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The mode-division multiplexing technique combined with a few-mode erbium-doped fiber amplifier (FM-EDFA) demonstrates significant potential for solving the capacity limitation of standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) transmission systems. However, the differential mode gain (DMG) arising in the FM-EDFA fundamentally limits its transmission capacity and length. Herein, an innovative DMG equalization strategy using femtosecond laser micromachining to adjust the refractive index (RI) is presented. Variable mode-dependent attenuations can be achieved according to the DMG profile of the FM-EDFA, enabling DMG equalization. To validate the proposed strategy, DMG equalization of the commonly used FM-EDFA configuration was investigated. Simulation results revealed that by optimizing both the length and RI modulation depth of the femtosecond laser-tailoring area, the maximum DMG (DMGmax) among the 3 linear-polarized (LP) mode-group was mitigated from 10 dB to 1.52 dB, whereas the average DMG (DMGave) over the C-band was reduced from 8.95 dB to 0.78 dB. Finally, a 2-LP mode-group DMG equalizer was experimentally demonstrated, resulting in a reduction of the DMGmax from 2.09 dB to 0.46 dB, and a reduction of DMGave over the C band from 1.64 dB to 0.26 dB, with only a 1.8 dB insertion loss. Moreover, a maximum range of variable DMG equalization was achieved with 5.4 dB, satisfying the requirements of the most commonly used 2-LP mode-group amplification scenarios.

“Heteromorphic self-incompatibility” (HetSI) in plants is a mechanism of defense to avoid self-pollination and promote outcrossing. However, the molecular mechanism underlying HetSI remains largely unknown. In this study, RNA-seq was conducted to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying self-compatible (SC, “T × P” and “P × T”) and self-incompatible (SI, “T × T” and “P × P”) pollination in the two types of flowers of Plumbago auriculata Lam. which is a representative HetSI plant. By comparing “T × P” vs. “T × T”, 3773 (1407 upregulated and 2366 downregulated) differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, 1261 DEGs between “P × T” and “P × P” (502 upregulated and 759 downregulated). The processes in which these DEGs were significantly enriched were “MAPK (Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases-plant) signaling pathway”, “plant-pathogen interaction”,“plant hormone signal transduction”, and “pentose and glucuronate interconversion” pathways. Surprisingly, we discovered that under various pollination conditions, multiple notable genes that may be involved in HetSI exhibited distinct regulation. We can infer that the HetSI strategy might be unique in P. auriculata. It was similar to “sporophytic self-incompatibility” (SSI) but the HetSI mechanisms in pin and thrum flowers are diverse. In this study, new hypotheses and inferences were proposed, which can provide a reference for crop production and breeding.

Localization is a key technology in wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. The use of mobile anchor nodes (MANs) to assist in sensor localization is a feasible solution for reducing deployment costs and overcoming geographical limitations. However, real-world environments often contain obstacles with signal-blocking characteristics. Random collision methods cannot guarantee that sensors receive sufficient localization information, resulting in the generation of many redundant beacon points by MANs. To achieve complete localization coverage and improve localization accuracy, we propose a path planning and optimization algorithm called M-ANCHORO. The proposed algorithm divides subregions based on obstacle distribution information and deploys beacon points in equilateral triangles. It then uses the SCAN method to plan a fully localized coverage path and optimizes the number of beacon points using a path simplification procedure to establish a trajectory for full localization coverage. Experimental results showed that M-ANCHORO outperformed Z-curve, SLMAT, and SCAN in terms of localization accuracy and coverage.

Abstract Background Although hormesis induced by heavy metals is a well-known phenomenon, the involved biological mechanisms are not fully understood. Cadmium (Cd) is a prevalent heavy metal in the environment. Exposure of Cd, via intake or consumption of Cd-contaminated air or food, poses a huge threat to human health. Chinese cabbage pakchoi (Brassica chinensis L.) is widely planted and consumed as a popular vegetable in China. Therefore, studying the response of Chinese cabbage pakchoi to Cd- stressed conditions is critical to assess whether cabbage can accumulate Cd and serve as an important Cd exposure pathway to human beings. In this study, we investigated the influence of Cd stress on growth, photosynthetic physiology, antioxidant enzyme activities, nutritional quality, anatomical structure, and canopy temperature in Chinese cabbage pakchoi. A partial least squares (PLS) model was used to quantify the relationship between physical and chemical indicators with Cd accumulation in cabbage, and identify the main controlling factors. Results Results showed that Cd stress significantly inhibited cabbage’s growth and development. When Cd stress was increased, the phenotypic indicators were significantly reduced. Meanwhile, Cd stress significantly enhanced the oxidative stress response of cabbage, such as the activities of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and the content of malondialdehyde (MDA) in leaves. Such a change tended to increase fenestrated tissues’ thickness but decrease the thickness of leaf and spongy tissues. Moreover, Cd stress significantly increased soluble sugar, protein, and vitamin C contents in leaves as well as the temperature in the plant canopy. The PLS model analysis showed that the studied phenotypic and physicochemical indicators had good relationships with Cd accumulation in roots, shoots, and the whole plant of cabbage, with high coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.891, 0.811, and 0.845, and low relative percent deviation (RPD) values of 3.052, 2.317, and 2.557, respectively. Furthermore, through analyzing each parameter’s variable importance for projection (VIP) value, the SOD activity was identified as a key factor for indicating Cd accumulation in cabbage. Meanwhile, the effects of CAT on Cd accumulation in cabbage and the canopy mean temperature were also high. Conclusion Cd stress has significant inhibitory effects and can cause damage cabbage’s growth and development, and the SOD activity may serve as a key factor to indicate Cd uptake and accumulation in cabbage.

IntroductionEfficiently recognizing emotions is a critical pursuit in brain–computer interface (BCI), as it has many applications for intelligent healthcare services. In this work, an innovative approach inspired by the genetic code in bioinformatics, which utilizes brain rhythm code features consisting of δ, θ, α, β, or γ, is proposed for electroencephalography (EEG)-based emotion recognition.MethodsThese features are first extracted from the sequencing technique. After evaluating them using four conventional machine learning classifiers, an optimal channel-specific feature that produces the highest accuracy in each emotional case is identified, so emotion recognition through minimal data is realized. By doing so, the complexity of emotion recognition can be significantly reduced, making it more achievable for practical hardware setups.ResultsThe best classification accuracies achieved for the DEAP and MAHNOB datasets range from 83–92%, and for the SEED dataset, it is 78%. The experimental results are impressive, considering the minimal data employed. Further investigation of the optimal features shows that their representative channels are primarily on the frontal region, and associated rhythmic characteristics are typical of multiple kinds. Additionally, individual differences are found, as the optimal feature varies with subjects.DiscussionCompared to previous studies, this work provides insights into designing portable devices, as only one electrode is appropriate to generate satisfactory performances. Consequently, it would advance the understanding of brain rhythms, which offers an innovative solution for classifying EEG signals in diverse BCI applications, including emotion recognition.

The niobium oxide dihalides have recently been identified as a new class of van der Waals materials exhibiting exceptionally large second-order nonlinear optical responses and robust in-plane ferroelectricity. In contrast to second-order nonlinear processes, third-order optical nonlinearities can arise irrespective of whether a crystal lattice is centrosymmetric. Here, we report third harmonic generation (THG) in two-dimensional (2D) transition metal oxide iodides, namely NbOI2 and TaOI2. We observe a comparable THG intensity from both materials. By benchmarking against THG from monolayer WS2, we deduce that the third-order susceptibility is approximately on the same order. THG resonances are revealed at different excitation wavelengths, likely due to enhancement by excitonic states and band edge resonances. The THG intensity increases for material thicknesses up to 30 nm, owing to weak interlayer coupling. After this threshold, it shows saturation or a decrease, due to optical interference effects. Our results establish niobium and tantalum oxide iodides as promising 2D materials for third-order nonlinear optics, with intrinsic in-plane ferroelectricity and thickness-tunable nonlinear efficiency.

Abstract Achieving high-efficient spin injection in semiconductors is critical for developing spintronic devices. Although a tunnel spin injector is typically used, the construction of a high-quality tunnel barrier remains a significant challenge due to the large lattice mismatch between oxides and semiconductors. In this work, van der Waals h-BN films with the atomically flat interface were engaged as the tunnel barrier to achieve high spin polarization in GaN, and the spin injection and transport in GaN were investigated systematically. Based on the Hanle precession and magnetic resistance measurements, CoFeB was determined as an optimal spin polarizer, bilayer h-BN tunnelling barrier was proven to yield a much higher spin polarization than the case of monolayer, and appropriate carrier concentration as well as higher crystal equality of n-GaN could effectively reduce the defect-induced spin scattering to improve the spin transport. The systematic understanding and the high efficiency of spin injection in this work may pave the way to the development of physical connotations and the applications of semiconductor spintronics.

Structured light is a valuable addition to many optical applications. Here, the authors introduce a method for producing tailorable structured light beams at the output of a multicore fiber amplifier by controlling the input to each fiber core.

Abstract The bluetooth technology provides a point-to-point communication interface to mobile phones and other electronic devices, which can be used to form a self-organized ad hoc mesh network consists of mobile phones. In such a self-organized mesh network, the data packets are not transferred by traditional telecommunication backbone network but through bluetooth-based hop-by-hop routing among mesh nodes in the network. Such an ad hoc mesh network may find a wide span of application scenarios where access to backbone network infrastructure is not available, yet it needs an efficient routing protocol to provide a timely transmission mechanism for data packets to reach their destination even under situations when network topology is in constant changes due to mobile node’s movement. In the bluetooth-based device-to-device routing protocol (BDRP) presented in this paper, we propose several key designs as processed data table, node exclusion by packet and source control routing to provide an end-to-end packet transmission solution in a dynamically changing topology with constraints on network bandwidth, battery power, and storage space on a mobile device. The processed data table and node exclusion by packet mechanisms contribute to eliminating a great number of non-useful duplicate packets in routing path, and the source control routing algorithm implemented with a cross-layer packet retransmission process provides a fast and low-overhead routing policy and an assurance to packet reaching destination. In the simulation experiment conducted BDRP demonstrates its effectiveness and efficiency in eliminating undesirable duplicate packets and adaptability to constant topological changes. The performance comparison experiment indicates that the BDRP outperforms the optimized link state routing (OLSR) protocol in packet arrival rate, particularly under situations when mobile nodes are in fast moving mode, yet manages to maintain the same level of transmission delay as OLSR’s even with the packet retransmission process. The work presented in this paper provides a key technology for the applications of Bluetooth mobile phone mesh network in a larger geographic area and a broader application domain.

Mobile edge computing (MEC) is pervasive to support high-speed end-to-end data transmission and computation for 5th generation (5G) mobile communications by offloading computation tasks to the cloud at the edge of a cellular base station. In a cellular network for healthcare applications, we must consider the different priorities of data transmission and computation by referring to the emergency levels of patients. A critical issue of determining the allocation of wireless resources among users is the authenticity of their priorities (i.e., emergency levels). Without authenticating the users' priorities, a user who advocates a higher emergency level can allocate more wireless resources, leading to the insufficient wireless resources to the users who are actually in high priorities. In this paper, we investigate the optimization of end-to-end delay of wireless users in a cellular network with the authenticity of their priorities by blockchain consensus and propose an algorithm of allocating communication and computation resources to minimize the delay of data transmission and computation. The numerical results illustrate that our proposed algorithm is capable of dramatically reducing the end-to-end delay under the various scenarios of healthcare applications.

Deformable image registration is of essential important for clinical diagnosis, treatment planning, and surgical navigation. However, most existing registration solutions require separate rigid alignment before deformable registration, and may not well handle the large deformation circumstances. We propose a novel edge-aware pyramidal deformable network (referred as EPReg) for unsupervised volumetric registration. Specifically, we propose to fully exploit the useful complementary information from the multi-level feature pyramids to predict multi-scale displacement fields. Such coarse-to-fine estimation facilitates the progressive refinement of the predicted registration field, which enables our network to handle large deformations between volumetric data. In addition, we integrate edge information with the original images as dual-inputs, which enhances the texture structures of image content, to impel the proposed network pay extra attention to the edge-aware information for structure alignment. The efficacy of our EPReg was extensively evaluated on three public brain MRI datasets including Mindboggle101, LPBA40, and IXI30. Experiments demonstrate our EPReg consistently outperformed several cutting-edge methods with respect to the metrics of Dice index (DSC), Hausdorff distance (HD), and average symmetric surface distance (ASSD). The proposed EPReg is a general solution for the problem of deformable volumetric registration.

To develop a stable estimation model and identify effective wavelengths that could explain the variations in leaf nitrogen (N) concentration with different N supplies, growing seasons, ecological locations, growth stages, and wheat cultivars. Four field experiments were performed during two consecutive years (2017–2019) at three sites (Yuanyang, Hebi, and Wenxian) in Henan, China. In situ canopy spectral reflectance data under the aforementioned N supply conditions were obtained over a range of 400–950 nm (visible and near-infrared region). On the basis of the canopy raw spectral reflectance data and their subsequent transformation by two different techniques, first-derivative reflectance (FDR) and continuum removal (CR), four multivariate regression methods were comparatively analyzed and used to develop predictive models for estimating leaf N concentration: multiple linear regression (MLR), principal component regression (PCR), partial least square (PLS), and support vector machine (SVM). Results showed that leaf N concentration and canopy reflectance significantly varied with the levels of N fertilization, and a good correlation was observed for all the spectral techniques. Seven wavelengths with relatively higher r values than the bands of the raw spectra centered at 508, 525, 572, 709, 780, 876, and 925 nm were specified using the FDR technique. Based on the full wavelengths, the FDR-SVM model exhibited a good performance for leaf N concentration estimation, with coefficients of determination (r2val) for the validation datasets and corresponding relative percent deviations (RPDval) values of 0.842 and 2.383, respectively. However, the FDR-PLS yielded a more accurate assessment of the leaf N concentration than did the other methods, with r2val and RPDval values of 0.857 and 2.535, respectively. The variable importance in projection (VIP) scores from the FDR-PLS with the all canopy spectral region were used to screen the effective wavelengths of the spectral data. Therefore, six effective wavelengths centered at 525, 573, 710, 780, 875, and 924 nm were identified for leaf N concentration estimation. The SVM regression method with the effective wavelengths showed excellent performance for leaf N concentration estimation with r2val = 0.823 and RPDval = 2.280. These results demonstrated that the in situ canopy spectral technique is promising for the estimation of leaf N concentration in winter wheat based on the FDR-PLS regression model and the effective wavelengths identified.

A device-to-device (D2D) underlying cellular network is pervasive to support various wireless applications. However, due to the dramatic increase of data transmission in the network with limited amount of wireless resource, a few users may be required to temporarily disconnect from the network to avoid the interruption of data transmission in the whole network. A critical issue of determining the user access in D2D underlying networks is the authenticity of channel state information (CSI), and usually, a user with a higher CSI can be allocated a larger amount of wireless resource or have a higher probability of staying in the network. In this paper, we propose a blockchain consensus-based scheme to verify the authenticity of CSI and add the users who intentionally advocate a higher value of CSI into a fraud chain. Also, we consider both the cross-tier interference caused by a mobile user and the presence of a user in the fraud chain to determine the access of a user. The analysis results show that our proposed user access scheme can enhance the network performance by efficiently controlling the use access in mobile applications.

Much attention is drawn to the preparation, structure and properties investigation of lead-free ferroelectrics for the next generation of piezoelectric devices. (Na0.5Bi0.5)TiO3-BaTiO3 (NBT-BT) lead-free solid solution piezoelectric single crystals with composition x in the range of 0–0.05 as a materials with high piezoelectric properties were successfully grown from platinum crucible by using the top-seeded solution growth (TSSG) method. The dimensions of NBT-BT crystal is Ø40 × 10 mm2. X-ray powder diffraction patterns reveal that the crystal structure of NBT-BT crystal changes from rhombohedral to tetragonal symmetry with increasing amounts of BT(x). The dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of NBT-BT crystals with different compositions near the morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) were studied systematically. Ions (Mn, Eu, Zn) doped NBT and NBT-BT 95/5 crystals were also grown and studied. In addition, their piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties are investigated. Further, a high-quality and large-sized (K0.25Na0.75)NbO3 (KNN25/75) single crystal has been achieved by a carefully controlled TSSG method. The dimensions of the as-grown KNN25/75 single crystal reached up to Ø30 × 10 mm2. The obtained KNN crystals provided us a superb material for the dielectric, piezoelectric, ferroelectric and electromechanical coupling property characterization along different orientations.

5–6 MHz PMNT/epoxy 1–3 composites were prepared by a modified dice-and-fill method. They exhibit excellent properties for ultrasonic transducer applications, such as ultrahigh thickness electromechanical coupling coefficient kt (85.7%), large piezoelectric coefficient d33 (1209 pC/N), and relatively low acoustic impedance Z (1.82 × 107 kg/(m2·s)). Besides, two types of Time-of-Flight Diffraction (TOFD) ultrasonic transducers have been designed, fabricated, and characterized, which have different matching layer schemes with the acoustic impedance of 4.8 and 5.7 × 106 kg/(m2·s), respectively. In the detection on a backwall of 12.7 mm polystyrene, the former exhibits higher detectivity, the relative pulse-echo sensitivity and −6 dB relative bandwidth are −21.93 dB and 102.7%, respectively, while the later exhibits broader bandwidth, the relative pulse-echo sensitivity and −6 dB relative bandwidth are −24.08 dB and 117.3%, respectively. These TOFD ultrasonic transducers based on PMNT/epoxy 1–3 composite exhibit considerably improved performance over the commercial PZT/epoxy 1–3 composite TOFD ultrasonic transducer.

Doppler sonographic measurement of flow velocity in the basal cerebral arteries through the intact skull was developed using a pulsed Doppler technique and 2 MHz emitting frequency. Relaxor-based ferroelectric single crystals Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) were chosen to be the piezoelectric transducer material due to their ultrahigh piezoelectric coefficients, high electromechanical coupling coefficients and low dielectric loss. The pulse-echo response of the transducer was measured using the conventional pulse-echo method in a water bath at room temperature. The −6 dB bandwidth of the transducer is 68.4% and the sensitivity is −17.4 dB. In order to get a good match between transducer and detection system, different transmission powers have been regulated by changing the impedance of the transmitting electric circuit. In the middle cerebral artery (MCA) measurement photograph results, as the transmission power is increasing, the detection results become clearer and clearer. A comparison at the same transmission power for different transducers shows that the detection photograph obtained by the crystal transducer was clearer than that obtained with a commercial transducer, which should make it easier for doctors to find the cerebral arteries.

The proteasome beta-4 subunit is required for the assembly of 20S proteasome complex, forming a pivotal component for the ubiquitin–proteasome system. Emerging evidence indicates that proteasome beta-4 subunit may be involved in underlying progression and mechanisms of malignancies. However, the role of proteasome beta-4 subunit in melanoma is currently unknown. Here, we reported that proteasome beta-4 subunit was markedly upregulated in human melanoma tissues and cells, compared with normal skin samples. High proteasome beta-4 subunit levels were significantly associated with poor overall survival in patients with melanoma. Proteasome beta-4 subunit knockdown strongly decreased melanoma cell growth in vitro and in vivo. We further identified miR-148b as a negative regulator of proteasome beta-4 subunit. Enforced expression of miR-148b resulted in vitro growth inhibition of melanoma cells, whereas this inhibition was further abolished by enforced expression of proteasome beta-4 subunit. Our findings, for the first time, indicated that the miR-148b/proteasome beta-4 subunit axis contributed to the development of melanoma, revealing novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of melanoma.

In this paper, we present the design of a clinical decision support system (CDSS) for monitoring comorbid conditions. Specifically, we address the architecture of a CDSS by characterizing it from three layers and discuss the algorithms in each layer. Also we address the applications of CDSSs in a few real scenarios and analyze the accuracy of a CDSS in consideration of the potential conflicts when using multiple clinical practice guidelines concurrently. Finally, we compare the system performance in our design with that in the other design schemes. Our study shows that our proposed design can achieve a clinical decision in a shorter time than the other designs, while ensuring a high level of system accuracy.

Megakaryocytes (MKs) are one of the few cell types that become polyploid; however, the mechanisms by which these cells are designated to become polyploid are not fully understood. In this investigation, we successfully established two relatively synchronous polyploid cell models by inducing Dami and CMK cells with SP600125. We found that SP600125 induced the polyploidization of Dami and CMK cells, concomitant with the phosphorylation of ribosomal protein S6 kinase 1 (S6K1) at Thr421/Ser424 and dephosphorylation at Thr389. The polyploidization was partially blocked by H-89, a cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) inhibitor, through direct binding to S6K1, leading to dephosphorylation at Thr421/Ser424 and phosphorylation at Thr389, independent of PKA. Overexpression of a rapamycin-resistant mutant of S6K1 further enhanced the inhibitory effect of LY294002 on the SP600125-induced polyploidization of Dami and CMK cells. SP600125 also induced the polyploidization of Meg-01 cells, which are derived from a patient with chronic myelogenous leukemia, without causing a significant change in S6K1 phosphorylation. Additionally, SP600125 induced the polyploidization of HEL cells, which are derived from a patient with erythroleukemia, and phosphorylation at Thr389 of S6K1 was detected. However, the polyploidization of both Meg-01 cells and HEL cells as a result of SP600125 treatment was lower than that of SP600125-induced Dami and CMK cells, and it was not blocked by H-89 despite the increased phosphorylation of S6K1 at Thr389 in both cell lines in response to H-89. Given that the Dami and CMK cell lines were derived from patients with acute megakaryocytic leukemia (AMKL) and expressed high levels of platelet-specific antigens, our data suggested that SP600125-induced polyploidization is cell-type specific, that these cell lines were more differentiated, and that phosphorylation at Thr421/Ser424 and dephosphorylation at Thr389 of S6K1 may play an important role in the SP600125-induced polyploidization of these cell lines synergistically with other signaling pathways.

Author(s): Di-Lin Yu [1,2]; Tao-Chieh Yang [3]; Hsin-Yi Chi (corresponding author) [1,2] Sir, Multiple cranial neuropathies (MCN) have complicated clinical presentations and diverse differential diagnoses. The common causes include neoplasms, [...]

In wireless healthcare monitoring systems, bandwidth allocation is an efficient solution to the problem of scarce wireless bandwidth for the monitoring of patients. However, when the central unit cannot access the exact channel state information (CSI), the efficiency of bandwidth allocation decreases, and the system performance also decreases. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to reduce the negative effects of imperfect CSI on system performance. In this algorithm, the central unit can predict the current CSI by previous CSI when the current CSI is not available. We analyze the reliability of the proposed algorithm by deducing the standard error of estimated CSI with this algorithm. In addition, we analyze the efficiency of the proposed algorithm by discussing the system performance with this algorithm.

Transcriptome profiling by RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) has been widely used to characterize cellular status, but it relies on second-strand complementary DNA (cDNA) synthesis to generate initial material for library preparation. Here we use bacterial transposase Tn5, which has been increasingly used in various high-throughput DNA analyses, to construct RNA-seq libraries without second-strand synthesis. We show that Tn5 transposome can randomly bind RNA/DNA heteroduplexes and add sequencing adapters onto RNA directly after reverse transcription. This method, Sequencing HEteRo RNA-DNA-hYbrid (SHERRY), is versatile and scalable. SHERRY accepts a wide range of starting materials, from bulk RNA to single cells. SHERRY offers a greatly simplified protocol and produces results with higher reproducibility and GC uniformity compared with prevailing RNA-seq methods.

The study was to thoroughly investigate the weather resistance of polyethylene for rotational molding under different conditions, and to comprehensively understand the changing rules of their structure and performance. The structure and properties of polyethylene rotational molding special materials were investigated under different xenon lamp aging levels by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and other characterization methods. The results show that with the increase of xenon aging time, the surface morphology of the rotational plastic undergoes significant deformation and cracking, while the intensity of the internal carbonyl characteristic peaks also shows an increasing trend. The xenon lamp aging causes a significant shortening of the oxidation induction period of the rotational plastics. However, the rotational plastics show relatively stable characteristics in terms of melting and crystallization temperatures and processing properties. In addition, the yield stress of the rotational plastics increases, while the strain at fracture, stress at break and tensile strength show a decreasing trend. The experimental data in this study provide detailed information on the weather resistance of polyethylene for rotational molding, offering references for further optimizing product performance and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Somatic mutations that accumulate in normal tissues are associated with ageing and disease.sup.1,2. Here we performed a comprehensive genomic analysis of 1,737 morphologically normal tissue biopsies of 9 organs from 5 donors. We found that somatic mutation accumulations and clonal expansions were widespread, although to variable extents, in morphologically normal human tissues. Somatic copy number alterations were rarely detected, except for in tissues from the oesophagus and cardia. Endogenous mutational processes with the SBS1 and SBS5 mutational signatures are ubiquitous among normal tissues, although they exhibit different relative activities. Exogenous mutational processes operate in multiple tissues from the same donor. We reconstructed the spatial somatic clonal architecture with sub-millimetre resolution. In the oesophagus and cardia, macroscopic somatic clones that expanded to hundreds of micrometres were frequently seen, whereas in tissues such as the colon, rectum and duodenum, somatic clones were microscopic in size and evolved independently, possibly restricted by local tissue microstructures. Our study depicts a body map of somatic mutations and clonal expansions from the same individual. Laser-capture microdissection and mini-bulk exome sequencing are combined to analyse somatic mutations in morphologically normal tissues from nine organs from five donors, revealing variation in mutation burdens, mutational signatures and clonal expansions., Author(s): Ruoyan Li [sup.1] [sup.2] , Lin Di [sup.1] [sup.2] , Jie Li [sup.3] [sup.4] , Wenyi Fan [sup.5] , Yachen Liu [sup.5] , Wenjia Guo [sup.5] , Weiling Liu [...]