Search

Abstract Background Hemifacial spasm (HFS) is a neuromuscular disorder characterized by unilateral facial muscle spasms, negatively impacts quality of life due to social embarrassment. Botulinum Neurotoxin (BoNT) injections have emerged as a viable therapeutic approach. This systematic review evaluated the efficacy and safety of BoNT injections for HFS management, along with effects on patients’ quality of life and mental health. Materials and methods A systematic search for studies on BoNT treatment for HFS published between January 1, 2000, and May 1, 2024, was performed across major databases. Study quality was evaluated using Cochrane and Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) tools, with data management handled by EndNote X9 and statistical analyses conducted via Review Manager (RevMan 5.4) and STATA 14.0. Results Thirty-five studies met the inclusion criteria: 2 RCTs comprising 83 HFS patients compared the efficacy of perioral injections of botulinum toxin and placebo, while 33 single-arm studies reported outcomes for 2786 patients post-BoNT injection. The selection of 17 single-arm studies focused on the effectiveness rate as the key outcome metric. Pooled estimate signified a remarkably high effectiveness (ES: 0.882, 95% CI: 0.830, 0.926, P

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is one of the world's most widely farmed cold-water economic fish. It is also the primary cold-water fish species in China. Since the 1960s, the rainbow trout germplasm has been introduced from North Korea, the United States, Denmark, and other countries, and a systematic study has been carried out on germplasm preservation, identification, breeding, and variety breeding. Compared with rainbow trout diploid, the triploid has the advantages of a high feed conversion rate, fast growth rate, and good meat quality. Moreover, the triploid gonadal hypoplasia can mitigate risks associated with high mortality and meat quality decline during spawning and avert the ecological risk of invasive alien species caused by breeding escape. Therefore, breeding triploid rainbow trout has more significant market and ecological benefits. As diploid and triploid rainbow trout are very similar in terms of morphology, it is difficult to distinguish the ploidy of rainbow trout by morphology alone. Currently, DNA content analysis by flow cytometry is the main method used to identify the ploidy of rainbow trout, but this method necessitates the collection of fish blood or tissue samples, and the body length of the fish to collect the blood must be at least 5 cm. Additionally, these sampling operations may harm the fish. This method also involves a delicate operation, complicated technical process, and expensive consumables, thus, the popularization and application of triploid identification of rainbow trout are greatly restricted. Considering the limitations of the technical test for the ploidy of rainbow trout, a minimally invasive and economical method with only a small amount of sampling is needed to identify and analyze the ploidy of rainbow trout in batches. Microsatellite markers (SSR markers) are simple repeated sequences widely distributed in eukaryotic genomes and have been widely used in ploidy and pedigree analyses of fish. The advantages of microsatellite (SSR) analysis include high reproducibility, low sample requirements, and rapid population genetic analysis. In order to achieve the use of a minimally invasive method to collect samples for trout ploidy identification, this study analyzed 153 SSR markers using PCR amplification and electrophoresis separation technology. Among them, 139 SSR markers could be successfully amplified in diploid and triploid, and 132 SSR markers were screened for polymorphism. Finally, seven markers showed high variability in triploid. By verifying 52 reference samples with a known ploidy level and 48 samples with an unknown ploidy level, three SSR markers (SSR1054, SSR1056, and SSR1468) were further screened to distinguish the ploidy level. Moreover, three pairs of primer sequences with good stability were redesigned according to the three marker sequences for ploidy analysis application. When SSR markers were selected for ploidy identification, amplification sites with high variability were preferred because they greatly improve the efficiency of SSR-assisted ploidy identification. Differentiation of the variability of amplification sites mainly considers the number of alleles expressed and the relative frequency of these alleles. Furthermore, having clear map bands that are easy to observe and analyze is an important criterion for screening high-quality specific SSR markers. Statistical clear map bands can correctly judge the allelic configuration at each locus, thus, determining the ploidy level of rainbow trout. However, when the number of microsatellite DNA alleles shown in the electrophoretic map was less than the maximum number of alleles that may occur at the ploidy level of the polyploid species, it was difficult to accurately judge the ploidy by direct observation of the number of alleles. In diploid individuals, highly heterozygous SSR amplifies at most two alleles at a given site. Similarly, three and four alleles can be observed in triploid and tetraploid individuals, respectively. However, in some rare cases, the actual number of alleles cannot be correctly determined by looking directly at the number of alleles. For example, individuals with unknown ploidy show multiple possible genotypes for two alleles, which can occur with both diploids (AB) and triploids (AAB or ABB). Therefore, this study combined the analysis results of multiple specific SSR markers to improve the accuracy of ploidy detection. In addition, this study found three specific labeling bands that can assist in the differentiation of diploid and triploid rainbow trout, namely, SSR1054-305bp, SSR1056-463bp, and SSR1468-363bp. These three specific markers will greatly improve the accuracy of using SSR markers to identify triploid rainbow trout. Microsatellite null alleles are another potential limitation in SSR ploidy identification, which can be eliminated or avoided by changing the binding site of primers and flanking sequences due to the failure of normal gene amplification due to mutations in SSR lateral sequences. Although the results of this study cannot eliminate the presence of null alleles in future samples, the present experimental data suggest that the frequency of null alleles is so low that their impact on polyploid identification is minimal. SSR markers screened in this study solve the existing problems of a complex technical process and expensive consumables in the identification of rainbow trout ploidy, providing a minimally invasive, economical, reliable, and batch-operable molecular method and contributing to the study of the genetic diversity of rainbow trout with different ploidy.

Abstract Coregonus ussuriensis Berg, distributed widely in cold waters above 45° N latitude, is a savored freshwater whitefish that has been included in the list of endangered animals as a consequence of overfishing. Lack of genomic information seriously hampers evolutionary and genetic research on C. ussuriensis warranting the need to assemble a high-quality reference genome to promote its genetic breeding. We assembled and constructed a reference chromosome-level C. ussuriensis genome (sequence length, 2.51 Gb; contig N50 length, 4.27 Mb) using PacBio sequencing and Hi-C assembly technology, 3,109 contigs were assembled into scaffolds, resulting in a genome assembly with 40 chromosomes and a scaffold N50 length of 62.20 Mb. In addition, 43,320 protein-coding genes were annotated. The peak Ks position in the species comparison reflects the whole-genome replication event of C. ussuriensis. This chromosome-level genome provides reference data for further studies on the molecular breeding of C. ussuriensis.

Abstract In conventional superconductors, Bogoliubov quasiparticles and Cooper instability provide a paradigm to describe the superconducting state and the superconducting transition, respectively. However, whether these concepts can be adapted to describe Fe-based superconductors requires rigorous examinations from experiments. Here, we report angle-resolved photoemission studies on single-layer FeSe films grown on SrTiO3 substrate. Due to the improved clarity, our results reveal both particle and hole branches of the energy band with clear quasiparticles. The dispersion and coherence factors are extracted, which unveil the particle-hole mixed Bogoliubov quasiparticles in the superconducting state of the FeSe/STO films. Effective pairing susceptibility is also deduced as a function of temperature, which indicates the persistence of Cooper instability in Fe-based superconductors.

Coregonus ussurinsis Berg is a rare cold-water fish found in Heilongjiang Province, which has high nutritional and economical value. The growth traits of fish are critical breeding target traits, and improving the growth efficiency of cultured fishes has always been a major issue for researchers. As an endangered fish, very limited research has been conducted on C. ussurinsis, and studies on its growth and development are still lacking. Therefore, investigating gene expression in C. ussurinsis muscles would significantly contribute to our understanding of their muscle development. RNA-Seq was used to find and study the specific genes and pathways of muscle development under different conditions. Recently, transcriptome sequencing has been applied to diverse animal populations, aiding in the selection of candidate genes related to important traits by comparing the global gene expression profiles between different animal populations with specific characteristics. This study aims to understand the genetic basis of muscle development in C. ussurinsis at the transcriptome level and to provide new insights into growth and development. To explore the molecular regulation mechanism of growth traits of C. ussurinsis, F2 individuals of C. ussurinsis were randomly selected from the mixed pool for test grouping (fast-growing group and slow-growing group). The dorsal muscle tissue was clipped from 10 fast-growing individuals (219.20±38.66 g, weight) and 10 slow-growing individuals (74.30±17.86 g, weight) for transcriptome sequencing to construct six cDNA libraries. High-throughput sequencing from Illumina NovaSeq 6000 and bioinformatics was used to determine the abundances and characteristics of transcripts. The differentially expressed genes were screened with FDR (false discovery rate) < 0.05 and |log2FoldChange| > 1; the functions of these differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were annotated and analyzed by the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database to identify the genes and genetic pathways related to the development of muscle in C. ussurinsis. Moreover, to verify the sequencing results, real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expression levels of DEGs. The results showed that the correlation coefficients of all the samples used for transcriptome sequencing were above 0.83, indicating high correlation between the samples and experimental reliability. Transcriptome sequencing results showed that a total of 295 605 738 raw reads were assembled from the six cDNA libraries, and 283 133 612 clean reads were obtained after quality control. Q20 and Q30 sequences accounted for above 97.80% and 93.90%, respectively, and the content of GC bases accounted for more than 49.1% of the total bases. Through comparison with the genome using EdgeR software, which was used to analyze the differences in gene expression, 2 211 DEGs were preliminarily obtained from muscle, including 659 novel genes. Compared with the slow-growing group, 583 differential genes were up-regulated, and 1 628 differential genes were down-regulated in the fast-growing group. Function enrichment analysis found that the DEGs participated in 3 620 GO terms. Among them, 2 457 biological processes were primarily involved in cellular and metabolic processes; there were 782 molecular functions, primarily involved in binding function and catalytic activity processes, and 381 cellular components, primarily involved in cell and cell component processes. The enrichment analysis of the KEGG pathway found that a total of 251 signal pathways were obtained, among which 73 were significantly enriched (P < 0.05). Among them, the up-regulated DEGs were mainly involved in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, methane metabolism, and biosynthesis of amino acids, while the down-regulated DEGs were mainly involved in osteoclast differentiation, IL-17 signaling pathway, and biosynthesis of amino acids. The genes related to muscle growth were significantly (P < 0.05) enriched in the MAPK signaling pathway, PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, tight junction, insulin signaling pathway, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, and PPAR signaling pathway. These pathways might be closely related to muscle growth. Combined with the GO functional annotation, the KEGG pathway enrichment, and the annotation results, 31 potential growth-related candidate genes were preliminarily screened. Protein-protein interaction networks were used to further analyze the relationship between these differential genes. It was found that atp2a2, atp2a1, g6pc, igfbp1, myh1, myh4, myh6, myh7, myh9, and myh13 might be closely related to muscle growth regulation, and these 10 genes can be used as crucial candidate genes for the growth regulation of C. ussurinsis. The qRT-PCR validation of 10 randomly selected differential genes showed consistent gene expression trends with the transcriptome sequencing results, which indicated that the results obtained by transcriptome sequencing in this study were accurate. A total of 10 growth-related essential candidate genes were screened in this study; these genes affect the growth of C. ussurinsis by regulating their expression levels in muscle tissue. These results provide vital information for the further understanding of the molecular basis and marker-assisted breeding of the growth regulation of C. ussurinsis.

Abstract Background Biomaterials used in bone tissue engineering must fulfill the requirements of osteoconduction, osteoinduction, and osseointegration. However, biomaterials with good osteoconductive properties face several challenges, including inadequate vascularization, limited osteoinduction and barrier ability, as well as the potential to trigger immune and inflammatory responses. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop guided bone regeneration membranes as a crucial component of tissue engineering strategies for repairing bone defects. Methods The mZIF-8/PLA membrane was prepared using electrospinning technology and simulated body fluid external mineralization method. Its ability to induce biomimetic mineralization was evaluated through TEM, EDS, XRD, FT-IR, zeta potential, and wettability techniques. The biocompatibility, osteoinduction properties, and osteo-immunomodulatory effects of the mZIF-8/PLA membrane were comprehensively evaluated by examining cell behaviors of surface-seeded BMSCs and macrophages, as well as the regulation of cellular genes and protein levels using PCR and WB. In vivo, the mZIF-8/PLA membrane’s potential to promote bone regeneration and angiogenesis was assessed through Micro-CT and immunohistochemical staining. Results The mineralized deposition enhances hydrophilicity and cell compatibility of mZIF-8/PLA membrane. mZIF-8/PLA membrane promotes up-regulation of osteogenesis and angiogenesis related factors in BMSCs. Moreover, it induces the polarization of macrophages towards the M2 phenotype and modulates the local immune microenvironment. After 4-weeks of implantation, the mZIF-8/PLA membrane successfully bridges critical bone defects and almost completely repairs the defect area after 12-weeks, while significantly improving the strength and vascularization of new bone. Conclusions The mZIF-8/PLA membrane with dual osteoconductive and immunomodulatory abilities could pave new research paths for bone tissue engineering.

Abstract Kagome superconductors AV3Sb5 (A = K, Rb and Cs) have attracted much recent attention due to the coexistence of multiple exotic orders. Among them, the charge density wave (CDW) order has been shown to host various unconventional behaviors. Here, we investigate the CDW order by a combination of both bulk and surface doping methods. While element substitutions in bulk doping change both carriers and the crystal lattice, the surface doping primarily tunes the carrier concentration. As such, our results reveal a two-dimensional phase diagram of the CDW in doped CsV3Sb5. In the lightly bulk doped regime, the existence of CDW order is reversible by tuning the carrier concentration. But excessive bulk doping permanently destroys the CDW, regardless of the carrier doping level. These results provide insights to the origin of the CDW from both electronic and structural degrees of freedom. They also open an avenue for manipulating the exotic CDW order in Kagome superconductors.

ABSTRACTDue to the generally low spatial resolution of hyperspectral images (HSIs), early multispectral images lacked corresponding panchromatic bands, and as a result, fusion methods could not be used to enhance resolution. Many researchers have proposed various image super-resolution methods to address these limitations. However, these methods still suffered from issues, such as inadequate feature representation, lack of spectral feature representation, and high computational cost and inefficiency. To address these challenges, a spectral and spatial transformer (SST) algorithm for hyperspectral remote sensing image super-resolution is introduced. This algorithm uses a spatial transformer structure to extract the spatial features between the image pixels and a spectral transformer structure to extract the spectral features within the image pixels. The integration of these two components is applied to HSI super-resolution. After comparative experiments with currently advanced methods on three publicly available hyperspectral datasets, the results consistently show that our algorithm has better performance in both spectral fidelity and spatial restoration. Furthermore, our proposed algorithm was applied to real-world super-resolution experiments in the region of China's Ruoergai National Park, and subsequently, pixel-based classification was conducted on the super-resolution images, the results indicate that our algorithm could also be applied to future remote sensing interpretation tasks.

The development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) oblique photogrammetric technology provides a good foundation for the rapid construction of large-scale and high-definition real-scene 3D models. However, due to the limitations of the modeling process, irrelevant feature data cannot be eliminated in the modeling stage. The built models contain irrelevant features and model distortions caused by errors. At present, most existing clipping algorithms cannot effectively clip real-scene 3D models that are organized as a whole or with levels of detail (LODs). Therefore, this paper proposes a novel algorithm for clipping real-scene 3D models from any perspective based on clipping boundary lines that fit the surfaces of the models. The results of the clipping experiments for 3D models constructed with oblique UAV images show that this algorithm can effectively clip any part of the 3D models, that the clipping results of each level model closely fit the corresponding clipping boundary lines, and that the accuracy of the clipping results is very high. Additionally, the time complexity of the algorithm is O(n2). In conclusion, the algorithm proposed in this paper provides correct and effective clipping results for real-scene 3D models with LODs that are constructed with photogrammetric or 3D laser scanning data.

Pre-trained language models perform well in various natural language processing tasks. However, their large number of parameters poses significant challenges for edge devices with limited resources, greatly limiting their application in practical deployment. This paper introduces a simple and efficient method called Autocorrelation Matrix Knowledge Distillation (AMKD), aimed at improving the performance of smaller BERT models for specific tasks and making them more applicable in practical deployment scenarios. The AMKD method effectively captures the relationships between features using the autocorrelation matrix, enabling the student model to learn not only the performance of individual features from the teacher model but also the correlations among these features. Additionally, it addresses the issue of dimensional mismatch between the hidden states of the student and teacher models. Even in cases where the dimensions are smaller, AMKD retains the essential features from the teacher model, thereby minimizing information loss. Experimental results demonstrate that BERTTINY-AMKD outperforms traditional distillation methods and baseline models, achieving an average score of 83.6% on GLUE tasks. This represents a 4.1% improvement over BERTTINY-KD and exceeds the performance of BERT4-PKD and DistilBERT4 by 2.6% and 3.9%, respectively. Moreover, despite having only 13.3% of the parameters of BERTBASE, the BERTTINY-AMKD model retains over 96.3% of the performance of the teacher model, BERTBASE.

Maritime area detection technology applies equipment such as high-orbit satellites, gateway ships and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to detection. In this scenario, real-time uploading and analysis of maritime data is crucial. In the existing scenario, UAV data are gathered to the gateway ship and uploaded to the shore-based cloud via the high-orbit satellite, because the communication distance of the high-orbit satellite is far, and when the uploaded data volume is large or the access to the equipment increases, the propagation delay of the uploading of the data from the gateway ship to the satellite and the forwarding of the data from the satellite to the shore-based cloud is longer, and the processing delay of the shore-based cloud is increased, and the efficiency of the data transmission and communication will be affected as well. Aiming at the problem of increasing delay caused by communication limitations in maritime area detection, this paper proposes a maritime area detection scheme based on cloud-side collaboration. The scheme solves the problem of communication limitation from the following two aspects. First, the edge computing nodes are deployed on the ship side of the gateway, and the optimal offloading ratio is sought through game theory to offload a part of the tasks from the center cloud to the edge cloud for processing, which improves the efficiency of processing data and thus reduces the data transmission latency and data processing delay. Secondly, low-orbit (LEO) satellites are introduced to provide communication services, because low-orbit satellites have low orbital altitude and short propagation delay, which can transmit the data at the gateway ship to the shore-based cloud more quickly and improve the data transmission efficiency. Finally, it is also verified by designing experiments that the proposed scheme adopts the optimal offloading ratio and has a lower total delay than the original scheme, thus proving the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Abstract ZIF-8 may experience ion-responsive degradation in ionic solutions, which will change its initial architecture and restrict its direct biological use. Herein, we report an abnormal phenomenon in which ZIF-8 induces large hydroxyapatite-like crystals when soaked directly in simulated body fluid. These crystals grew rapidly continuously for two weeks, with the volume increasing by over 10 folds. According to Zn2+ release and novel XRD diffraction peak presence, ZIF-8 particles can probably show gradual collapse and became congregate through re-nucleation and competitive coordination. The phenomenon could be found on ZIF-8/PCL composite surface and printed ZIF-8/PCL scaffold surface. ZIF-8 enhanced PCL roughness through changing the surface topography, while obviously improving the in-vivo and in-vitro osteoinductivity and biocompatibility. The pro-biomineralization property can make ZIF-8 also applicable in polylactic acid-based biomaterials. In summary, this study demonstrates that ZIF-8 may play the role of a bioactive additive enabling the surface modification of synthetic polymers, indicating that it can be applied in in-situ bone regeneration.

Abstract Van Hove singularity (VHS) has been considered as a driving source for unconventional superconductivity. A VHS in two-dimensional (2D) materials consists of a saddle point connecting electron-like and hole-like bands. In a rare case, when a VHS appears at Fermi level, both electron-like and hole-like conduction can coexist, giving rise to an enhanced density of states as well as an attractive component of Coulomb interaction for unconventional electronic pairing. However, this van Hove scenario is often destroyed by an incorrect chemical potential or competing instabilities. Here, by using angle-resolved photoemission measurements, we report the observation of a VHS perfectly aligned with the Fermi level in a kagome superconductor CsV3-x Ta x Sb5 (x ~ 0.4), in which a record-high superconducting transition temperature is achieved among all the current variants of AV3Sb5 (A = Cs, Rb, K) at ambient pressure. Doping dependent measurements reveal the important role of van Hove scenario in boosting superconductivity, and spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunneling microscopy measurements indicate a distinct superconducting state in this system.

This article is a study on the (k,s)-Riemann–Liouville fractional integral, a generalization of the Riemann–Liouville fractional integral. Firstly, we introduce several properties of the extended integral of continuous functions. Furthermore, we make the estimation of the Box dimension of the graph of continuous functions after the extended integral. It is shown that the upper Box dimension of the (k,s)-Riemann–Liouville fractional integral for any continuous functions is no more than the upper Box dimension of the functions on the unit interval I=[0,1], which indicates that the upper Box dimension of the integrand f(x) will not be increased by the σ-order (k,s)-Riemann–Liouville fractional integral ksD−σf(x) where σ>0 on I. Additionally, we prove that the fractal dimension of ksD−σf(x) of one-dimensional continuous functions f(x) is still one.

In recent years, the levels of cadmium (Cd) in agricultural soils have been increasing. Cd is highly toxic and can enter the human body through the food chain, threatening human health, therefore, reducing the Cd content in vegetables and producing green and non-polluting food has become a common concern in society. However, the physiological properties of exogenous selenium in alleviating Cd stress in cabbage seedlings have not been thoroughly investigated. In this study, exogenous Se (10 μMol/L) was applied under Cd (25 μMol/L) stress and the physiological characteristics such as biomass, photosynthetic fluorescence parameters, Se and Cd contents, chloroplast ultrastructure, leaf membrane esterification, and antioxidant enzyme activities were determined. The results showed that the exogenous application of Se could effectively alleviate the decrease in growth, photosynthetic pigment, and the gas exchange characteristics of the cabbage seedlings under Cd stress, improve cabbage root vitality, reduce root leaf Cd content, and alleviate the Cd stress-induced damage. Ultrastructural observation showed that the Cd stress caused the disruption to the chloroplasts’ internal structure in the cabbage leaves, while an exogenous Se treatment alleviated the chloroplast damage to some extent, improved the stability of the inner capsule membrane, and alleviated the Cd stress-induced damage to the photosynthetic organs. Cd stress also caused oxidative damage and the excessive accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the leaves of cabbage seedlings, as evidenced by the significant accumulation of superoxide anion (O2−), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), malondialdehyde (MDA), and electrolyte leakage. On the other hand, after the exogenous Se treatment, the Cd stress-induced oxidative damage could be reduced by up-regulating the activities of the antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX). At the same time, Cd stress significantly increased glutathione (GSH) levels, and the exogenous Se treatment further increased the GSH levels, thereby increasing the tolerance of the cabbage to Cd stress. In conclusion, exogenous Se can further improve the Cd tolerance of the cabbage seedlings by protecting the photosynthetic system, eliminating excessive accumulation of reactive oxygen species under Cd stress, alleviating oxidative stress, and reducing Cd levels in plants, among other physiological properties.

The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of interferon regulatory factor 4 (IRF4) and the inflammatory response in secondary injury of intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). Twelve SD rats were randomly divided into a sham group and an ICH group, with 6 rats in each group. A rat model of ICH was established by injecting collagenase type IV into the right striatum of rats. The expression of IRF4 was measured by western blot and immunohistochemistry 48 h after ICH. In addition, 15 mm of hemin-induced PC12 cell injury was used to simulate an in vitro ICH model. IRF4 expression was detected by immunofluorescence (IF). Moreover, the inflammatory cytokines (IL-1b and IL-6) were measured by ELISA. The behavioural score of ICH rats was the lowest at 48 h after operation. The expression of IRF4 was significantly higher in the striatal tissue of ICH rats compared with the sham group (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, IF results showed that hemin induced the upregulation of IRF4 expression in rat pheochromocytoma cells PC12. In addition, IL-1b and IL-6 levels were significantly increased in the serum of ICH rats and in the supernatant of hemin-induced PC12 cells (p < 0.01). The inflammation in ICH is related to the increase of IRF4. It provides a theoretical basis for the clinical treatment of ICH.

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is a typical cold-water aquaculture fish and a high-end aquatic product. When water temperature exceeds its optimal range of 12–18 °C, the immune system of rainbow trout becomes weakened and unbalanced. High temperature in summer and global warming severely impact rainbow trout industry. The focus of this study was to explore the mechanisms regulating the immune response of rainbow trout under high temperature stress and identify molecular elements that account for resistance to high temperature. In this study, individual fish were screened in a high temperature stress experiment and divided into resistant (R) and sensitive (S) groups. The hepatic transcriptome sequencing and analysis of mRNAs and microRNAs of the R, S, and control groups showed that the number of the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the S group (9259) was higher than that in the R group (5313). Furthermore, the 1233 genes differentially expressed between S and R groups were mainly enriched in immune-related pathways, including cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, TNF signaling and IL-17 signaling. Among these DEGs were miR-301b-5p and its target gene that encodes nuclear factor of activated T cells two interacting protein (nfatc2ip). The dual-luciferase reporter system and immunofluorescence experiments verified the relationship between miR-301b-5p and nfatc2ip. We also showed that expression levels of miR-301b-5p and nfatc2ip significantly negatively correlated in the liver of rainbow trout under high temperature stress. By performing functional experiments, we showed that activation of miR-301b-5p expression or inhibition of nfatc2ip expression stimulated the phosphorylation of p65, p38, and JNK in the classical nuclear factor kappa-B and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways under high temperature stress. These manipulations initially promoted the secretion of the pro-inflammatory factor IL-1β and then increased the levels of IL-6, IL-12, and TNF-α. In addition, activation of miR-301b-5p expression or inhibition of nfatc2ip expression stimulated the repair of the hepatic ultrastructural damage caused by high temperature stress by activating the inflammatory response in rainbow trout liver.

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) is one of the world's most widely farmed cold-water fish. However, the rise in water temperature caused by global warming has seriously restricted the development of rainbow trout aquaculture. In this study, we investigated the physiological responses in the liver of rainbow trout exposed to 20 ℃ and 24 ℃ and returning to the initial temperature (14 ℃) by combining biochemical analyses and UPLC-QTOF-MS metabolomics. The results of the biochemical analysis showed that serum aminotransferase, lysozyme, total bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase and liver superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, and malondialdehyde in rainbow trout under heat stress changed significantly. Even after the temperature recovery, some of the above indicators were still affected. Compared to the control group, 115, 130, and 121 differentially expressed metabolites were identified in the 20 ℃, 24 ℃, and recovery groups, respectively. Further pathway enrichment of these metabolites revealed that heat stress mainly affected the linoleic acid metabolism, α-linolenic acid metabolism, glycerophospholipid metabolism, and sphingolipid metabolism in the liver of rainbow trout, and continuously affected these metabolic pathways during the recovery period. Notably, the enrichment of glutathione metabolic pathways was consistent with the changes in glutathione peroxidase in the biochemical results. The results above suggest that heat stress can induce immune responses and oxidative stress inside the rainbow trout. After temperature recovery, some of the hepatic functions of fish return to normal gradually. The biochemical analysis and UPLC-QTOF-MS metabolomics tools provide insight into the physiological regulation of rainbow trout in response to heat stress.

In this paper, static and dynamic tensile tests were conducted on two kinds of polycarbonate (HL6157 and A1225BK), combined with the digital image correlation (DIC), for guiding the development of the battery pack of new energy vehicles. The mechanical properties of polycarbonate at low-speed (0.01/s) and high-speed (1/s, 100/s) tension were investigated and the microstructure of the fracture for polycarbonate at different speed tensions was also investigated. The fracture microstructure of two kinds of materials was also investigated in this paper. The tension results showed that as the strain rate increased, the yield strength and modulus increased, and the yield strength of the two materials increased by 30% under high-speed tension. In addition, the fracture strain increase was greater than 10% as the strain rate increased. Meanwhile, for polycarbonate, the strain rate increased, and the fracture toughness increased.

Various long-lived mRNAs are stored in seeds, some of which are required for the initial phase of germination and are critical to seed longevity. However, the seed-specific long-lived mRNAs involved in seed longevity remain poorly understood in rice. To identify these mRNAs in seeds, we first performed aging experiment with 14 rice varieties, and categorized them as higher longevity (HL) and lower longevity (LL) rice varieties in conventional rice and hybrid rice, respectively. Second, RNA-seq analysis showed that most genes showed similar tendency of expression changes during natural and artificial aging, suggesting that the effects of these two aging methods on transcription are comparable. In addition, some differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the HL and LL varieties differed after natural aging. Furthermore, several specific long-lived mRNAs were identified through a comparative analysis of HL and LL varieties after natural aging, and similar sequence features were also identified in the promoter of some specific long-lived mRNAs. Overall, we identified several specific long-lived mRNAs in rice, including gibberellin receptor gene GID1, which may be associated with seed longevity.

The modelling of the distribution transformer winding is the starting point and serves as important basis for the transformer characteristics analysis and the lightning pulse response prediction. A distributed parameters model can depict the winding characteristics accurately, but it requires complex calculations. Lumped parameter model requires less calculations, but its applicable frequency range is not wide. This paper studies the amplitude-frequency characteristics of the lightning wave, compares the transformer modelling methods and finally proposes a modified lumped parameter model, based on the above comparison. The proposed model minimizes the errors provoked by the lumped parameter approximation, and the hyperbolic functions of the distributed parameter model. By this modification it becomes possible to accurately describe the winding characteristics and rapidly obtain the node voltage response. The proposed model can provide theoretical and experimental support to lightning protection of the distribution transformer.

Abstract Background The receptor-like kinase FEROINA (FER) plays a crucial role in controlling plant vegetative growth partially by sensing the rapid alkalinization factor (RALF) peptide. However, the role of RALF1-FER in the vegetative-reproductive growth transition remains unknown. Here, we analyze the mechanism through which FER affects the flowering time in Arabidopsis. Results We found that the FER mRNA levels exhibit an oscillating pattern with a diurnal rhythm and that the clock oscillator CIRCADIAN CLOCK-ASSOCIATED1 (CCA1) up-regulates the expression of FER by associating with its chromatin. In addition, FER expression is regulated by clock genes, and FER also modulates the expression patterns of clock genes. Consistent with its gene expression pattern, FER positively regulates flowering by modulating the transcript accumulation and mRNA alternative splicing of certain flowering-related genes, including FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) and its homolog MADS AFFECTING FLOWERING (MAF). However, the RALF1 ligand negatively regulates flowering compared with FER. Conclusions We found that FER, which is up-regulated by CCA1, controls the flowering time by regulating the transcript accumulation and mRNA alternative splicing (AS) of some important flowering genes, and these findings link FER to the floral transition.

Brachymystax lenok (lenok) is a rare cold-water fish native to China that is of high meat quality. Its wild population has declined sharply in recent years, and therefore, exploring the molecular mechanisms underlying the development and reproduction of lenoks for the purposes of artificial breeding and genetic improvement is necessary. The lenok comparative transcriptome was analyzed by combining single molecule, real-time, and next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in five tissues (head kidney, spleen, liver, muscle, and gonad) between immature [300 days post-hatching (dph)] and mature [three years post-hatching (ph)] lenoks. In total, 234,124 and 229,008 full-length non-chimeric reads were obtained from the immature and mature sequencing data, respectively. After NGS correction, 61,405 and 59,372 non-redundant transcripts were obtained for the expression level and pathway enrichment analyses, respectively. Compared with the mature group, 719 genes with significantly increased expression and 1,727 genes with significantly decreased expression in all five tissues were found in the immature group. Furthermore, DEGs and pathways involved in the endocrine system and gonadal development were identified, and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) were identified as potentially regulating gonadal development in lenok. Inhibiting the activity of p38 MAPKs resulted in abnormal levels of gonadotropin-releasing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and estradiol, and affected follicular development. The full-length transcriptome data obtained in this study may provide a valuable reference for the study of gene function, gene expression, and evolutionary relationships in B. lenok and may illustrate the basic regulatory mechanism of ovarian development in teleosts.

Due to the large scale and complex terrain of some outcrops, it is difficult to carry out comprehensive and detailed stratum identification using traditional geological methods. The emergence of oblique photogrammetry technology provides a new way to construct high-precision 3D models of outcrops, but the existing object extraction methods of 3D models cannot be applied to the differentiation of strata in an outcrop. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel identification method for outcropping strata from oblique photogrammetric data using a spatial case-based reasoning (SCBR) model. The method includes (a) constructing point cloud of the outcrop based on the photogrammetric data; (b) segmenting the point cloud into voxels; (c) creating an integrated expression of the spatial and attribute features of a stratum case; (d) creating an integrated similarity reasoning model of the spatial and attribute features; and (e) dividing the strata after reasoning. Furthermore, this study carried out stratum identification experiments on two cases of study in Fugu, Shaanxi, China. After Performing the SCBR model, the overall accuracies were found to reach 94%. After the stratum division after reasoning was carried out, the verification accuracies were found to exceed 99%. Based on the results of the manual stratum differentiation, the differentiation results of the proposed SCBR model were found to be much more consistent with the actual situation. The experiments show that the proposed method is very effective for differentiating outcropping strata and provides a new approach for the extraction of 3D objects generated with oblique photogrammetric data.

Microcystin-LR (MC-LR) is an intracellular toxin with multi-organ toxicity and the testis is one of its important target organs. Although there is increasing research on MC-LR in male reproductive toxicity, the association between DNA damage and autophagy induced by MC-LR in male germ cells are still unclear. Therefore, it is important to explore the mechanism of MC-LR-induced DNA damage and the role of the activated ATM/p53 signaling pathway in testicular toxicity. The present study showed that MC-LR exposure significantly reduced gonadal index and induced pathological damage of the testes in mice. In addition, MC-LR increased the oxidative stress-related indicator hydroxyl radical, accompanied by increased levels of DNA damage-related indicators gamma-H2AX, 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine, the olive tail moment (OTM) and DNA content of comet tail (TailDNA%) in trailing cells. Moreover, MC-LR activated the ATM/p53 pathway by enhancing the phosphorylation levels of ATM, CHK2 and p53 proteins, and then led to cell autophagy, ultimately triggering disrupted testicular cell arrangement, reduced sperm count and spermatogenic cell shedding. Importantly, after pretreatment with the antioxidant NAC, the expression levels of DNA damage-related indicators and the extent of damage in male germ cells were significantly reduced. Furthermore, pretreatment with the ATM inhibitor KU55933 could reduce the occurrence of autophagy and mitigate testicular toxicity of MC-LR through inhibiting the activation of the ATM/p53 pathway. These results indicate that MC-LR-induced oxidative stress can activate the DNA damage-mediated ATM/p53 signalling pathway to induce autophagy in male germ cells. This study provides a novel insight to further clarify the reproductive toxicity caused by MC-LR and to protect male reproductive health.

Mobilization and repartition of nutrients and energy are prerequisites for the normal sexual maturity of broodstock. However, there are few studies on the mechanisms of hepatic nutrients and energy metabolism during sexual maturation in female rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). This study investigated hepatic metabolite changes and explored the potential nutritional regulation mechanism between mature and immature female rainbow trout by combining UPLC-QTOF/MS metabolomics and biochemical assays. It was observed that hepatic biochemical assays differed considerably between the two groups, such as glucose, triglycerides, hexokinase, lipase, and aspartate aminotransferase. Liver metabolomics showed that various differential metabolites involved in amino acid and lipid metabolism markedly increased, suggesting the enhancement of lipid metabolism and amino acid anabolism in the liver provides the necessary material basis for ovarian development. Meanwhile, glycogen catabolism and glycolysis hold the key to maintaining organismal energy homeostasis with normal sexual maturation of female rainbow trout. Overall, the results from this study suggested that the liver undergoes drastic reprogramming of the metabolic profile in response to mobilization and repartition of nutrients and energy during the sexual maturation of female rainbow trout. This study further deepened the understanding of the reproductive biology of rainbow trout, and provided the theoretical basis and practical ramifications for nutritional requirements of breeding high-quality broodstock in the artificial propagation of rainbow trout.

Because of the abundance and low cost of sodium, sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are next-generation energy storage mediums. Furthermore, SIBs have become an alternative option for large-scale energy storage systems. Because the electrolyte is a critical component of SIBs, fluorination is performed to improve the cycling performance of electrolytes. Based on the first-principles study, we investigated the effects of the type, quantity, and relative position relationships of three fluorinated units, namely -CF1, -CF2, and -CF3, on the cyclic ester molecule ethylene carbonate (EC) and the linear ether molecule 1,2-dimethoxylethane (DME). The optimal fluorination was proposed for EC and DME by studying the bond length, highest occupied molecular orbital, lowest unoccupied lowest orbital, and other relevant parameters. The results revealed that for EC, the optimal fluorination is 4 F fluorination based on four -CF1 units; for DME, CF3CF1CF1-, CF3CF2CF2-, CF3CF1CF2CF3, and CF3CF2CF2CF3, four combinations of three -CF1, -CF2, and -CF3 units are optimal. The designed fluorinated EC and DME exhibited a wide electrochemical stability window and high ionic solvation ability, which overcomes the drawback of conventional solvents and can improve SIB cycling performance.

The development of the nervous system is crucial to a child's health. However, the nervous system is also susceptible to a variety of factors during development. To date, epidemiological studies have reported controversial results on the relationship between prenatal exposure to particulate matter (PM) and neurobehavioral development. Thus, we investigated the effect of PM exposure during pregnancy on the neurobehavioral development of offsprings. Adult C57BL/6 mice were exposed to PM from gestation day (GD) 0.5–21 by the intratracheal instillation. The daily exposure doses were 250 µg/kg.b.w and 2500 µg/kg.b.w respectively. The offspring mice began behavioral tests at the 5th week. We assessed neurobehavioral development, and the gene expression level changes in the mouse hippocampus using RNA-seq. In the open field test, the movement distance in the central area was significantly decreased in the high-dose group. Serum free triiodothyronine (FT3) levels were significantly increased in male offspring mice with prenatal high-dose PM exposure. The RNA-seq results suggested that the Prkca, Med12l, Ep300, and Slc16a10 in the thyroid hormone signaling pathway were significantly decreased in offspring mice in the high-dose group.Our data showed that prenatal PM exposure caused the offspring mice’s anxiety-like behaviors and increased serum FT3 levels. The changes in thyroid hormone pathway-related genes might be the causes of the above series of changes.

Data releasing is a key part bridging between the collection of big data and their applications. Traditional methods release the static version of dataset or publish the snapshot with a fixed sampling interval, which cannot meet the dynamic query requirements and query precision for big data. Moreover, the quality of published data cannot reflect the characteristics of the dynamic changes of big data, which often leads to subsequent data analysis and mining errors. This paper proposes an adaptive sampling mechanism and privacy protection method for the release of big location data. In order to reflect the dynamic change of data in time, we design an adaptive sampling mechanism based on the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller according to the temporal and spatial correlation of the location data. To ensure the privacy of published data, we propose a heuristic quad-tree partitioning method as well as a corresponding privacy budget allocation strategy. Experiments and analysis prove that the adaptive sampling mechanism proposed in this paper can effectively track the trend of dynamic changes of data, and the designed differential privacy method can improve the accuracy of counting query and enhance the availability of published data under the premise of certain privacy intensity. The proposed methods can also be readily extended to other areas of big data release applications.

Objective: To explore a useful tool for health administrative departments to manage the community health service (CHS). Methods: On the basis of existing health laws and regulations in China, we describe the design of an automated management system for the CHS with a supervision system and an evaluation system using computer technology and corresponding design software. Results: Four changes to the management of the CHS were made: repetitive work became automated, complicated work became simplified, nonregular services decreased, and obscure instructions became clear and specific. Conclusion: The automated management system will promote the development of CHS management.

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Neolissochilus benasi has been determined by polymerase chain reaction method for the first time. The overall base composition of N. benasi mitogenome is 31.8% for A, 27.4% for C, 15.9% for G and 25.0% for T. The percentage of G + C content is 41.3%. The mitogenome is a circular DNA molecule of 16 583 bp in length with a D-loop region and contains 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and 13 protein-coding genes. The mitochondrial genome sequencing for N. benasi in this study provides important molecular data for further evolutionary analysis for Cyprinoidea.

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Sinocyclocheilus qujingensis has been determined by polymerase chain reaction method for the first time. The overall base composition of Sinocyclocheilus qujingensis mitogenome is 31.2% for A, 26.9% for C, 16.6% for G and 25.4% for T. The percentage of G + C content is 43.5%. The mitogenome is a circular DNA molecule of 16,588 bp in length with a D-loop region and contains 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and 13 protein-coding genes. The mitochondrial genome sequencing for Sinocyclocheilus qujingensis in this study provides important molecular data for further evolutionary analysis for Cyprinoidea.

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of Sinocyclocheilus huizeensis has been determined by polymerase chain reaction method for the first time. The overall base composition of Sinocyclocheilus huizeensis mitogenome is 30.8% for A, 27.0% for C, 16.9% for G and 25.3% for T. The percentage of G + C content is 43.9%. The mitogenome is a circular DNA molecule of 16,585 bp in length with a D-loop region and contains 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, two ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes and 13 protein-coding genes. The mitochondrial genome sequencing for Sinocyclocheilus huizeensis in this study provides important molecular data for further evolutionary analysis for Cyprinoidea.

Excessive accumulation of carcass fat in farm animals, including fish, has a significant impact on meat quality and on the cost of feeding. Similar to farmed animals and humans, the liver can be considered one of the most important organs involved in lipid metabolism in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). RNA-seq based whole transcriptome sequencing was performed to liver tissue of rainbow trout with high and low carcass fat content in this study. In total 1,694 differentially expressed transcripts were identified, including many genes involved in lipid metabolism, such as L-FABP, adiponectin, PPAR-α, PPAR-β, and IGFBP1a. Evidence presented in this study indicated that lipid metabolic process in liver may be related to the difference of carcass fat content. The relevance of PPAR-α and PPAR-β as molecular markers for fat storage in liver should be worthy of further investigation.