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How to use a few defect samples to complete the defect classification is a key challenge in the production of mobile phone screens. An attention-relation network for the mobile phone screen defect classification is proposed in this paper. The architecture of the attention-relation network contains two modules: a feature extract module and a feature metric module. Different from other few-shot models, an attention mechanism is applied to metric learning in our model to measure the distance between features, so as to pay attention to the correlation between features and suppress unwanted information. Besides, we combine dilated convolution and skip connection to extract more feature information for follow-up processing. We validate attention-relation network on the mobile phone screen defect dataset. The experimental results show that the classification accuracy of the attention-relation network is 0.9486 under the 5-way 1-shot training strategy and 0.9039 under the 5-way 5-shot setting. It achieves the excellent effect of classification for mobile phone screen defects and outperforms with dominant advantages.

Abstract Industrial CO2 electrolysis via electrochemical CO2 reduction has achieved progress in alkaline solutions, while the same reaction in acidic solution remains challenging because of severe hydrogen evolution side reactions, acid corrosion, and low target product selectivity. Herein, an industrial acidic CO2 electrolysis to pure HCOOH system is realized in a proton-exchange-membrane electrolyzer using an acid-tolerant Bi-based metal-organic framework guided by a Pourbaix diagram. Significantly, the Faradaic efficiency of HCOOH synthesis reaches 95.10% at a large current density of 400 mA/cm2 with a high CO2 single-pass conversion efficiency of 64.91%. Moreover, the proton-exchange-membrane device also achieves an industrial-level current density of 250 mA/cm2 under a relatively low voltage of 3.5 V for up to 100 h with a Faradaic efficiency of 93.5% for HCOOH production, which corresponds to an energy consumption of 200.65 kWh/kmol, production rate of 12.1 mmol/m2/s, and an energy conversion efficiency of 38.2%. These results will greatly aid the contemporary research moving toward commercial implementation and success of CO2 electrolysis technology.

AbstractStrobilanthes dalzielii of Acanthaceae is an herb species with potentially extensive applications for its pharmaceutical and ornamental values. Due to taxonomic complications and limited genetic information, the structural characteristics, and phylogenetic relationships of the S. dalzielii chloroplast genome were assembled and characterized here for the first time. The complete chloroplast genome of S. dalzielii was 144,580 bp in length. The genome is quadripartite in structure and consists of a large single-copy region (92,137 bp) and a small single-copy region (17,669 bp), which are separated by a pair of inverted repeats (each 17,387 bp). A total of 125 genes were annotated, including 80 protein-coding, 37 transfer RNA, and eight ribosomal RNA genes. The overall GC content was 36.4%. Phylogenetic analysis based on the complete chloroplast genome sequence of 21 taxa within the tribe Ruellieae of Acanthaceae using the maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods revealed that Strobilanthes diverged after Ruellia; S. dalzielii is closely related to S. tonkinensis. The genomic data obtained from this study will serve as valuable information to the species delimitation and genetic classification of Strobilanthes.

Oreocharis argyreia var. angustifolia of Gesneriaceae is widely distributed in South China, including Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces. However, genetic information of this species is limited, further contributing to the taxonomic complications surrounding this species. Thus, in this study, we assembled and characterized the complete chloroplast genome of O. argyreia var. angustifolia as a genomic resource for future studies. The complete plastid genome was 154,675 bp in size, with a pair of inverted repeat regions of 25,329 bp each, separating the 85,977-bp large and 18,040-bp small single copy regions. A total of 131 genes were predicted, consisting of 86 protein-coding, 37 tRNA, and eight rRNA genes. The overall GC content was 37.6%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 79 shared unique CDS resulted in a fully resolved phylogenetic tree using both the maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods. Based on current circumscription, both methods indicated that Oreocharis is monophyletic; O. argyreia var. angustifolia diverged after O. chienii, which then followed by the divergence of the other three species included namely, O. continifolia, O. esquirolii, and O. mileensis. The genomic data obtained will be useful for future studies on the phylogenetics and evolution of Gesneriaceae.

Soil environmental issues in the red bed region are increasingly conspicuous, underscoring the critical importance of assessing soil quality for the region’s sustainable development and ecosystem security. This study examines six distinct land use types of soils—agricultural land (AL), woodland (WL), shrubland (SL), grassland (GL), bare rock land (BRL), and red bed erosion land (REL)—in the Nanxiong Basin of northern Guangdong Province. This area typifies red bed desertification in South China. Principal component analysis (PCA) was employed to establish a minimum data set (MDS) for calculating the soil quality index (SQI), evaluating soil quality, analyzing influencing factors, and providing suggestions for ecological restoration in desertification areas. The study findings indicate that a minimal data set comprising soil organic matter (SOM), pH, available phosphorus (AP), exchangeable calcium (Ca2+), and available copper (A-Cu) is most suitable for evaluating soil quality in the red bed desertification areas of the humid region in South China. Additionally, we emphasize that exchangeable salt ions and available trace elements should be pivotal considerations in assessing soil quality within desertification areas. Regarding comprehensive soil quality indicators across various land use types, the red bed erosion soils exhibited the lowest quality, followed by those in bare rock areas and forest land. Within the minimal data set, Ca2+ and pH contributed the most to overall soil quality, underscoring the significance of parent rock mineral composition in the red bed desertification areas. Moreover, the combined effects of SOM, A-Cu, and AP on soil quality indicate that anthropogenic land management and use, including fertilization methods and vegetation types, are crucial factors influencing soil quality. Our research holds significant implications for the scientific assessment, application, and enhancement of soil quality in desertification areas.

Abstract Chromobox protein homolog 4 (CBX4) is a component of the Polycomb group (PcG) multiprotein Polycomb repressive complexes 1 (PRC1), which is participated in several processes including growth, senescence, immunity, and tissue repair. CBX4 has been shown to have diverse, even opposite functions in different types of tissue and malignancy in previous studies. In this study, we found that CBX4 deletion promoted lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) proliferation and progression in KrasG12D mutated background. In vitro, over 50% Cbx4 L/L , Kras G12D mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) underwent apoptosis in the initial period after Adeno-Cre virus treatment, while a small portion of survival cells got increased proliferation and transformation abilities, which we called selected Cbx4 −/− , Kras G12D cells. Karyotype analysis and RNA-seq data revealed chromosome instability and genome changes in selected Cbx4 −/− , Kras G12D cells compared with Kras G12D cells. Further study showed that P15, P16 and other apoptosis-related genes were upregulated in the primary Cbx4 −/− , Kras G12D cells due to chromosome instability, which led to the large population of cell apoptosis. In addition, multiple pathways including Hippo pathway and basal cell cancer-related signatures were altered in selected Cbx4 −/− , Kras G12D cells, ultimately leading to cancer. We also found that low expression of CBX4 in LUAD was associated with poorer prognosis under Kras mutation background from the human clinical data. To sum up, CBX4 deletion causes genomic instability to induce tumorigenesis under KrasG12D background. Our study demonstrates that CBX4 plays an emerging role in tumorigenesis, which is of great importance in guiding the clinical treatment of lung adenocarcinoma.

To analyze the chemical components of the tender leaves of Cyclocarya paliurus, a rapid qualitative analysis of the chemical components of the percolation extracts of the tender leaves of Cyclocarya paliurus was carried out by ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS). Mass spectrum data were collected in the positive and negative ion modes, and MassHunter qualitative analysis software was used, according to the retention time and mass spectrum information of each compound, combined with existing literature and mass spectrum databases, the compounds were analyzed for the fragmentation rule, 94 compounds were identified from Cyclocarya paliurus, including 29 flavonoids, 16 triterpenes, 25 organic acids, 24 other compounds. The analysis results showed that the percolation extract of Cyclocarya paliurus contained flavonoids, organic acids, triterpenoids, coumarins, amino acids, and other compounds, and malic acid, hesperidin, rosin, 6,7-dihydroxycoumarin, 6-methylcoumarin, 5,7-dimethoxycoumarin are found in Cyclocarya paliurus for the first time. This study can lay a foundation for further clarifying the material basis of Cyclocarya paliurus. It provides a theoretical basis for the development of relevant products of Cyclocarya paliurus.

While epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modification are known to be important for gene suppression, relatively little is still understood about the interplay between these systems. The UHRF1 protein can interact with both DNA methylation and repressive chromatin marks, but its primary function in humans has been unclear. To determine what that was, we first established stable UHRF1 knockdowns (KD) in normal, immortalized human fibroblasts using targeting shRNA, since CRISPR knockouts (KO) were lethal. Although these showed a loss of DNA methylation across the whole genome, transcriptional changes were dominated by the activation of genes involved in innate immune signalling, consistent with the presence of viral RNA from retrotransposable elements (REs). We confirmed using mechanistic approaches that 1) REs were demethylated and transcriptionally activated; 2) this was accompanied by activation of interferons and interferon-stimulated genes and 3) the pathway was conserved across other adult cell types. Restoring UHRF1 in either transient or stable KD systems could abrogate RE reactivation and the interferon response. Notably, UHRF1 itself could also re-impose RE suppression independent of DNA methylation, but not if the protein contained point mutations affecting histone 3 with trimethylated lysine 9 (H3K9me3) binding. Our results therefore show for the first time that UHRF1 can act as a key regulator of retrotransposon silencing independent of DNA methylation.

Christella dentata (Forssk.) Brownsey & Jermy (Thelypteridaceae) is endemic to the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Asia Pacific. In this study, the complete chloroplast genome sequence of C. dentata was assembled using next-generation sequencing data. The complete chloroplast genome was 151,662 bp in length and had a typical quadripartite structure, which consisted of a small single-copy region (21,776 bp) and a large single-copy region (82,624 bp) that were separated by a pair of inverted repeats (23,631 bp each). A total of 131 genes were predicted, including 89 protein coding (CDS), 34 tRNA, and eight rRNA genes. The overall GC content of the chloroplast genome was 42.48%. Based on the concatenated shared unique CDS sequence dataset, phylogenetic analysis using both the maximum-likelihood and the Bayesian inference methods revealed that C. dentata is placed within Thelypteridaceae and is closely related to Christella appendiculata. Such genetic information would be useful for studies on the evolution pattern in ferns. The availability of chloroplast genome sequence for the species also paves the way to resolving the complicated relationship among members of Christella.

A new drift module has been developed in the DIVIMP code, enabling two-dimensional simulations of tungsten (W) transport in the edge plasma with full drifts included. By using the SOLPS-DIVIMP code package, the impact of drifts on W transport and screening has been investigated for various levels of dissipative divertor conditions and different divertor geometric configurations in EAST. Simulation results reveal that $\vec E \times \vec B$ drifts can enhance the W leakage by more than one order of magnitude. Under the favorable B _t direction, W erosion mainly occurs on the outer divertor target, making the W leakage from the outer divertor region the dominator. A leakage path from the near-scrape-off layer (SOL) region is revealed by the modeling results. In the leakage path, both the ion temperature gradient force and the reversed poloidal $\vec E \times \vec B$ drift are pointing upstream. With the radial $\vec E \times \vec B$ drift pushing W ions from the well-screened far-SOL region to the near-SOL region, the leakage from the near-SOL region becomes significant. As the divertor condition varies from the low-recycling regime to the deep detachment regime, the decrease of the ion temperature gradient velocity and poloidal $\vec E \times \vec B$ drift velocity narrows the width of the near-SOL leakage tunnel and thus enhances W screening. While under the unfavorable B _t , W erosion and leakage from the inner divertor target matters, the leakage mechanism especially the leakage path from the near-SOL region is similar as the favorable B _t cases. Furthermore, the effect of different divertor geometries on the W screening has been investigated. The configuration with the outer strike point (OSP) on the horizontal divertor plate is proved to narrow the near-SOL leakage tunnel, and thus the unreversed poloidal $\vec E \times \vec B$ drift pointing to the divertor target dominates and helps to enhance the divertor W screening. For the same D _2 puffing rate, the W leakage ability of cases with the OSP on the horizontal target can be more than 10 times weaker than the cases with the OSP on the vertical target, especially when the divertor is detached.

The heat flux width ( λ _q ) is a key parameter determining the heat load at divertor targets. In recent years, drifts have been found to play a remarkable role in the edge plasma transport, while its influence on λ _q has not been well understood. Investigations of the influence of drifts on λ _q , systematic simulations using the SOLPS-ITER code are performed in this work. The statistics of the simulation results show that the drift under favorable/unfavorable B _T tends to increase the λ _q in the outer/inner side and decrease the λ _q in the other side, which is consistent with the experiment observations. At the upstream and the target, the mechanisms of the influence of the drifts on λ _q are different. The upstream λ _q ( λ _q _,u ) is directly affected by the drift-induced convective heat flux, while λ _q at the target ( λ _q _,t ) is indirectly influenced through heat conduction (in the high-recycling regime) and the sheath (in the detached regime) due to the change of plasma parameters there. Furthermore, the synergetic effect of geometry and drift under favorable B _T leads to an anomalously large λ _q _,t in the inner side at high density.

In the field of heat manipulation, active thermal cloaks based on thermoelectric chips (TECs) have received much less attention than passive thermal cloaks based on metamaterials. This work focuses on active thermal cloaks and explores in-depth their mechanism of heat flow regulation. For a two-dimensional circular object located in a rectangular background plate with uniform temperature gradient, the theoretical design of an active cloak was realized by analytically solving for the target temperature field. A parameter study was conducted numerically for the designed thermal cloak. The results show that the object-to-background thermal conductivity ratio (m) is the key parameter that determines the working mode of the cloak. When m < 1, the TECs work in a heating mode with less power consumption; when m > 1, the TECs work in a chilling/heat pump mode with higher power consumption. If the change of a certain parameter increases the heat flow regulation, it will also cause performance degradation and an increase of the thermal cloak’s power consumption, especially when m is greater than 1. Improvement can be achieved by increasing the number of TECs (N), but the impact of N diminishes rapidly beyond a certain value. The systematic study in this work reveals the high flexibility and wide adaptability of the TE-chip-based thermal cloak in heat flow regulation.

In China, the fast growth of the economy and society is causing a change in the multifunction of cultivated land (MCL), but there is still a lack of proper understanding of the structural connections between these internal functions. Based on exploring the theoretical concept of MCL and quantitative measurement, this paper applied the trade-off/synergy model and the bivariate spatial autocorrelation model to investigate the relationships between the various dimensions of MCL, and the influential factors was revealed by Geographical Detectors. Our research demonstrated that the function of China's cultivated land has obviously changed from a single grain production to a complex including social security, ecological and cultural functions during 2010–2020. Through quantitative measurement of MCL, the results show that, on the one hand, the total amount of MCL increases significantly over time; on the other hand, MCL shows a typical spatial differentiation characteristic of “high in the southern and low in the northern”. According to the analysis of trade-off/synergy, overall, the MCL presents a positive synergy situation, and this situation has been enhanced over time. As to the influencing factors, the socio-economic development, especially the rural development, significantly affected the trade-off/synergy. Moreover, multi-factor interaction considerably improves the explanatory power of the trade-off/synergy relationship for MCL. These results provide evidence for establishing a more efficient use of cultivated land and can also provide food security management strategies.

In this work, a model for predicting the leakage rate was developed to investigate the effect of irradiation on the sealing performance of ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) O-rings. The model is based on a mesoscopic interfacial gap flow simulation and accurately predicts the sealing performance of irradiated and non-irradiated materials by utilizing the gap height as an indicator in a mechanical simulation of the O-ring under operating conditions. A comparison with vacuum test results indicates that the model is a good predictor of leak initiation. The positive pressure leakage of the O-rings was investigated numerically. The results show the following. The sealing performance of the non-irradiated O-ring is much better than that of the irradiated one. The sealing performance is the worst at 0. 713 MGy and the best at 1.43 MGy, and the seal is maintained at an absorbed dose of 3.55 MGy. A theoretical analysis of the non-monotonic variation using the proposed model shows that the leakage behavior of the O-rings depends not only on the material properties but also on the roughness and prestressing properties. Finally, a method was proposed to classify the sealing performance, using the maximum allowable leakage rate as an indicator.

Soil erosion is the primary factor inducing soil deterioration in large river basins. Management and conservation of the soil erosion of the red bed desert, a unique gully landform shaped by intensive weathering and hydraulic erosion under the humid climate in south-eastern China, is crucial for its long-term sustainable development. This study, focusing on the Nanxiong Basin, a representative area with red beds, applied Gaofen(Gf)-2 satellite images to the RUSLE Model to analyze soil erosion modulus before and after implementing treatment for soil erosion control. We qualified the volume of soil erosion and mapped the spatial erosion variability in the basin. The results exhibited a decrease in the average erosion modulus from 3943.56 t·km−2·yr−1 to 2023.1 t·km−2·yr−1, which caused a reduction in total soil loss from 4.64 million tons to 2.38 million tons after treatment, with a reduction of about 48.7%. The mitigation reduced soil erosion from a moderate level to a light level. The areas that integrated soil and water conservation practices (SWCP) with management measures showed evident improvement in soil erosion, with a dramatic reduction in areas with annual erosion of a strong level (5000~8000 t·km−2·yr−1), extremely strong level (8000~15,000 t·km−2·yr−1), and severe level (>15,000 t·km−2·yr−1). Despite spatial heterogeneity in soil erosion intensity in the basin, this study demonstrates the great performance of SWCP in mitigating red bed degradation. The study provides a solid scientific basis for soil erosion control using ecological engineering in the Nanxiong Basin. It can also serve as an illustrative case study for further applications on soil erosion assessment in similar small basins.

The source and leakage of both C and W are comparatively studied for a partially detached divertor operation condition on EAST. Based on the EAST experiments, sequential SOLPS-DIVIMP simulations are carried out to study the transport of intrinsic impurities in the boundary plasma. Carbon distribution from the fluid SOLPS simulation is in good agreement with the impurity tracing results from the Monte-Carlo DIVIMP simulation. The impurity leakage processes from the divertor target to the core plasma are quantitatively analyzed and divided into three parts: the prompt redeposition, the divertor screening, and the main SOL screening. Under the partially detached divertor condition, W has a higher prompt redeposition rate and a weaker cross-field transport from the main SOL to the core region than C. However, the strong parallel impurity transport from the divertor region to the main SOL makes the total leakage rate of W two times higher than that of C. The impurity velocity gained from the ion temperature gradient force in both the near-SOL detached region and the far-SOL attached region is evaluated. The relatively higher ion temperature gradient velocity of W in the attached region is the main reason for the higher divertor leakage rate than C, and the strong W source in the far-SOL makes the leakage from the attached region more significant.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Phyllonorycter ringoniella (Matsumura, 1931) is characterized by a circular with 15,729 bp in size, containing 37 encoded genes and a control region. The gene order and nucleotide composition are similar to the known gracillariid mitogenomes. All protein-coding genes (PCGs) initiate with ATN and terminate with TAN, while cox1 starts with CGA, cox1, cox2, nad3, and nad5 terminate with an incomplete codon TA– or T–. All transfer RNA genes (tRNAs) can fold into typical clover-leaf structure, except for trnS1 (AGN), in which dihydrouridine stem is simplified to form a loop structure. The control region is located between 12S rRNA and trnM with relatively strong AT bias. The phylogenetic trees reveal that two subfamilies Oecophyllembiinae and Acrocercopinae were clustered together, and that clade was sister to the subfamily Lithocolletinae. All species of the genus Phyllonorycter grouped into a monophyletic clade and the P. ringoniella was closely related to P. platani.

Abstract Background The WRKY transcription factor family plays significant roles in biotic and abiotic stress responses, which has been associated with various biological processes in higher plants. However, very little is known regarding the structure and function of WRKY genes in maize. Results In this study, a total of 140 ZmWRKY proteins encoded by 125 ZmWRKY genes were eventually identified in maize. On the basis of features of molecular structure and a comparison of phylogenetic relationships of WRKY transcription factor families from Arabidopsis, rice and maize, all 140 ZmWRKY proteins in maize were divided into three main groups (Groups I, II and III) and the Group II was further classified into five subgroups. The characteristics of exon-intron structure of these putative ZmWRKY genes and conserved protein motifs of their encoded ZmWRKY proteins were also presented respectively, which was in accordance with the group classification results. Promoter analysis suggested that ZmWRKY genes shared many abiotic stress-related elements and hormone-related elements. Gene duplication analysis revealed that the segmental duplication and purifying selection might play a significant role during the evolution of the WRKY gene family in maize. Using RNA-seq data, transcriptome analysis indicated that most of ZmWRKY genes displayed differential expression patterns at different developmental stages of maize. Further, by quantitative real-time PCR analysis, twenty-one ZmWRKY genes were confirmed to respond to two different abiotic stress treatments, suggesting their potential roles in various abiotic stress responses. In addition, RNA-seq dataset was used to conduct weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) in order to recognize gene subsets possessing similar expression patterns and highly correlated with each other within different metabolic networks. Further, subcellular localization prediction, functional annotation and interaction analysis of ZmWRKY proteins were also performed to predict their interactions and associations involved in potential regulatory network. Conclusions Taken together, the present study will serve to present an important theoretical basis for further exploring function and regulatory mechanism of ZmWRKY genes in the growth, development, and adaptation to abiotic stresses in maize.

Abstract Background Integrating systems biology is an approach for investigating metabolic diseases in humans. However, few studies use this approach to investigate the mechanism by which Rhizoma coptidis (RC) reduces the effect of lipids and glucose on high-fat induced obesity in rats. Methods Twenty-four specific pathogen-free (SPF) male Sprague–Dawley rats (80 ± 10 g) were used in this study. Serum metabolomics were detected by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry. Liver tissue and cecum feces were used for RNA-Seq technology and 16S rRNA gene sequencing, respectively. Results We identified nine potential biomarkers, which are differential metabolites in the Control, Model and RC groups, including linoleic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, arachidonic acid, stearic acid, and L-Alloisoleucine (p

Abstract Tet dioxygenases are responsible for the active DNA demethylation. The functions of Tet proteins in muscle regeneration have not been well characterized. Here we find that Tet2, but not Tet1 and Tet3, is specifically required for muscle regeneration in vivo. Loss of Tet2 leads to severe muscle regeneration defects. Further analysis indicates that Tet2 regulates myoblast differentiation and fusion. Tet2 activates transcription of the key differentiation modulator Myogenin (MyoG) by actively demethylating its enhancer region. Re-expressing of MyoG in Tet2 KO myoblasts rescues the differentiation and fusion defects. Further mechanistic analysis reveals that Tet2 enhances MyoD binding by demethylating the flanking CpG sites of E boxes to facilitate the recruitment of active histone modifications and increase chromatin accessibility and activate its transcription. These findings shed new lights on DNA methylation and pioneer transcription factor activity regulation.

Abstract Thin, lightweight, and flexible textile pressure sensors with the ability to detect the full range of faint pressure (

Chromobox 4 (CBX4) is a core component of polycomb-repressive complex 1 with important roles in cancer biology and tissue homeostasis. Aberrant expression of CBX4 has been implicated in several human malignancies. However, its role and underlying mechanisms in the tumorigenesis of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) have not been defined in vivo. Here, we found that expression of CBX4 was frequently up-regulated in human LUAD samples and correlated with poor patient survival. Importantly, genetic ablation of CBX4 greatly dampened lung tumor formation and improved survival in the KrasG12D/P53L/L (KP) autochthonous mouse model of LUAD. In addition, CBX4 depletion significantly inhibited proliferation and anchorage-independent growth of KP mouse embryonic fibroblasts. Moreover, ectopic CBX4 expression clearly promoted proliferation and anchorage-independent growth in both human and mouse LUAD cells, whereas silencing of CBX4 exerted opposite effects. Mechanistically, CBX4 promoted growth of LUAD cells through activation of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. Furthermore, expression levels of CBX4 were positively correlated with β-catenin in human LUAD samples. In conclusion, our data suggest that CBX4 plays an oncogenic role via the Wnt/β-catenin pathway and could serve as a potential therapeutic target in LUAD.

In this paper, we propose to apply data augmentation approaches that provide more diverse training images, thus helping train more robust deep models for the Scene Text Recognition (STR) task. The data augmentation methods are Random Blur Region (RBR) and Random Blur Units (RBUs). Specifically, we first introduce RBR designed for the STR task. In training, RBR randomly selects a region and sets the pixels in this region with an average value. However, when RBR provides more various training samples for STR, it may make the samples ambiguous and reduce the recognition accuracy. To address the above problem, we also propose RBUs that divides the blur region into several units. Note that the pixels of one unit share the same value. In this way, RBUs can provide additional readable training samples and help train more robust deep models. Extensive experiments on several STR datasets show that RBUs achieve highly competitive performance. Besides, RBUs are complementary to commonly used data augmentation techniques.

Nowdays, DNNs (Deep Neural Networks) are widely used in the field of DDoS attack detection. However, designing a good DNN architecture relies on the designer’s experience and requires considerable work. In this paper, a GA (genetic algorithm) is used to automatically generate the DNN architecture for DDoS detection to minimize human intervention in the design process. Furthermore, given the complexity of contemporary networks and the diversity of DDoS attacks, the objective of this paper is to generate a DNN model that boasts superior performance, real-time capability, and generalization ability to tackle intricate network scenarios. This paper presents a fitness function that guarantees the best model generated possesses a specific level of real-time capability. Additionally, the proposed method employs multiple datasets to joint models generated, thereby enhancing the model’s generalization performance. This paper conducts several experiments to validate the viability of the proposed method. Firstly, the best model generated with one dataset is compared with existing DNN models on the CICDDoS2019 dataset. The experimental results indicate that the model generated with one dataset has higher precision and F1-score than the existing DNN models. Secondly, model generation experiments are conducted on the CICIDS2017 and CICIDS2018 datasets, and the best model generated still performs well. Finally, this paper conducts comparative experiments on multiple datasets using the best model generated with six datasets and the best model generated by existing methods. The experimental results demonstrate that the best model generated with six datasets has better generalization ability and real-time capability.

Abstract Properties of wall pressure beneath a transitional hypersonic boundary layer over a 7∘ half-angle blunt cone at angle of attack 6∘ are studied by Direct Numerical Simulation. The wall pressure has two distinct frequency peaks. The low-frequency peak with f≈10−50 kHz is very likely the unsteady crossflow mode based on its convection direction, i.e. along the axial direction and towards the windward symmetry ray. High-frequency peaks are roughly proportional to the local boundary layer thickness. Along the trajectories of stationary crossflow vortices, the location of intense high-frequency wall pressure moves from the bottom of trough where the boundary layer is thin to the bottom of shoulder where the boundary layer is thick. By comparing the pressure field with that inside a high-speed transitional swept-wing boundary layer dominated by the z-type secondary crossflow mode, we found that the high-frequency signal originates from the Mack mode and evolves into the secondary crossflow instability.

Plasma-wall interaction is one of the key issues in tokamaks, as the material erosion and deposition will strongly influence the lifetime of plasma facing materials, fuel retention and plasma performance. Material migration and deposition have been firstly analyzed after the 2017 experimental campaign in EAST with tungsten (W) upper divertor, molybdenum inner wall and graphite lower divertor. It is found that the deposited elements on plasma-facing materials (PFMs) mainly consisted of Li, C, O, W and Mo etc, which was from the deposition of wall conditioning material and the sputtering of PFMs. More than 90 wt% of the deposits were lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide due to the routine lithium wall conditioning in EAST. Quantitative characterization of element density on graphite tile from lower inner divertor showed that W and Mo deposition increased when closer to the lower divertor, which is consistent with the decreasing normalized poloidal magnetic flux. The element composition of PFMs along poloidal direction has been measured by handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The concentration of deposited Mo and W is less than 0.2 wt% on most of the PFM surface. Double peaks of W concentration near the upper W divertor and at the midplane tile were observed on the TZM inner wall surface at the high-field side, which can be explained by higher redeposition at the location near the upper inner divertor or with a smaller normalized poloidal magnetic flux. Besides, more redeposited Mo and W was found at the inner and outer divertor near strike points compared with the dome region.

Hyperlipidemia characterized by abnormal deposition of cholesterol in arteries can cause atherosclerosis and coronary artery occlusion, leading to atherosclerotic coronary heart disease. The body prevents atherosclerosis by reverse cholesterol transport to mobilize and excrete cholesterol and other lipids. Apolipoprotein A1, the major component of high-density lipoprotein, plays a key role in reverse cholesterol transport. Here, we reviewed the role of apolipoprotein A1-targeting molecules in antiatherosclerosis therapy, in particular ATP-binding cassette transporter A1, lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase, and scavenger receptor class B type 1.

Urbanization has induced substantial changes in soil physicochemical characteristic, which plays an important role in regulating soil fauna biodiversity in forests and grasslands. However, less is known about the urbanization effect on soil fauna biodiversity and how soil physicochemical changes mediate this effect. Along an urbanization gradient in the city of Guangzhou, we established four sites with different urbanization intensities, including an urban site, two suburban sites, and a rural site, and then studied their soil physicochemical characteristic and soil fauna biodiversity. The soil physicochemical characteristic dramatically changed along the urbanization gradient. In contrast, the soil fauna biodiversity exhibited a very different pattern. Soil fauna abundance was highest in the suburban sites. Moreover, there were significant changes of Pielou’s evenness and community structure in the suburban sites. Soil fauna biodiversity property in the urban site was similar to that in the rural site, except that the rural site was characterized by Enchytraeidae while the urban site was not characterized by any taxa. Our linear and canonical correspondence analysis models suggested that soil physicochemical characteristic only contributed a little to the variance of soil fauna abundance (19%), taxa number (27%), and community structure (12%). In contrast, soil physicochemical characteristic explained about half of the variance in Shannon’s diversity and Pielou’s evenness. However, with urbanization intensity increasing, soil physicochemical changes could both increase and decrease the diversity and evenness. Thus, our results revealed an inconsistent pattern between soil fauna biodiversity and soil physicochemical characteristic along an urbanization gradient. This study suggested that soil physicochemical change was less important as expected in regulating soil fauna biodiversity pattern under an urbanization context. To elucidate the effect of urbanization on soil fauna biodiversity, further studies should take other urbanization agents into account.

With the rapid development of e-commerce, online consumption has become a mainstream form of consumption in recent years. Text sentiment analysis for a large number of customer reviews on the e-commerce platform can dramatically improve the customers' consumption experience. Although the sentiment analysis approaches based on deep neural network can achieve higher accuracy without human-design features compared with traditional sentiment analysis methods, the accuracy still cannot meet the demand and the training suffers from the issues of over-fitting, vanishing gradient, etc. In this paper, a novel sentiment analysis model named MBGCV is designed to alleviate these problems and improve the accuracy, MBGCV employs a multichannel paradigm and integrates Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Variational Information Bottleneck (VIB). The multichannel is exploited to extract multi-grained sentiment features. In each channel, BiGRU is utilized to extract context information, and then CNN is adopted to extract local features. Furthermore, the model combines the advantages of VIB and Maxout activation function to overcome shortcomings such as over-fitting, vanishing gradient in existing sentiment analysis models. By using real review datasets, we carry out extensive experiments to demonstrate that our proposed model can achieve superior accuracy and improve the performance of text sentiment analysis.

In recent years, speech recognition technology based on deep learning model has made great progress, and the accuracy of speech recognition has reached more than 90%. In foreign language learning, speech evaluation is an important application. Billions of foreign language learners need to practice effective pronunciation. However, due to the different goals between speech recognition and speech evaluation, a single speech recognition model cannot be directly applied to pronunciation evaluation. This paper proposes a DDNN (double-layer deep neural network) model, which includes the speech text alignment model and speech recognition model. In the first layer of the speech alignment model, a new Viterbi algorithm method is proposed to find the best path for the alignment of speech and text. In the second layer of speech evaluation and scoring, we are the first to use the CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) and RNN (Recurrent Neural Network) on the encoding part of Attention. The accuracy of CTC model reaches 76.7%, and that of attention model is 81.2%. The experimental results show that the speech and text alignment method is effective, and the speech evaluation results based on the Attention model are better. The FRR (false rejection rate), FAR (false acceptance rate), and DER (diagnostic rate) in the Attention model were 4.5%, 5.1%, and 17.9%, respectively. At the same time, the evaluation of each sentence of the DDNN model in the online experiment is within 1 second, so the model can also be applied to the online real-time evaluation of speech pronunciation.

Tire pressure monitoring is essential to driving safety. Indirect tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) is a cost-effective alternative to direct tire pressure monitoring system. Its performance depends on the algorithm for data pre-processing and analysis which is normally complicated, sensitive to initial calibration with limited working range. In this work, four tests were carried out with Baojun 530 with a different deflated tire in each case. Speed data read through ABS CAN bus was analyzed and traditional frequency based method was employed to identify the deflated tire. To simplify the data pre-processing and improve response speed and working range, a new artificial neural network (ANN) based method was also proposed to identify deflated tire based on speed data point collected through antilock brake system (ABS) sensors in tests. A long short-term memory (LSTM) network was developed to locate the deflated tire with an accuracy of 0.83 after training for individual data points. And performance of this method can be further improved by employing a soft voting mechanism with 3 LSTM networks. In proposed ANN based method, benchmark data from properly inflated tire is not required, which makes it a promising solution for multiple deflated tires cases which is challenging for traditional frequency-based method.

Sustained nitrogen (N) deposition has a wide-ranging impact on terrestrial ecosystems. However, still little attention has been paid to responses of urban soil fauna to the increasing N deposition. To clarify such effects on the soil properties and soil fauna in typical urban lawns (featuring Cynodon dactylon vegetation), a control experiment was conducted for 1 year, in which NH4NO3 was added as the external N source with four treatments of N addition: N0 (i.e., only water), N1 (50 kg N ha–1 yr–1), N2 (100 kg N ha–1 yr–1), N3 (150 kg N ha–1 yr–1). Results showed that N additions influence soil faunal communities in the urban lawns soil. The relative abundance of Oribatida increased with the N treatment level, partially replacing the more sensitive Collembola. Significant differences in the Shannon-Wiener and Margalef indices (p < 0.01) supported this statement. Although higher doses of N addition showed adverse effects on soil fauna communities, low N inputs increased the soil fauna diversity and richness, especially at 5–10 cm depth. A threshold effect appears to exist: low N addition (

Epoxy molding compounds (EMCs) are commonly used in electronic products for chip encapsulation, but the moisture absorption of EMC can induce significant reliability challenges. In this study, the effects of hygrothermal conditions and structure parameters on moisture diffusion and the consequent influences (such as moisture content on die surfaces and stress distribution) on a system-in-package module have been systematically investigated by moisture–thermal–mechanical-coupled modeling. Hygroscopic tests were carried out on a new commercial EMC at 60 °C/60% RH and 85 °C/85% RH, followed by evaluations of diffusion coefficients by Fick’s law. It was found that the moisture diffusion coefficients and saturation concentrations at 85 °C/85% RH were higher than those at 60 °C/60% RH. From the modeling, it was found that the consequent maximum out-of-plane deformation and stress of the module at 85 °C/85% RH were both higher than those at 60 °C/60% RH. Influences of thicknesses of EMC and PCB on the moisture diffusion behavior have also been studied for design optimization. It was found that the maximum moisture concentration on die surfaces and resultant stress increased notably with thinner PCB, whereas the effects of EMC thickness were limited. This can be attributed to the comparison between the thicknesses of EMC and PCB and the shortest existing diffusion path within the module. These findings can provide helpful insights to the design optimization of electronic modules for hygrothermal conditions.

Background: Microwave ablation (MWA) has several advantages over radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of MWA with those of RFA for HCC from the perspectives of percutaneous and laparoscopic approaches. Methods: PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, the Cochrane library, and China Biology Medicine databases were searched. Studies comparing the efficacy and safety of MWA with those of RFA in patients with HCC were considered eligible. Complete ablation (CA), local recurrence (LR), disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and the major complication rate were compared between MWA and RFA. Results: Four randomized controlled trials and 10 cohort studies were included. For percutaneous ablation, no significant difference was found between MWA and RFA regarding CA, LR, DFS, OS, and the major complication rate. A subgroup analysis of tumors measuring ≥3 cm revealed no difference in CA and LR for percutaneous ablation. For laparoscopic ablation, a significantly lower LR rate and a non-significant trend toward a higher major complication rate were observed for the MWA group (odds ratio [OR] 2.16, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.16–4.02, p = .01 for LR; OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.04–1.03, p = .05 for major complication rate). CA, DFS, and OS were similar between the two groups. Conclusions: Percutaneous (P)-MWA had similar therapeutic effects compared with P-RFA for HCC. Patients undergoing laparoscopic MWA had a lower LR rate; however, their major complication rate appeared to be higher. The superiority of MWA over RFA remains unclear and needs to be confirmed by high-quality evidence.

In China, disputes regarding the benefits and drawbacks of land finance have been heated, but the role of land in urban economic growth has received insufficient attention, particularly on a macro scale. This research used the Cobb–Douglas production function model to investigate the role of land in urban economic growth. Then, we conducted an empirical test using panel data from 30 provinces from 2000 to 2019, with the goal of revealing the role of land in urban growth and spatio-temporal inequalities in China. Furthermore, to find the spatial steady-state level of land contributions, σ convergence, absolute β convergence, and condition β convergence tests were applied. The results show that: (1) China’s urban economic development was influenced by the combined element of land, capital, and labor; (2) the contribution of land to China’s urban economy experienced a turning point during the “12th Five-Year Plan”; (3) the spatio-temporal convergence of the contribution of land showed convergence in the east but nonconvergence in the central and western regions; and (4) β convergence demonstrated convergence in eastern, central, and western China. Given the complex and turbulent international political and economic context, the Chinese government should think about how to foster continuous energy by supporting land-supply policies that are adapted to local needs.

With the exploitation of the lower coal seams of the Taiyuan Formation, the Ordovician limestone water inrush in the floor became more serious. This paper considers the 162 and 163 mining areas of the Jiangzhuang Coal Mine, in Shandong Province, China. A comprehensive analysis of the geological and hydrogeological conditions of the mining area revealed the following: water pressure and water richness provide the water source and power for the floor water inrush; the thickness of the effective aquifer and the ratio of brittle rock can restrain floor water inrush; fault structures provide water inrush channels; and mining damage is an artificial interference and increases the probability of water inrush. Therefore, six factors: the water pressure of the Ordovician limestone aquifer, water abundance of the Ordovician limestone aquifer, equivalent thickness of effective aquifuge, brittle rock ratio, fracture structure, and mining destruction were selected as the influencing factors on water penetration of the bottom plate, and drawing software was used to establish a mining area map of related factors. The improved fuzzy hierarchical analysis method is more suitable for analyzing multi-objective decisions than the traditional hierarchical analysis method, but the weighting of results is influenced by expert experience. The entropy weight method is data-driven, and the empowerment results are objective. The improved fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and entropy weight method were coupled together, to determine the weight of each factor. The new method is not only data driven, but also takes empirical experience into consideration, making the empowerment results more reasonable. An evaluation of coal floor water inrush was established using MapGIS10.6, which is a general tool-type geographic information system software developed by the China University of Geosciences; and the risk of Ordovician limestone water inrush in the floor of the study area was classified into four levels: dangerous, relatively dangerous, relatively safe, and safe. The whole evaluation process is simple, but the evaluation results have practical importance and are very efficient, providing theoretical support for coal mine water prevention and control engineering.

There has been a recent increase in interest on how urbanization affects soil fauna communities. However, previous studies primarily focused on some limited land use types or line transects of urban-rural gradients. At family and higher taxonomic levels, we investigated the changes of soil mesofauna communities (abundance, species richness, and community structure) with urbanization intensity along different disturbance features in 47 sites evenly located in downtown Guangzhou and adjacent regions. The 47 research sites were classified into four ecosystem types mainly according to the location (rural/urban), vegetation cover, and management intensity. In turn, the four types with increasing urbanization intensity were rural forest, urban forest, urban woodland, and urban park. Firstly, the role of urban soil property (soil physicochemical characteristic and soil heavy metal content) in regulating soil mesofauna community was investigated. The results showed that soil mesofauna abundance and diversity decreased with increasing soil pH, total nitrogen content (TN), and heavy metal comprehensive index (CPI). Soil Pb decreased soil mesofauna species richness (taxa number) and regulated soil mesofauna community structure. Secondly, we examined the effects of landscape changes on the soil mesofauna community. We found impervious surface (IS) ratio did not predict changes in soil mesofauna abundance, species richness, or community structure. Instead, IS ratio was positively correlated with soil pH, soil TN, and CPI. After excluding sites that belonged to rural forests and urban parks, site area was positively correlated with soil mesofauna abundance. Thirdly, our results revealed significant differences in soil property, landscape trait, and soil mesofauna community among the four ecosystem types. Interestingly, urban forest, the one lightly disturbed by urbanization, but not rural forest, had the highest soil mesofauna abundance. Soil mesofauna abundance in urban woodlands was similar to that in urban parks, which was about half of that in urban forests. Species richness in urban parks was 21% lower than that in rural forests. Our results also showed that urban woodland and urban parks had distinct mesofauna community structures compared to those in rural forests and urban forests. In conclusion, the present study suggested that (1) soil property changes due to urbanization, such as increased pH and heavy metal enrichment in urban soil, decreased soil mesofauna abundance and species richness, changed community structure, and mediated the effect of landscape change on soil mesofauna community; (2) however, soil and landscape changes could not explain the increase of abundance in urban forests, which supported the intermediate disturbance hypothesis.

In order to improve ground control of the longwall mining, ground response and mining-induced stress in the longwall panel of a kilometer-deep coal mine are investigated in this study. Field measurements on abutment stress, roof displacement, and fracture development indicate that the region influenced by the longwall mining reaches 150 m ahead of the longwall face. Failure scope of the coal seam, where mining-induced fractures are well developed, ranges from 10 to 13 m inward the face line. Vertical stress concentration coefficient reaches 2.2. Based on the field measurements, a numerical model is moreover developed and utilized to examine the response of the principal stress to the longwall mining. The concentration coefficient, peak point location, and influence scope of the principal stress gradually become stable with an increase in face advancement. Regarding the major principal stress, the concentration coefficient and influence scope are 2.4 and 152 m, respectively, and the peak point locates 13 m inward the face line, which are consistent with the field measurements. With respect to the minor principal stress, the referred coefficient and scope are 1.5 and 172 m, respectively, and its peak point location is 21 m ahead of the face line. The major principal stress in the coal seam rotates from vertical to horizontal direction in the vertical plane parallel with face advance direction. The maximum rotation angle reaches 20°. The minor principal stress first rotates into the referred vertical plane and then it rotates from horizontal to vertical direction at the same speed with the major principal stress in the same plane. Rotation angle of the principal stress in roof strata is greatly enlarged, the rotation trace of which is influenced by the longwall mining and vertical distance above the seam. Based on the relation between rotation trace of the principal stress and face advance direction, the influence of stress rotation on the stability of roof structure is discussed.

The capabilities of mining equipment and technology in China have been improving rapidly in recent years. Correspondingly, in the western part of the country, the mining heights of longwall faces in shallow-buried coal seams have shown an increasing trend, resulting in enhanced mining efficiency. However, the problems associated with the possible failure of the coal wall then increase and remain a serious difficulty, restricting safe and efficient mining operations. In the present study, the 12401 longwall face of the Shangwan Coal Mine, Inner Mongolia, China, with a mining height of 8.8 m, is taken as an example to study the mechanisms underlying failure phenomena of coal walls and their control methods. Our results show that the failure region inward of the longwall face is small in shallow-buried coal seams, and the damage degree of the exposed coal wall is low. The medium and higher sections of the coal wall display a dynamic failure mode, while the broken coal blocks, given their initial speed, threaten the safety of coal miners. A mechanical model was developed, from which the conditions for tensile failure and structural instability are deduced. Horizontal displacement in the lower part of the coal wall is small, where no tensile stress emerges. On the other hand, in the intermediate and higher parts of the coal wall, horizontal displacement is relatively large. In addition, tensile stress increases first with increasing distance from the floor and then decreases to zero. Experiments using physical models representing different mining heights have been carried out and showed that the horizontal displacement increases from 6 to 12 mm and load-bearing capacity decreases from 20 to 7.9 kN when the coal wall increases in height from 3 to 9 m. Furthermore, failure depth and failure height show an increasing trend. It is therefore proposed that a large initial support force, large maximum support force, large support stiffness, and large support height of a coal wall-protecting guard are required for the improved stability of high coal walls, which operate well in the Shangwan coal mine.

In order to understand the instability characteristics of surrounding rock in the process of deep roadway excavation, a three-dimensional numerical model was established by FLAC3D to systematically analyze the influence of roadway surrounding rock stability under different in situ stress distribution forms, and the environmental coefficient of mining-induced stress η was defined, the larger the environmental coefficient of mining-induced stress is, the larger the surrounding rock stress environment is, and the range where the η coefficient is greater than 0.2 is called with the destruction-danger zone. When the initial vertical stress is maximum principal stress and minimum principal stress, by comparing the roadway along the middle ground stress direction and minimum or maximum in-situ stress direction, the variation characteristics of displacement, failure zone and failure hazard zone of roadway surrounding rock are obtained, which provides theoretical basis for the treatment of disaster accidents such as roadway surrounding rock instability and rock burst caused by deep high in-situ stress.

The transport as well as accumulation of tungsten (W) impurity is one of the critical issues for the W divertor operation. The EAST tokamak with W and graphite divertor targets, provides a good platform for the investigation of W impurity behaviors. In this work, the production, transport and accumulation of W impurities are simulated via the SOLPS-DIVIMP modeling. The plasma background is obtained by the SOLPS simulations, while the W sputtering yield is calculated via empirical formula, and the following W transport is traced using the DIVIMP code. The W impurity source is mainly contributed by the incidence of carbon (C) impurity in this simulation. The distribution of W ions with different charge states is obtained and the transport of the W ions is analyzed by the net forces. The dependences of W impurity on the ne,sepOMP and PSOL are illustrated, which show the divertor plasma has great impact on the W impurity distribution. The increase of ne,sepOMP can suppress the W impurity in the core region with the fixed PSOL, while higher input power can enhance the W concentration significantly. The W impurity can lead to sufficient power radiation due to strong impurity source and high radiation rate in the core region during low density discharge, while the influence becomes weaker as ne,sepOMP raises. The effects of self-sputtering on the W impurity accumulation are also discussed. With the increment of PSOL, the sputtering and self-sputtering of W increase remarkably, leading to the W ions concentration exceed 10−5 in the core–edge interface (CEI). Moreover, the strong correlation between Te at the outer target and W ion density at CEI is observed, showing that Te

Rapid urbanization causes the accumulation of large amounts of pollutants, including heavy metals, organic pollutants, and black carbon (BC). BC is the carbonaceous residue generated from the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass. It plays an important role on the migration of heavy metals and organic pollutants, as well as soil carbon sequestration. BC accumulation due to human activities greatly affects the global carbon budget, helps to drive climate change, and damages human health. To date, few studies have examined how the intensity of urbanization affects the distribution of BC in soils in urban areas. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the effects of urbanization intensity on the spatial distribution and content of BC in urban surface soil. We collected samples from 55 sites in South China and used a multi-scale geographical regression model to evaluate the impact of the interference intensity of urbanization on the amount and distribution of BC. Our results showed that the BC content was significantly higher in urban areas (9.74 ± 1.18 g kg−1) than in rural areas (2.94 ± 0.89 g kg−1) and that several urban parks with a higher interference intensity were hotspots of BC accumulation, suggesting that urbanization promoted BC accumulation. Our model revealed that road density was significantly and positively correlated with BC accumulation. Because there are more cars driving in areas with high road density, vehicle emissions may be one of the causes of BC accumulation. Our results also indicated that the impact of urbanization intensity on the BC distribution was sensitive to sampling density.

Puerarin (PUR) and gastrodin (GAS) are often used in combined way for treating diseases caused by microcirculation disorders. The current study aimed to investigate the absorption and transportation mechanism of PUR and GAS and their interaction via Caco-2 monolayer cell model. In this work, the concentration in Caco-2 cell of PUR and GAS was determined by HPLC method. The bidirectional transport of PUR and GAS and the inhibition of drug efflux including verapamil and cyclosporine on the transport of these two components were studied. The mutual influence between PUR and GAS, especially the effect of the latter on the former of the bidirectional transport were also investigated. The transport of 50 μg·mL−1 PUR in Caco-2 cells has no obvious directionality. While the transport of 100 and 200 μg·mL−1 PUR presents a strong directionality, and this directionality can be inhibited by verapamil and cyclosporine. When PUR and GAS were used in combination, GAS could increase the absorption of PUR while PUR had no obvious influence on GAS. Therefore, the compatibility of PUR and GAS is reasonable, and GAS can promote the transmembrane transport of PUR, the effect of which is similar to that of verapamil.

Gegen Qinlian Decoction (GQD), a well-documented traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) formula, was reported with convincing anti-diabetic effects in clinical practice. However, the precise antidiabetic mechanism of GQD remains unknown. In this study, the anti-hyperglycemic and/or lipid lowering effects of GQD were demonstrated in high-fat diet with a low dose of streptozotocin induced diabetic Sprague-Dawley rats and insulin resistance (IR)-3T3-L1 adipocytes. GQD treatment increased expression and activity levels of both PPARγ and PPARα in adipocytes, which transcriptionally affected an ensemble of glucose and lipid metabolic genes in vivo and in vitro. The results clearly indicated that GQD treatment intervened with multiple pathways controlled by concomitantly downstream effects of adipocytic PPARγ and PPARα, to influence two opposite lipid pathways: fatty acid oxidation and lipid synthesis. Antagonist GW9662 decreased the mRNA expression of Pparγ and target genes Adpn and Glut4 whereas GW6471 decreased the mRNA expression of Pparα and target genes Cpt-1α, Lpl, Mcad, Lcad, Acox1, etc. Nuclear location and activity experiments showed that more PPARγ and PPARα shuttled into nuclear to increase its binding activities with target genes. GQD decreased the phosphorylation level of ERK1/2 and/or CDK5 to elevate PPARγ and PPARα activities in IR-3T3-L1 adipocytes through post-translational modification. The increase in p-p38MAPK and SIRT1 under GQD treatment may be attributed to partially reduce PPARγ adipogenesis activity and/or activate PPARα activity. Compared with the rosiglitazone-treated group, GQD elevated Cpt-1α expression, decreased diabetic biomarker Fabp4 expression, which produced an encouraging lipid profile with triglyceride decrease partially from combined effects on upregulated adipocytic PPARγ and PPARα activities. These results suggested that GQD improved diabetes by intervening a diverse array of PPARγ and PPARα upstream and downstream signaling transduction cascades, which jointly optimized the expression of target gene profiles to promote fatty acid oxidation and accelerate glucose uptake and utilization than PPARγ full agonist rosiglitazone without stimulating PPARα activity. Thus, GQD showed anti-diabetic/or antihyperglycemic effects, partially through regulating adipocytic PPARα and PPARγ signaling systems to maintaining balanced glucose and lipid metabolisms. This study provides a new insight into the anti-diabetic effect of GQD as a PPARα/γ dual agonist to accelerate the clinical use.

A series of ester and amide derivatives of triterpenoid saponin Pulsatilla saponin D (PSD) were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for their antiproliferative activity. Compounds 1 and 6 displayed 1.7–8.3 times more potent cytotoxicity (IC50 = 1.2–4.7 and 1.7–4.5 μM, respectively) against five human tumor cell lines (SMMC-7721, MCF-7, NCI-H460, A549, and HCT-116) in vitro and lower acute toxicity to mice in vivo than did PSD. Furthermore, compound 6 was observed to show potent tumor growth inhibition against mice H22 hepatocellular cells (49.8% at 20 mg/kg) and induce cell cycle at G1 phase and apoptosis in HCT-116 cells.

Bivalve molluscs have evolved various characteristics to adapt to benthic filter-feeding. Here, Li et al investigate the genome, transcriptomes and proteomes of scallop Chlamys farreri, revealing evidences of molecular adaptations to semi-sessile life and neurotoxins.

Abstract Chronic renal failure (CRF) is a major public health problem worldwide. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) plays important roles in renal physiological and pathophysiological processes. However, whether H2S could protect against CRF in rats remains unclear. In this study, we found that H2S alleviated gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated apoptosis in normal rat kidney-52E cells. We demonstrated that H2S significantly improved the kidney structure and function of CRF rats. We found that H2S decreased the protein levels of Bax, Caspase-3, and Cleaved-caspase-3, but increased the expression of Bcl-2. Treatment with H2S reduced the levels of malondialdehyde and ROS and increased the activities of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase. H2S significantly abolished the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase 1/2, c-Jun N-terminal kinase, and p38 in the kidney of CRF rats. Furthermore, H2S decreased the expression levels of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, as well as the protein levels of p50, p65, and p-p65 in the kidney of CRF rats. In conclusion, H2S could ameliorate adenine-induced CRF in rats by inhibiting apoptosis and inflammation through ROS/mitogen-activated protein kinase and nuclear factor-kappa B signaling pathways.

Huang-Lian Jie-Du decoction (HLJDD) has been used to treat cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease for many years in China. Currently, the determination of effect components in HLJDD is focusing either on the formula or on the extract, while quantification of that in biological samples is scarce, especially simultaneous determination of multicomponent. In this paper, a rapid, specific, and sensitive ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method was developed and fully validated for the simultaneous determination of seven main active constituents, i.e., baicalin, baicalein, wogonoside, wogonin, berberine, palmatine, jatrorrhizine in rat plasma. The method was also successfully applied to a quantitative study after oral administration of HLJDD at different doses of 1.5, 3, and 6 g/kg body weight to high fat-induced atherosclerosis rats. The analytes were detected by ESI source and multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) using positive scanning mode. The blood was collected from the abdominal aorta of rats at predetermined time and preprepared with icariin and tetrahydropalmatine as internal standards (IS). Sample preparation was achieved by protein precipitation (PPT). The validation parameters (linearity, sensitivity, intra-/interday precision and accuracy, extraction recovery, and matrix effect) were within acceptable ranges, and biological extracts were stable during the entire storing and preparing process. And the result of determination of HLJDD-containing plasma, baicalin, baicalein, wogonoside, and wogonin could be highly detected in a dose-dependent manner while berberine, jatrorrhizine, and palmatine were determined in a very low level and in a dose-independent mode. Thus, the established method was sensitive enough and successfully applied to the determination of seven effective components in plasma taken from 24 high fat-induced atherosclerosis rats after oral administration of three dosages of HLJDD.

We provide two sufficient and necessary conditions to characterize any n-bit partial Boolean function with exact quantum query complexity 1. Using the first characterization, we present all n-bit partial Boolean functions that depend on n bits and can be computed exactly by a 1-query quantum algorithm. Due to the second characterization, we construct a function F that maps any n-bit partial Boolean function to some integer, and if an n-bit partial Boolean function f depends on k bits and can be computed exactly by a 1-query quantum algorithm, then F(f) is non-positive. In addition, we show that the number of all n-bit partial Boolean functions that depend on k bits and can be computed exactly by a 1-query quantum algorithm is not bigger than an upper bound depending on n and k. Most importantly, the upper bound is far less than the number of all n-bit partial Boolean functions for all efficiently big n.

Continuing nitrogen (N) deposition has a wide-ranging impact on terrestrial ecosystems. To test the hypothesis that, under N deposition, bacterial communities could suffer a negative impact, and in a relatively short timeframe, an experiment was carried out for a year in an urban area featuring a cover of Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon) and simulating environmental N deposition. NH4NO3 was added as external N source, with four dosages (N0 = 0 kg N ha−2 y−1, N1 = 50 kg N ha−2 y−1, N2 = 100 kg N ha−2 y−1, N3 = 150 kg N ha−2 y−1). We analyzed the bacterial community composition after soil DNA extraction through the pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene amplicons. N deposition resulted in soil bacterial community changes at a clear dosage-dependent rate. Soil bacterial diversity and evenness showed a clear trend of time-dependent decline under repeated N application. Ammonium nitrogen enrichment, either directly or in relation to pH decrease, resulted in the main environmental factor related to the shift of taxa proportions within the urban green space soil bacterial community and qualified as a putative important driver of bacterial diversity abatement. Such an impact on soil life induced by N deposition may pose a serious threat to urban soil ecosystem stability and surrounding areas.