larger sample sizes provide better estimates than do smaller ones. There is much recent literature on the a priori procedure (APP) that was designed for the general purpose of determining the sample sizes needed to obtain sample statistics that are good estimates of corresponding population parameters. We provide an extension of the APP to regression coefficients, which works for standardized or unstandardized regression coefficients. A simulation study and real data example support the mathematical derivations. Also, we include a free and user-friendly computer program to aid researchers in making the calculations.

Abstract Objectives Gait parameters can measure risks of falling and mortality and identify early stages of frailty. The use of walking aid changes gait parameters. The aim of this study was to describe differences in gait parameters among healthy adults when walking on different surfaces and under different conditions, with and without a rollator. Results Ten healthy participants walked first without and then with a rollator upslope, downslope and on flat surface, on bitumen and gravel respectively. Step length, walking speed and sideway deviation was measured using an inertial measurement unit. Walking up a slope using a rollator generated the longest step length and walking down a slope using a rollator the shortest. Fastest walking speed was used when walking up a slope with rollator and slowest when walking down a slope with rollator. Sideway deviation was highest when walking down a slope and lowest when walking on gravel, both without rollator. Highest walk ratio was found when walk up a slope without rollator and lowest when walking down a slope with rollator. Data from this study provides valuable knowledge regarding gait parameters among healthy individuals, useful for future clinical research relevant for rehabilitation and public health.

The effect of Sc on microstructure and mechanical properties of A357 alloy was investigated using sand molds and metal molds. The results showed that the eutectic Si in A357-0.5Sc alloy showed finer fibrous structure and smaller secondary dendrite spacing than that of A357 alloy in metal mold casting; a significant degeneration of secondary and tertiary dendrites has happened during solidification in A357-0.5Sc alloy using sand molds. UTS and YS of A357-0.5Sc alloy were higher than those of A357 Alloy in both metal molds and sand molds. In metal mold casting, the elongation of A357-0.5Sc alloy was higher than that of A357 alloy. In sand casting, the elongation of A357 and A357-0.5Sc alloys is almost equal. The YS of A357-0.5Sc alloy in sand mold is 7.5% higher than that of A357 alloy in metal mold, and the UTS and EI are almost equal. Taken together, the mechanical properties of A357-0.5Sc using in sand molds shows better than that of A357 using metal molds, which can improve mechanical properties in sand molds to meet the requirements of casting of complex parts in sand molds.The secondary dendrite of A357 and A357-0.5Sc alloys was obvious in metal mold casting. The main factor affecting the mechanical properties of the metal mold alloy was the secondary dendrite spacing. The addition of Sc would degrade the secondary and tertiary dendrites of A357 alloy in sand-casting. Moreover, the main factor affecting the mechanical properties of the sand-casting alloy was grain size.

Catalytic pathways of plastic waste valorization to lubricants are attractive avenues to foster circular economy. Tuning of catalyst electronic properties allows to significantly improve its activity due to boosted hydrogen storage on the surface.