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ObjectiveTo observe the effect of mirror therapy (MT) combined with functional electrical stimulation (FES) on upper limb motor dysfunction and thenar muscle atrophy in stroke patients.MethodsA total of 120 patients with upper limb motor dysfunction after stroke in the Xingtai Third Hospital from August 2017 to August 2020 were randomly divided into control group and observation group, with 60 cases in each group. Both groups received routine drug treatment and conventional rehabilitation training. The control group received FES therapy in addition to the conventional therapy, while the observation group received MT therapy in addition to the conventional therapy. Before and after treatment, Fugl-Meyer assessment of upper extremity (FMA-UE), Wolf motor function test (WMFT) and Brunnstrom hemiplegia stage were used to evaluate the motor function of upper limbs of patients with stroke; functional independence measure (FIM) was used to evaluate the functional independence; modified Barthel index (MBI) was used to assess the activities of daily living of patients; and color ultrasound diagnostic instrument was used to measure the cross sectional area (CSA) and circumference of thenar muscles.Results(1) Motor function of upper limbs: compared with those before treatment, FMA-UE, WMFT and Brunnstrom hemiplegia stage scores of both groups after treatment significantly improved, and the differences were statistically significant (PPPPPP

The cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen-4 (CTLA4) gene, a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily, is crucial for maintaining immune homeostasis and preventing autoimmune diseases. Studies have shown that polymorphisms in the CTLA4 gene are linked to an increased risk of brucellosis in humans, but its association with brucellosis in goats remains unexplored. In this study, the tissue expression profile of CTLA4 in goats was investigated, and the correlation between InDel polymorphisms in the CTLA4 gene and susceptibility to brucellosis in goats was examined. The findings reveal the widespread expression of CTLA4 in goat tissues, particularly in the spleen and testes. The tested goat populations presented genotypes insertion/insertion (II), insertion/deletion (ID), and deletion/deletion (DD) at both the P1 and P2 loci, and an association analysis revealed significant differences in the distribution of genotypes and allele frequencies at the P1 and P2 loci of the CTLA4 gene between the Brucella goat case and the control groups (p < 0.05). Specifically, compared with the II genotype, the P1 and P2 loci were significantly associated with an elevated risk of brucellosis development in goats under both the codominant (ID/II) and dominant (ID + DD/II) models (P1, p = 0.042, p = 0.016; P2, p = 0.011, p = 0.014). Additionally, haplotype analysis indicated that haplotypes IP1DP2, DP1IP2, and DP1DP2 were significantly associated with an increased risk of brucellosis in goats compared to the reference haplotype IP1IP2 (p = 0.029, p = 0.012, p = 0.034). Importantly, the Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation of peripheral blood monocytes and/or macrophages from goats with the II, ID, and DD genotypes resulted in increased CTLA4 expression levels in the II genotype, leading to a robust LPS-induced inflammatory response. Through bioinformatic analysis, the observed effect of the InDel locus on Brucella pathogenesis risk in goats could be attributed to the differential binding of the transcription factors nuclear factor kappaB (NF-κB) and CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α (C/EBPα). These findings offer potential insights for breeding strategies against brucellosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TKTL1 is a crucial regulatory enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) and plays a significant role in energy synthesis. It is expressed in various tumour tissues, with its expression level closely associated with tumour invasion, metastasis and prognosis. Recent studies utilising proteomic analysis and other methods have highlighted the noteworthy expression of the TKTL1 gene in germ cells, particularly in spermatogonia and ovarian cells. Consequently, this article reviews the molecular characteristics of TKTL1 and its expression in germ cells to provide a reference for research on TKTL1 beyond tumour cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to explore how to apply blockchain technology to intelligent transportation, create a hierarchical theoretical framework of intelligent transportation, and explore a sustainable application system of intelligent transportation under the blockchain. However, not only this hierarchical theoretical framework must consider unnecessary attributes and the interrelationships between the aspects and the criteria, but also the sustainable application system must be in consideration in multiple stakeholders. Hence, fuzzy set theory is used for screening out the unnecessary attributes, a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is proposed to manage the complex interrelationships among the aspects and attributes, and interpretive structural modeling (ISM) is used to divide the hierarchy and construct a hierarchical theoretical framework. Finally, the research develops a sustainable GCU application system for intelligent transportation under the blockchain. The results show that (1) solving social problems is the primary link, (2) economic tasks are mainly focused on smart contracts and affected by the social problems, (3) the continuous improvement of environmental issues requires a solution to social problems, and (4) the application system of blockchain in intelligent transportation needs to be built from three levels including the government layer, the company layer, and the user layer. This theoretical hierarchical framework aims to guide intelligent transportation toward the application of blockchain. This study also proposes the engagement of stakeholders for establishing a sustainable application system., 1. Introduction Urban intelligent traffic aims to give full play to the carrying capacity of the road network, solve all varieties of traffic problems, and improve traffic safety and environmental [...]

The integration of big data analytics with effective supply chain practices based on dynamic capability theory is an emerging topic, and the relationship that exists between big data analytics and supply chain dynamic capabilities and supply chain practices, and their impact on supply chain performance, requires further research. This article examines the relationship between three supply chain practices and supply chain performance. The information provided by managers of 415 companies in China was used as a sample and the data collected was empirically tested using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings show that different supply chain practices have a positive impact on supply chain dynamic capability and supply chain performance, that supply chain dynamic capability has an indirect mediating effect, and that big data analysis has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between supply chain practices and supply chain performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Desertification is one of the most critical environmental and socioeconomic issues in the world today. Located in the transitional region between the desert and the Loess Plateau, the Mu Us Sandy Land is one of the nine most environmentally sensitive areas in the world. Remote sensing provides an effective technical method for desertification monitoring. In order to analyze the spatiotemporal distribution of desertification in the Mu Us Sandy Land from 1991 to 2021, the "MSAVI-Albedo" model was employed to extract desertification data in 1991, 2002, 2009 and 2021. The clustering characteristics of desertification were analyzed based on Moran's I statistic. Subsequently, the driving forces in desertification changes were investigated using a geographical detector to analyze the influence of soil, meteorology, and topography on desertification. Additionally, the impact of meteorological and human factors on desertification change in the Mu Us Sandy Land was assessed. From 1991 to 2021, the degree of desertification of the Mu Us Sandy Land showed an overall decreasing trend, and the percentage of land classified as undergoing extremely severe, severe, moderate and mild desertification was improved by 86.11%, 81.82%, 52.5% and 37.42%, respectively. The proportion of land classified as undergoing extremely severe desertification decreased from 29.22% to 5.62%, and the proportion of land undergoing no desertification increased from 4.16% to 18.33%. At the same time, the desertification center shifted westward, and the desertification distribution showed a clustering trend. It is known that different factors affect the formation and distribution of desertification in the Mu Us Sandy Land in the following order: soil, meteorology, and topography. Over the past 30 years, the mean annual temperature and annual precipitation increased at rates of 0.01871 °C/a and 1.0374 mm/a, respectively, while the mean annual wind speed decreased at a rate of 0.00945 m/s·a. These changes provided more favorable natural conditions for vegetation growth and sand fixation. Human factors, such as economic development, agriculture and animal husbandry practices, and the policy of returning farmland to forest (grassland) also had a significant impact on the desertification process, leading to a year-by-year improvement in the ecological environment of the Mu Us Sandy Land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding a means to extract water body information efficiently and accurately from high-resolution remote sensing images has been an important research direction in the field of water body extraction in recent years. However, shadows from buildings and other obstacles interfere with the accuracy of water body extraction. To address this problem, this paper proposes a neural network method incorporating an attention mechanism for water body extraction. This paper is based on the U-Net convolutional neural network and adds the squeeze-and-excitation module of SENet, an attention mechanism, to the downsampling process of the U-Net network. The module weights the feature maps so that the network focuses more on the features of the water body information and thus reduces attention to the shadow features from buildings and other features, thus improving the accuracy of image segmentation. The dropout and batch normalization layers are also added to improve the generalization ability and stability of the model. In this paper, a water extraction network SE-CU-Net model is presented to overcome the shadowing effect from buildings and other features. Using GF-2 images of Jiangsu province as the data source, the recognition results of this paper are compared with Dense-Net, Res-Net, Seg-Net, U-net, SVM, and RF. Through the comparison experiments, the model of this paper can not only better overcome the influence of shadows from buildings and other features, but it also has a stronger recognition ability and recognition effect. The average ASCR, Precision, mIoU, OA, F1-Score and kappa coefficients in the three tested areas reached 98.27%, 97.17%, 89.33%, 98.2%, 89.3% and 0.883, respectively, with significantly higher accuracy than the other six classical methods, verifying the effectiveness of the model in overcoming the influence of shadows from buildings and other features in water body extraction research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to expand the acceptance of the AI virtual assistant model from the perspective of user cognition. Based on the 240 samples, the authors used multi-layer regression analysis to investigate the influencing factors and differential effects of user acceptance of AI virtual assistant. The results show that functional cognition and emotional cognition of users are important influencing factors for an artificial intelligence virtual assistant. This provides a new perspective for user acceptance processes of the AI virtual assistant. They also examined the moderating effect of social norms between user cognition and AI virtual assistant. At last, a new AI acceptance model of AI virtual assistant was established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]