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Irregular upper gobs may increase the risk of rock burst incidents in coal mines. Investigating the rock burst mechanism in the complex mining spatial structure of multi-seam rock bursts is essential for ensuring the safe extraction of coal resources. This study investigated the distribution characteristics of static and dynamic loads on the W1123 working face through a comprehensive approach utilizing theoretical analysis, numerical simulation, and on-site monitoring. The mechanism of rock bursts was analyzed and targeted preventive measures were proposed and applied on-site. The results indicated that the coupled effects of the overlying knife-shape-like gob and thick hard roofs exhibited regional characteristics in the distribution of static and dynamic loads beneath the W1123 working face. When the working face was solely influenced by the “handle” effect of the knife-shape-like gob or concurrently affected by both the “handle” and “blade body”, the lower part of the working face and the coal pillar experienced concentrated static loads and intense dynamic load disturbances. The surrounding rock in the upper gob also demonstrated concentrated static and dynamic loads, with the proximity to the boundary of the knife-shape-like gob resulting in higher dynamic and static loads. When only affected by the “blade body”, the upper surrounding rock of the working face experienced concentrated static loads and was disturbed by dynamic loads. The area of concentrated static loads and dynamic load disturbances in the working face coincided, leading to the manifestation of rock burst from the superposition of dynamic and static loads. Based on the structural characteristics of the knife-shape-like gob, the rock burst types during the mining period of the W1123 working face were sequentially classified as strong dynamic load type, high static load, strong dynamic load type, and high static load type. The risk of rock bursts assessed through on-site monitoring and numerical simulation matched the theoretical analysis outcomes. Rock burst prevention measures were optimized based on the distribution characteristics of static and dynamic loads on the W1123 working face. To mitigate the stress and energy concentration on the roof and coal body, we have enhanced the treatment height and crushing degree of the thick, hard roof while also intensifying coal body blasting and pillar cutting. Following the implementation of these optimized measures, the average event energy released by the surrounding rock of the working face decreased by 54%, and significant energy events were substantially reduced, leading to a significant reduction in the rock burst risk. This study can provide valuable insights for rock burst prevention in mines with irregular upper gobs.

In order to explore a new method and mode of gently inclined hard roof treatment, the hydraulic fracturing axial roof cutting technology based on abrasive jet is introduced, and the key technical parameters of abrasive jet axial cutting and fracturing are determined based on indoor experiments and field industrial experiments. Taking the mining of working face under the condition of hard roof in Kuangou Coal Mine as the background, the implementation process and the effect of mining process are tested by means of water pressure gauge, drilling peep and observation well water level observation, mi-croseismic monitoring, support fracture monitoring and coal stress monitoring. The research results show that the key technical parameters of slotting and fracturing are mastered in the axial cutting test of abrasive jet. Wherein the kerf depth is 200 m, the kerf length is 300 m, the kerf pressure is 40–50 mpa, the fracturing pressure is 50–55 mpa, and the fracturing time is 20–30 min. After grooving fracturing, the cracks in the roof strata are effectively generated and expanded, which destroys the integrity of the roof, and the fracturing radius is 10–20 m. During the mining period, compared with the tradi-tional blasting technology, the concentrated area of microseismic events was shifted from 80 m in front of the working face to 130 m after the combined treatment of abrasive jet axial roof cutting and blasting, and the microseismic energy release was mainly small energy events. After the application of abrasive jet axial roof cutting and scour prevention technology in hard roof, the periodic weighting step is obviously reduced, the influence range of mining stress and stress concentration coefficient are obviously reduced, the activity intensity and dynamic load effect of surrounding rock are obviously weakened. The research results provide a basis for effective prevention and control of rockburst disasters under the condition of hard roof.

Abstract Background Mechanical damage to plants triggers local and systemic electrical signals that are eventually decoded into plant defense responses. These responses are constantly affected by other environmental stimuli in nature, for instance, light fluctuation. In recent years, studies on decoding plant electrical signals powered by various machine learning models are increasing in a sense of early prediction or detection of different environmental stresses that threaten plant growth or crop yields. However, the main bottleneck is the low-throughput nature of plant electrical signals, making it challenging to obtain a substantial amount of training data. Consequently, training these models with small datasets often leads to unsatisfactory performance. Results In the present work, we set out to decode wound-induced electrical signals (also termed slow wave potentials, SWPs) from plants that are deprived of light to different extents. Using non-invasive electrophysiology, we separately collected sets of local and distal SWPs from the treated plants. Then, we proposed a workflow based on few-shot learning to automatically identify SWPs. This workflow incorporates data preprocessing, feature extraction, data augmentation and classifier training. We established the integral and the first-order derivative as features for efficiently classifying SWPs. We then proposed an Adversarial Autoencoder (AAE) structure to augment the SWP samples. Combining them, the Random Forest classifier allowed remarkable classification accuracies of 0.99 for both local and systemic SWPs. In addition, in comparison to two other reported methods, our proposed AAE structure enabled better classification results using our tested features and classifiers. Conclusions The results of this study establish new features for efficiently classifying wound-induced electrical signals, which allow for distinguishing dark-affected local and systemic plant wound responses. We also propose a new data augmentation structure to generate virtual plant electrical signals. The methods proposed in this study could be further applied to build models for crop plants using electrical signals as inputs, and also to process other small-scale signals.

Significant advances in chemotherapy drugs have reduced mortality in patients with malignant tumors. However, chemotherapy-related cardiotoxicity increases the morbidity and mortality of patients, and has become the second leading cause of death after tumor recurrence, which has received more and more attention in recent years. Arrhythmia is one of the common types of chemotherapy-induced cardiotoxicity, and has become a new risk related to chemotherapy treatment, which seriously affects the therapeutic outcome in patients. Traditional Chinese medicine has experienced thousands of years of clinical practice in China, and has accumulated a wealth of medical theories and treatment formulas, which has unique advantages in the prevention and treatment of malignant diseases. Traditional Chinese medicine may reduce the arrhythmic toxicity caused by chemotherapy without affecting the anti-cancer effect. This paper mainly discussed the types and pathogenesis of secondary chemotherapeutic drug-induced arrhythmia (CDIA), and summarized the studies on Chinese medicine compounds, Chinese medicine Combination Formula and Chinese medicine injection that may be beneficial in intervention with secondary CDIA including atrial fibrillation, ventricular arrhythmia and sinus bradycardia, in order to provide reference for clinical prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced arrhythmias.

Abstract Background The vaginal microbiome is a dynamic community of microorganisms in the vagina. Its alteration may be influenced by multiple factors, including gestational status, menstrual cycle, sexual intercourse, hormone levels, hormonal contraceptives, and vaginal drug administration. Povidone iodine has been used before delivery to reduce infection that may be caused by the ascendance of pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria from the vagina to the uterus. This study aimed to elucidate the impact of povidone iodine use during delivery on the vaginal microbiome. Methods This study enrolled a total of 67 women from maternity services in three hospitals. During the delivery process, we have applied povidone iodine in three doses such as low dose, medium dose, and high dose based on the amount of povidone iodine administered, thus, we studied the three groups of women based on the doses applied. Vaginal swab samples were collected both before and immediately after delivery, and the microbial communities were characterized using 16 S rRNA sequencing. The identification of differentially abundant microbial taxa was performed using ZicoSeq software. Results Before delivery, the vaginal microbiome was dominated by the genus Lactobacillus, with different percentage observed (86.06%, 85.24%, and 73.42% for the low, medium, and high dose groups, respectively). After delivery, the vaginal microbial community was restructured, with a significant decrease in the relative abundance of Lactobacillus in all three groups (68.06%, 50.08%, and 25.89%), and a significant increase in alpha diversity across all 3 groups (P

Synthetic Aperture Interferometric Radiometer (SAIR) as one of the most advanced instruments for Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) observation, has been in service on SMOS mission for years and is planned on the Chinese Ocean Salinity Satellite in the near future. However, a lot of Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) emissions are found in SMOS views, which contaminate the brightness temperature measurements of the SAIR instrument, and further impede the retrieval of SSS fields. Concerning SAIR’s operating mode, this study proposes an RFI mitigation method comprising two algorithms for co- and cross-polarization, respectively. First, RFI signatures are identified based on a series of thresholds defined by radiation theory, and then mitigated through a simple machine learning technique of Support Vector Regression (SVR), leveraging either SAIR’s multi-angle measurements or sea surface roughness descriptors, depending on the specific polarization mode. Finally, the outputs of all polarizations are merged and written back to the Level 1C brightness temperature product as the final result. Using the proposed method, the notable outliers arose from RFI contamination are attenuated, and the variation of standard deviations over nearby snapshots is smoothed, as expected on a homogeneous ocean. Furthermore, with the official L2OS software implementing the SSS retrieval procedure from the rewritten Level 1C brightness temperatures, the data re-gain of SSS fields is achieved in some places that are not attainable for the current SMOS Level 2 SSS products, with a reasonable error compared to WOA2009 SSS, confirming the validity of the proposed method. Hopefully, this work could provide a practical solution to current and future SAIR observing predicaments.

With the increasingly strict limitations on emission standards of vehicles, deep desulfurization in fuel is indispensable for social development worldwide. In this study, a series of hybrid materials based on SiO2-supported polyoxometalate ionic liquid were successfully prepared via a facile ball milling method and employed as catalysts in the aerobic oxidative desulfurization process. The composition and structure of prepared samples were studied by various techniques, including FT-IR, UV-vis DRS, wide-angle XRD, BET, XPS, and SEM images. The experimental results indicated that the synthesized polyoxometalate ionic liquids were successfully loaded on SiO2 with a highly uniform dispersion. The prepared catalyst (C16PMoV/10SiO2) exhibited good desulfurization activity on different sulfur compounds. Moreover, the oxidation product and active species in the ODS process were respectively investigated via GC-MS and ESR analysis, indicating that the catalyst can activate oxygen to superoxide radicals during the reaction to convert DBT to its corresponding sulfone in the fuel.

Ocean eddies are typical oceanic mesoscale phenomena that are numerous, widely distributed and have high energy. Traditional eddy detection methods are mainly based on physical mechanisms with high accuracy. However, the large number of steps and complex parameter settings limit their applicability for most users. With the rapid development of deep learning techniques, object detection models have been broadly used in the field of ocean remote sensing. This paper proposes a lightweight eddy detection model, ghost eddy detection YOLO (GED-YOLO), based on sea level anomaly data and the “You Only Look Once” (YOLO) series models. The proposed model used ECA+GhostNet as the backbone network and an atrous spatial pyramid pooling network as the feature enhancement network. The ghost eddy detection path aggregation network was proposed for feature fusion, which reduced the number of model parameters and improved the detection performance. The experimental results showed that GED-YOLO achieved better detection precision and smaller parameter size. Its mAP was 95.11% and the parameter size was 22.56 MB. In addition, the test experiment results showed that GED-YOLO had similar eddy detection performance and faster detection speed compared to the traditional physical method.

Precision irrigation management is the key to saving water, improving fruit quality and increasing yield of citrus. In this study, six water-yield models and three water-fruit quality models were proposed based on 4-year field data. Then, six scenarios were set with crop total available water (CTW) from 550 to 800 mm at intervals of 50 mm, and a simulation optimization model coupling water-yield, water-fruit quality models and NSGA-II was developed to optimize water allocation strategies. The results showed that six water-yield models performed well in predicting citrus yield, especially Minhas model (R2=0.81). Three water-fruit quality models could well predict the physical quality of citrus fruit (R2=0.72–0.92), but only the Q-Rao model could accurately predict the chemical quality due to its development considering the response processes of fruit quality to deficit irrigation. Therefore, Minhas and Q-Rao models were recommended to predict citrus yield and fruit quality, respectively. The optimization results showed that the optimal water allocation strategy under CTW= 630 mm produced an acceptable yield while improving fruit chemical quality and water use efficiency. When CTW was greater than 630 mm, the optimal water allocation strategy had little difference. Therefore, the optimal water allocation strategy under CTW= 630 mm, which was 14, 104, 325, and 187 mm at bud bust to flowering stage, young fruit stage, fruit expansion stage, and fruit maturation stage, respectively, was recommended to be used under sufficient water resources conditions (CTW ≥ 630 mm). When CTW was between 550 and 630 mm, the optimal water allocation strategy changed. As a result, the optimal water allocation strategy was chosen based on the findings as well as the actual local CTW under limited water resource conditions (CTW = 550–630 mm). The findings of this study will be useful in developing appropriate irrigation strategies in Southwest China, to achieve efficient and sustainable citrus production.

Abiotic stress such as high temperature at flowering is one of many conditions reducing yield of corn (Zea mays L.). Mixing corn cultivars with diverse functional traits increases within-crop diversity and provides a potential means of mitigating yield losses under stress conditions. We conducted a three-year field study to investigate the effects of cultivar mixtures on kernel setting rate, pollen sources, and yield. This study consisted of six treatments, including two high temperature-tolerant (HTT) monocrops of WK702 and DH701, two high temperature-sensitive (HTS) monocrops of DH605 and DH662, and two HTT–HTS mixtures of WK702-DH605 and DH701-DH662. The anthesis–silking interval (ASI) was 0.9–1.6 days shorter in mixtures than in monocrops. Kernel setting rate was increased in mixtures (86.4%–88.7%) compared with those in monocrops (74.7%–84.1%) as a result of synchrony and complementarity of pollination. Grain yields of the HTT–HTS mixtures increased by 13.3%–18.7%, equivalent to 1169 to 1605 kg ha−1, in comparison with HTS corn monocrops. The results of SSR markers showed that cross-fertilization percentage in corn cultivar mixtures ranged from 29.3% to 47.8%, partially explaining yield improvement. Land equivalent ratio (LER) was 1.12 for corn mixtures and the partial land equivalent ratio (e.g., > 0.5) showed the complementary benefits in corn mixtures. The results indicated that mixing corn cultivars with diverse flowering and drought-tolerance traits increased yields via pollination synchrony.

Oceanic eddies are ubiquitous phenomena carrying large amounts of energy, thus of great importance for marine ecology and sea–air exchange. As an all-weather, high-resolution sensor, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) could provide valuable observations for oceanic eddies. However, there are few well-established methods for eddy detection on SAR images except for manual seeking, which is laborious and time-consuming. In combination with deep learning, this study is among the earliest in the literature that attempts end-to-end eddy detection on SAR images. Due to obscure pictures and indistinct eddy boundaries, ordinary deep learning models are not adaptable to the objective. Therefore, an customized model, stacked attention network (SANet), is designed to recognize the unique eddy pattern presented on radar images automatically. SANet is a two-unit stacking architecture, with each an hourglass structure for bottom–up, top–down reference and the overall stacking network for iterative extractions of eddy textures contained in shallow layers of each unit. Besides, SANet has included the inner-hourglass attention gates and the outer-hourglass GCblock for the extracted features to be more concentrated on the interested areas. Using SANet, we have identified 87.75% of eddies in the constructed dataset collected from ESA-2 and ENVISAT SAR products. The result is much better than the no-stacking counterpart U-net, as well as state-of-the-art deep learning models DeepLabV3+ and SegFomer, thus verifying the superiority of the proposed method. The generalization ability of the algorithm has also been tested. The code and the constructed SAR dataset have been made public for broader use.

Oxygen atoms usually co-exist in the lattice of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). The understanding of interactions between the oxygen atoms and the adsorbate, however, is still ambiguous on improving adsorptive desulfurization performance. Herein, simultaneously oxygen atom-scale interior substitution and edge hydroxylation in BN structure were constructed via a polymer-based synthetic strategy. Experimental results indicated that the dual oxygen modified BN (BN–2O) exhibited an impressively increased adsorptive capacity about 12% higher than that of the edge hydroxylated BN (BN–OH) fabricated via a traditional method. The dibenzothiophene (DBT) was investigated to undergo multi-molecular layer type coverage on the BN–2O uneven surface via π–π interaction, which was enhanced by the increased oxygen doping at the edges of BN–2O. The density functional theory calculations also unveiled that the oxygen atoms confined in BN interior structure could polarize the adsorbate, thereby resulting in a dipole interaction between the adsorbate and BN–2O. This effect endowed BN–2O with the ability to selectively adsorb DBT from the aromatic-rich fuel, thereafter leading to an impressive prospect for the adsorptive desulfurization performance of the fuel. The adsorptive result was in good accordance with Freundlich and pseudo-second-order adsorption kinetics model results. Therefore, the designing of a polymer-based strategy could be also extended to other heteroatom doping systems to enhance adsorptive performance.

Aeromonas hydrophila is a kind of zoonotic pathogen, which can cause bacterial septicemia in fish and bring huge economic losses to global aquaculture. Outer membrane proteins (Omps) are conserved antigens of Aeromonas hydrophila, which can be developed as subunit vaccines. To evaluate the protective efficacy of inactivated vaccine and recombinant outer membrane protein A (OmpA) subunit vaccine against A. hydrophila in juvenile Megalobrama amblycephala, the present study investigated the immunogenicity and protective effects of both vaccines, as well as the non-specific and specific immune response of M. amblycephala. Compared with the non-vaccinated group, both inactivated and OmpA subunit vaccines improved the survival rate of M. amblycephala upon infection. The protective effects of OmpA vaccine groups were better than that of the inactivated vaccine groups, which should be attributed to the reduced bacterial load and enhanced host immunity in the vaccinated fish. ELISA assay showed that the titer of serum immunoglobulin M (IgM) specific to A. hydrophila up-regulated significantly in the OmpA subunit vaccine groups at 14 d post infection (dpi), which should contribute to better immune protective effects. In addition, vaccination enhanced host bactericidal abilities might also attribute to the regulation of the activities of hepatic and serum antimicrobial enzymes. Moreover, the expression of immune-related genes (SAA, iNOS, IL-1 β, IL-6, IL-10, TNF α, C3, MHC I, MHC II, CD4, CD8, TCR α, IgM, IgD and IgZ) increased in all groups post infection, which was more significant in the vaccinated groups. Furthermore, the number of immunopositive cells exhibiting different epitopes (CD8, IgM, IgD and IgZ) that were detected by immunohistochemical assay had increased in the vaccinated groups post infection. These results show that vaccination effectively stimulated host immune response (especially OmpA vaccine groups). In conclusion, these results indicated that both the inactivated vaccine and OmpA subunit vaccine could protect juvenile M. amblycephala against A. hydrophila infection, of which OmpA subunit vaccine provided more effective immune protection and can be used as an ideal candidate for the A. hydrophila vaccine.

Fucoidan and laminarin are polymolecular compounds that extracted from seaweed. As functional polysaccharides, they possess various biological functions such as immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antioxidant bioactivities. Fucoidan and laminarin modulate host immune responses by activating immune cells (macrophages, neutrophils, T lymphocytes) and inducing the expression of cytokines (TNFα, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, NF-κB). Intelectin is a novel lectin that plays important roles in bacterial agglutination and bactericidal effects by recognizing the polysaccharide components on the cell surface of pathogens, which can also enhance the phagocytosis of macrophages. The present study intends to explore the immunomodulatory effects of fucoidan, laminarin and intelectin on the macrophages of Megalobrama amblycephala. The results showed that the incubation of both fucoidan and laminarin at the concentration of 100 μg/mL for 4 h could enhance the phagocytic capacity of M. amblycephala macrophages, which also showed remodeled cytoskeleton with extended pseudopodia. In addition, fucoidan and laminarin could induce the expression of M. amblycephala intelectin (MaINTL) in the primary hepatocytes and macrophages, and the recombinant MaINTL (rMaINTL) could bind with fucoidan and laminarin. Furthermore, fucoidan and laminarin induced the expression of cytoskeletal remodeling related genes in the primary M. amblycephala macrophages, such as Rac1 and WASP, which should contribute to the enhancement of seaweed polysaccharides (fucoidan and laminarin) and MaINTL on the phagocytosis of M. amblycephala macrophages. However, even though fucoidan and laminarin could induced the expression of CXCL8, while the chemotaxis of M. amblycephala macrophages on neutrophils was not affected by them. These findings suggested that fucoidan and laminarin enhanced the phagocytic capacity of M. amblycephala macrophages via activation of MaINTL and up-regulation of the expression of downstream cytoskeletal remodeling related genes Rac1 and WASP. Therefore, fucoidan and laminarin could be used as immune enhancers to improve host immunity and disease resistance in M. amblycephala, which provided novel insights into the prevention and protection of fish bacterial diseases.

Acidic deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have been considered desirable extractants and catalysts for desulfurization. However, their hydrogen bond donors (HBDs) are usually sole organic acids, which are not conducive to efficient green catalysis. Herein, a novel inorganic–organic dual-acid DES (DADES) was reported for efficient extractive and oxidative desulfurization. Benefiting from the physical interaction among the three components in a DADES, a transparent homogeneous liquid can be obtained even though inorganic acid (boric acid, BA) and organic acid (acetic acid, AA) can be immiscible. Furthermore, the dual-acid HBD can increase the acidity of the DADES and reduce its viscosity, accelerating its mass transfer efficiency and enhancing its catalytic activity. With 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([Bmim]Cl) as the hydrogen bond acceptor, [Bmim]Cl/BA/0.3AA effectively activated hydrogen peroxide and achieved sulfur removal of 96.6% at 40 °C. Furthermore, the universality of the synergistic effect in various DADESs was confirmed by the modulation of the types of organic acids. This study not only motivates the construction of more intriguing novel DESs based on the DADES concept but also highlights their potential in clean fuel production.

A green and facile pathway was described using Viburnum odoratissimum leaf extract in the presence of sodium thiosulfate for the synthesis of sulfidated iron oxide nanocomposites (S-Fe NCs) adsorbents. The prepared S-Fe NCs can be used for the efficient removal of Malachite Green (MG) and Rhodamine B (RhB) from aqueous solution. Analytical techniques by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were applied to understand the morphologies and compositions of S-Fe NCs. The stability of the adsorption capacity on S-Fe NCs was studied. Results from the characterization studies showed that S-Fe NCs were mainly composed of iron oxides, iron sulfides and biomolecules. The S-Fe NCs displayed high adsorption capacity for a wide range of pH values. The Koble-Corrigan isotherm model and Elovich model well described the adsorption process. The maximum adsorption capacity for MG and RhB was 4.31 mmol g−1 and 2.88 mmol g−1 at 303 K, respectively. The adsorption mechanism may be attributed to the electrostatic interaction, the hydrogen bonding, the π-π stacking interactions, the inner-sphere surface complexation or the cation bridging among the S-Fe NCs and dye molecules. HIGHLIGHTS S-Fe NCs was synthesized through a green and facile pathway.; S-Fe NCs was composed of iron oxides, iron sulfides and biomolecules.; S-Fe NCs had a good adsorption ability to MG and RhB compared to other materials.; The adsorption property of S-Fe NCs was stable.; The adsorption mechanisms of MG and RhB on S-Fe NCs were analysed.;

Abstract Background Reverse Transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is a sensitive and reliable method for mRNA quantification and rapid analysis of gene expression from a large number of starting templates. It is based on the statistical significance of the beginning of exponential phase in real-time PCR kinetics, reflecting quantitative cycle of the initial target quantity and the efficiency of the PCR reaction (the fold increase of product per cycle). Results We used the large clinical biomarker dataset and 94-replicates-4-dilutions set which was published previously as research tools, then proposed a new qPCR curve analysis method——CqMAN, to determine the position of quantitative cycle as well as the efficiency of the PCR reaction and applied in the calculations. To verify algorithm performance, 20 genes from biomarker and partial data with concentration gradients from 94-replicates-4-dilutions set of MYCN gene were used to compare our method with various publicly available methods and established a suitable evaluation index system. Conclusions The results show that CqMAN method is comparable to other methods and can be a feasible method which applied to our self-developed qPCR data processing and analysis software, providing a simple tool for qPCR analysis.

Circulating cell‐free DNA (cfDNA) fragmentomics, which encompasses the measurement of cfDNA length and short nucleotide motifs at the ends of cfDNA molecules, is an emerging field for cancer diagnosis. The utilization of cfDNA fragmentomics for the diagnosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) is currently limited. In this study, we utilized whole‐genome sequencing data of cfDNA in samples from patients with HCC (n = 197) and HBV (n = 187) to analyze the association of fragment size selection (

Tumor growth in situ or bone metastases in cancer patients all can induce bone cancer pain. It is frequently occurred in patients with breast, prostate, and lung cancer. Because of the lack of effective treatment, bone cancer pain causes depression, anxiety, fatigue, and sleep disturbances in cancer patients, disrupts the daily quality of life, and results in huge economic and psychological burden. Over the past years, transient receptor potential channels (TRPs), especially TRP vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) in dorsal root ganglion (DRG), have been considered to be involved in bone cancer pain. The characteristic of TRPV1 had been well studied. The mechanisms under TRPV1 regulation in DRG with bone cancer pain are complex, including inflammatory mediators, endogenous formaldehyde, and other mechanisms. In the present review, we summarize the role and potential mechanism of TRPV1 in DRG in bone cancer pain. As the primary sensory neurons, targeting the TRPV1 channel in DRG, might have fewer side effects than in central. We hope systematically understand of TRPV1 modulation in DRG will bring more effective strategy.

The rational design of the single transition metal atoms (Cu and Ni) anchoring on the boron nitride (TM-BN) pristine and defective monolayer has been investigated by means of density functional theory. Our calculations revealed that both B-vacancy (VB) and N-vacancy (VN) on BN monolayer are good sites for trapping Cu and Ni atoms. TM/VN and TM/h-BN systems exhibit high catalytic activity toward O2 activation and subsequent oxidative desulfurization (ODS) reactions. Considering the stability, the TM/VN is expected to be a good catalyst for ODS process.

The ileal duplication, which is a congenital anatomical abnormality of the digestive tract, can lead to the manifestation of the alimentary tract duplication in the small intestine. It is also the rare cause of gastrointestinal bleeding and usually seen in infants, but only rarely in adults. Herein, we describe a case of adult male was suffering from intermittent massive hematochezia for three years, accompanied by abdominal pain, syncope, and palpitations. However, no positive findings were found by gastroscopy and colonoscopy in other hospitals. He visited our hospital owing to the recurrent hematochezia, but re-examination by gastroscopy and colonoscopy indicated no significant abnormality, and hence small intestinal vascular malformation bleeding was considered. Therefore, double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE) examination was conducted and the results revealed a double-lumen opening in the ileum, which was 100 cm from the ileocecal valve. The blind end was observed 6 cm away from one opening along the depth direction, and an ulcer was observed on the intestinal wall of the blind segment, which was considered as an ileal duplication. The patient thereafter underwent surgery subsequently. Postoperative pathology confirmed ileal duplication and that gastrointestinal bleeding was primarily caused by ulcer hemorrhage. The patient had no discomfort after the follow-up. In this report, we have reviewed and summarized the literature to provide references for both diagnosis and treatment of ileal duplication.

The characteristics of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection-negative gastric cancer have not been well documented because of its rarity, despite several types of H. pylori infection-negative gastric cancers being reported. In this report, we describe a case of early gastric cancer that developed without H. pylori infection with characteristic magnifying narrow-band imaging and novel histological findings. The difficulty in making an accurate diagnosis and differential diagnosis is highlighted, with the goal of providing more clinical experience for the diagnosis of H. pylori infection-negative gastric cancer.

Mannan oligosaccharides (MOS) have been studied and applied as a feed additive, whereas their regulation on the growth performance and immunity of aquatic animals lacks consensus. Furthermore, their immunoprotective effects on the freshwater fish Megalobrama amblycephala have not been sufficiently studied. Thus, we investigated the effects of dietary MOS of 0, 200, and 400 mg/kg on the growth performance, non-specific immunity, intestinal health, and resistance to Aeromonas hydrophila infection in juvenile M. amblycephala. The results showed that the weight gain rate of juvenile M. amblycephala was not significantly different after 8 weeks of feeding, whereas the feed conversion ratio decreased in the MOS group of 400 mg/kg. Moreover, dietary MOS increased the survival rate of juvenile M. amblycephala upon infection, which may be attributed to enhanced host immunity. For instance, dietary MOS increase host bactericidal and antioxidative abilities by regulating the activities of hepatic antimicrobial and antioxidant enzymes. In addition, MOS supplementation increased the number of intestinal goblet cells, and the intestine was protected from necrosis of the intestinal folds and disruption of the microvilli and junctional complexes, thus maintaining the stability of the intestinal epithelial barrier. The expression levels of M. amblycephala immune and tight junction-related genes increased after feeding dietary MOS for 8 weeks. However, the upregulated expression of immune and tight junction-related genes in the MOS supplemental groups was not as notable as that in the control group postinfection. Therefore, MOS supplementation might suppress the damage caused by excessive intestinal inflammation. Furthermore, dietary MOS affected the richness and composition of the gut microbiota, which improved the gut health of juvenile M. amblycephala by increasing the relative abundance of beneficial gut microbiota. Briefly, dietary MOS exhibited significant immune protective effects to juvenile M. amblycephala, which is a functional feed additive and immunostimulant.

Identifying BRCA mutations and homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) is the key to choosing patients for poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor (PARPi) therapy. At present, a large amount of research focuses on the application of HRD detection in ovarian cancer. However, few studies have discussed the relationship between HRD detection and postoperative survival in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). This study included 38 consecutive patients with EOC who underwent cytoreduction surgery. Owing to tissue availability, only 29 patients underwent molecular profiling and survival analysis. Overall, 21 (72.4%) tumors had HRD scores of ≥42. Mutations in BRCA were observed in 5/29 (17.2%) patients. In this cohort, an HRD score of ≥42 was more common in serous ovarian tumors. We found no statistically significant association between homologous recombination repair (HRR) genes and HRD scores except for tumor protein P53 (TP53) mutation. We also found a strong positive association between HRD scores and chromosomal instability (CIN). In the survival analysis, an HRD score of >23 was correlated with better postoperative progression-free survival (pPFS). With increased depth of research, an appropriate HRD score threshold may serve as a prognostic tool and should be assessed in future studies to predict the clinical value of PARPi.

Laminated bamboo lumber (BLL) and bamboo scrimber (BS) are potential environmentally friendly building materials, considering that they are hygroscopic materials and that their hygrothermal performance is closely related to the occupants’ comfort, their building durability, and building energy consumption. This study carried out material property tests on bamboo-based materials (BLL and BS) and analyzed hygrothermal performance simulations on bamboo exterior wall constructions in five major climatic zones using WUFI. Results show that BS had a greater heat storage capacity than BLL. However, BLL showed a relatively higher moisture sorption capacity, and BLL was more easily permeated by vapor than BS. The water content (WC) of 12 walls of BLL and BS was below 20%. BLL and BS met the requirements of the envelope, and the WC of BS was lower than that of BLL. Based on the results, the walls designed in this study are suitable for the corresponding climate zones. In the cold and severe climate zones especially, the external insulation system walls performed better than the internal insulation system. The external insulation system was recommended for these two climate zones. The design and simulation results of walls made of two types of bamboo-based materials provide a scientific basis for the application of the material.

ObjectivesVaginal microbiota is not only an important source of bacterial colonization for neonates, but also plays a crucial role in maternal and neonatal health. This study aimed to investigate the vaginal microbial community structure right after delivery and its impact on the neonatal oral microbiome.MethodsIn this study, 27 women were recruited from Bao'an Maternal and Child Health Hospital. Bacterial compositions of vaginal samples before and right after delivery and neonatal oral samples right after birth were investigated using 16S rRNA sequencing of V3–V4 hyperregions.ResultsVaginal microbiome before delivery was dominated by the genus Lactobacillus. After delivery, the vaginal microbial community was altered, with significantly decreased proportion of Lactobacillus, increased alpha-diversity, and a more diverse ecological network. A large number subjects dominated by Lactobacillus species before delivery shifted to CST (community state type) IV after delivery. In addition, similar changes were observed in the neonatal oral microbiome, and its community profile was closer to vaginal samples after delivery than before delivery with principal coordinates analysis and microbial source tracking analysis.ConclusionThe vaginal microbiome was altered right after delivery and impacted the colonization of the neonatal oral microbiome in China. Further, it is vital to understand the longitudinal influence on maternal and neonatal health of vaginal microbiome community changes after delivery.

The giant freshwater prawn (GFP), Macrobrachium rosenbergii, is one of the largest freshwater shrimps in the world, being widely cultured because of its high economic value. In this study, complete mitogenomes of two GFP individuals from different selective breeding populations, ‘South Taihu No.2’ (ST) and ‘Shufeng’ (SF), were newly sequenced, compared with each other, and with those of other published Macrobrachium species. The total length is 15,767 bp (ST) and 15,766 bp (SF), including 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, and one control region. The phylogenetic analyses based on whole mitogenome sequences suggest that ‘Shufeng’ has a slightly distant relationship with ‘South Taihu No.2’, with a pairwise genetic distance of 0.011. This study can provide a genetic background for the GFP selective breeding, and add significantly to the knowledgebase regarding crustacean biology and aquaculture as well.

Abstract Background Penicillin allergy is frequently reported in adults and children. Recent studies suggest that microbiota plays a key role in the development and progression of allergy. In this study, the relationship between vaginal microbiome and pregnant women with penicillin allergy was investigated. Methods Vaginal samples before labor from 12 pregnant women with penicillin allergy and 15 non-allergic pregnant women were collected. Bacterial community structure of all study subjects and the discrepancies between the two groups were analyzed using 16S rRNA sequencing based on Illumina Hiseq 2500 platform. Results The abundant phyla among all participants were Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes. The predominant genus was Lactobacillus. Compared to non-allergic pregnant women, Actinobacteria, Coriobacteriaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Paraprevotella and Anoxybacillus significantly decreased, whereas Deltaproteobacteria, Peptostreptococcaceae, Enterococcus and Megamonas were more abundant in penicillin allergic women. Additionally, obvious discrepancies were observed in the co-abundance network at the genus level between the two groups. Conclusions There were differences in the microbial community structure and composition of reproduction tract between penicillin allergic and non-allergic pregnant women. These shifts may be related to maternal and neonatal health.

Objectives: Initial microbial colonization of the oral after birth provides a vital stimulus for neonatal immune and development. The establishment of the gut microbiota has been shown to differ between very low birth weight (VLBW) infants delivered by caesarian section (C-section) and those delivered vaginally. The objective of this study was to investigate the community structure of the oral microbiota in VLBW infants delivered by the two modes. Methods: In total, 23 VLBW infants who were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit of Shenzhen BaoAn Maternity & Child Health care Hospital (Shenzhen, China) were recruited for this study: 12 infants delivered vaginally, and the other 11 infants delivered by C-section. The assessment of oral microbiota community was performed using 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Results: The results demonstrated that the oral bacterial communities were dominated by the phylum Proteobacteria in both groups. Higher relative abundance of genera Ureaplasma and Pantoea were observed in the vaginal delivery infants, but genera Corynebacterium, Methylobacterium and Variovorax were more prevalent in cesarean-born infants. Furthermore, many metabolic pathways with significant differences between the two groups were detected, mostly related to vitamin, amino acid metabolism and diseases. Additionally, ɑ-diversity and clinical data showed no significant differences between the two groups. Conclusions: This study indicated that the mode of delivery influences the oral bacterial structure of VLBW infants after birth, but the consequences for neonatal development should be researched in a further study. Key Words: oral microbiota, very low birth weight infants, the mode of delivery, 16s rRNA gene sequencing

Lipid was an essential constituent of aquatic feeds, among which fish oil (FO) was the most excellent lipid source for its nutritive values. However, high price and limited production restricted its application, thus leading to the consideration of developing other alternative lipid sources, and soybean oil (SO) instead of FO was applied as the main lipid source in the commercial feed of grass carp. In the present study, two typical lipids sources FO and SO were used to prepare grass carp feed, and their comparative effects on the growth performance, nutrient composition and metabolic signaling were investigated. The growth performance of two groups exhibited no significant difference, while crude lipid was much higher in the muscle of SO group. Additionally, muscle fatty acid composition of both groups were highly correlated with that of diets, and the proportion of muscle n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids was notably higher in the FO group, especially that of C20:5n-3 (EPA) and C22:6n-3 (DHA). Comparative digital gene expression profiles (DGE) was conducted and 1261 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) had been identified, then gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis revealed the enriched functional subterms were primarily focused on cellular metabolic processes and regulation. KEGG pathway analysis elucidated the main metabolism related pathways, and DEGs involved in fatty acid elongation, fatty acid metabolism, and glycerolipid metabolism pathways were listed, including elongation of very long chain fatty acids protein 7 (el7), lysophospholipid acyltransferase 4 (lpcat4), long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase (acs), phosphatidate phosphatase LPIN (lpin), cathepsin L, and glucose-6-phosphate isomerase (gpi) et al. In conclusion, the nutritional composition rather than growth performance of grass carp was affected by different lipid sources, and the underlying regulatory signaling was predicted, which would provide theoretical basis for fish diet formulation.

Immune composition is commonly heterogeneous and varies among colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. A comprehensive immune classification may act as important characteristics to predict CRC prognosis. Thus, we aimed to identify novel immune specific subtypes to guide future therapies. Unsupervised clustering was used to classify CRC samples into different immune subtypes based on abundances of immune cell populations, during which TCGA and GSE17536 datasets were used as training and validation sets, respectively. The associations between the immune subtypes and patient prognosis were investigated. Further, we identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between immune high and low subtypes, followed by functional enrichment analyses of DEGs. The expression levels of 74 immunomodulators (IMs) across immune subtypes were analyzed. As a result, we clustered CRC samples into three distinct immune subtypes (immune high, moderate, and low). Patients with immune-high subtype showed the best prognosis, and patients with immune-low subtype had the worst survival in both TCGA and GSE17536 cohorts. A group of 2735 up-regulated DEGs were identified across immune high and low subtypes. The main DEGs were the members of complement components, chemokines, immunoglobulins, and immunosuppressive genes that are involved in immune modulation-related pathways (e.g., cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction) or GO terms (e.g., adaptive immune response and T cell activation). The expression levels of 63 IMs were significantly varied across immune subtypes. In conclusion, this study provides a conceptual framework and molecular characteristics of CRC immune subtypes, which may accurately predict prognosis and offer novel targets for personalized immunotherapy through modifying subtype-specific tumor immune microenvironment.

Objectives. Sepsis is characterized as a dysregulated host immune response to infection and has been known to be closely associated with the gut microbiome. This study was aimed at investigating the gut microbial profiles of Zhuang ethnic patients with sepsis. Method. Eleven Zhuang ethnic patients with sepsis and 20 healthy individuals (controls) were recruited at the Baise City People’s Hospital, China. Their gut microbial community profiles were analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing using the Illumina MiSeq system. Results. The gut microbial community of patients with sepsis was significantly altered compared to that of the healthy individuals based on the results of principal coordinate analysis and microbial ecological networks. Additionally, significantly lower microbial alpha diversity was observed in patients with sepsis than in healthy individuals. In particular, the enrichment of Bilophila, Burkholderia, Corynebacterium, and Porphyromonas, along with the reduced abundance of a large number of short-chain fatty acid-producing microbes, including Roseburia, Bifidobacterium, Faecalibacterium, Coprococcus, Blautia, Clostridium, Ruminococcus, and Anaerostipe was observed in patients with sepsis compared to the control group. Moreover, patients with sepsis could be effectively classified based on the abundance of these bacteria using a support vector machine algorithm. Conclusion. This study demonstrated significant differences in the gut microbiome between Zhuang ethnic patients with sepsis and healthy individuals. In the future, it is necessary to determine whether such alterations are the cause or consequence of sepsis.

Boron nitride (BN) materials, graphene-like materials, are known as one of the most promising inorganic materials of this century because of their unique structures and properties [...]

Objectives: Prior studies have proposed that maternal intrapartum antibiotic exposure shapes the gut microbiota and, subsequently the child's health. However, the effect of maternal intrapartum antibiotic exposure and its influence on the development of the neonatal oral microbiota in early infancy has not yet been reported. The aim of this study was to compare the initial oral microbiota immediately after birth of healthy infants with and without intrapartum antibiotic exposure. Methods: Twenty-two newborns of the BaoAn Maternal and Child Care Hospital (Shenzhen, China) were recruited for this study, 11 born to mothers without intrapartum antibiotic exposure (NT group) and 11 to mothers with intrapartum antibiotic prophylaxis with cefamezin (AT group). Oral microbiome profiles were determined by 16S rRNA sequencing based on the V3V4 hyper-variable regions. Results: Phylum Firmicutes was most frequently detected in subjects both groups and a higher frequency was observed in the NT group than the AT group. Phyla Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria were more abundant after intrapartum antibiotics exposure. Genus Lactobacillus belonging to Firmicutes was predominant in the neonates not exposed to antibiotics, while significantly higher percentages of genera Klebsiella, Roseburia, Propionibacterium, Faecalibacterium, Escherichia/Shigella, Corynebacterium, Bifidobacterium, and Bacteroides were noted in AT infants than NT infants. Further function analysis demonstrated that lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis and amino acid–related metabolic function was enriched in the AT group, and carbohydrate metabolism pathways were more abundant in the NT group. Conclusions: These findings revealed distinctions in both taxa and metabolic function of oral microbiota between antibiotics-treated and unexposed groups, which indicated that maternal intrapartum antibiotic treatment is a key regulator of the initial neonatal oral microbiome. Key Words: Neonatal oral microbiome, Maternal intrapartum antibiotics, 16S rRNA sequencing

BackgroundMounting studies have sought to identify novel mutation biomarkers having diagnostic and prognostic potentials. Nevertheless, the understanding of the mutated pathways related to development and prognosis of B-cell lymphoma is still lacking. We aimed to comprehensively analyze the mutation alterations in genes of canonical signaling pathways and their impacts on the clinic outcomes of patients with B-cell lymphoma.MethodsCirculating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) samples from 79 patients with B-cell lymphomas were used for targeted sequencing with a 560-gene panel for depicting mutation landscapes and identifying gene fusion events. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) functional enrichment analyses of mutated genes were performed. The associations of mutation status of genes and seven canonical oncogenic pathways with progression-free survival (PFS) were assessed using Kaplan-Meier test and multivariate Cox analysis. The variant allele frequencies (VAFs) of genes in TP53 and Hippo pathways in paired baseline and post-treatment samples from 18 B-cell lymphoma patients were compared. Finally, the associations of identified fusion genes, mutated genes, and pathways with treatment response were evaluated based on objective response rates (ORRs) comparisons of groups.ResultsWe identified 666 mutations from 262 genes in baseline cfDNAs from 79 B-cell lymphoma patients, and found some genes were preferentially mutated in our cohort such as GNAQ, GNAS, H3F3A, DNMT3A, HLA-A, and HLA-B. These frequently mutated genes were significantly associated with negative “regulation of gene expression, epigenetic” and virus infections such as cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, human immunodeficiency virus 1 infections. We detected five fusion genes in at least two patients with B-cell lymphoma, and among them, TCF7L2_WT1 gene fusion was most frequently detected in 30.4% of patients (24 of 79 cases). SEPT6_TRIM33 gene fusion, mutated TP53 and Hippo pathways were significantly associated with poor PFS, and SEPT6_TRIM33 fusion gene and mutated TP53 pathway were independent prognostic factors for B-cell lymphoma. A decreased VAF of TP53 p.Y88C and LATS2 p.F972L was detected in patients with complete response to treatments. Moreover, a significant difference in ORR was observed in patients with NPM1_NR4A3 and SEPT6_TRIM33 fusions.ConclusionsSEPT6_TRIM33 gene fusion and mutated TP53 and Hippo pathways may serve as prognostic makers for B-cell lymphoma patients.

Objective: To investigate the mechanism of activation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signal pathway in the process of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP).Methods: Sixty newborn Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were randomly separated into the hyperoxia and air control groups (n = 30/in each group). The serum hepcidin level on 21 d was measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression of HAMP and STAT3 protein in the liver was determined using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and western blotting. Retinal neovasculature was evaluated by hematoxylin and eosin (HE) stain and fluorescein lectin. The retinal endothelial cells were treated with 250 μmol/L cobalt chloride for 72 h and added S3I-201. The STAT3 level was determined by western blotting.Results: The expression of STAT3 protein increased significantly after hyperoxia stimulation. The expression of HAMP mRNA in the hyperoxia group was significantly higher than that of the control group. The proliferation of retinal cells was inhibited, and the expression of STAT3 was increased. No significant difference was noted in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA. The expression of STAT3 and VEGF mRNA was significantly reduced.Conclusion: The activation of the STAT3 signal pathway increased hepcidin expression, contributing to the pathogenesis of ROP. S3I-201 inhibited the expression of STAT3 and VEGF mRNA levels. This information provides potential novel therapeutic approach to the prevention and treatment of ROP.

Maize (Zea mays L.) crops on the North China Plain are often subject to continuous overcast rain at the flowering stage. This causes waterlogging and shading stresses simultaneously and leads to huge yield losses, but the causes of these yield losses remain largely unknown. To explore the factors contributing to yield loss caused by combined waterlogging and shading stress at the flowering stage, we performed phenotypic, physiological, and quasi-targeted metabolomics analyses of maize plants subjected to waterlogging, shading, and combined waterlogging and shading (WS) treatments. Analyses of phenotypic and physiological indexes showed that, compared with waterlogging or shading alone, WS resulted in lower source strength, more severe inhibition of ovary and silk growth at the ear tip, a reduced number of emerged silks, and a higher rate of ovary abortion. Changes in carbon content and enzyme activity could not explain the ovary abortion in our study. Metabolomic analyses showed that the events occurred in ovaries and silks were closely related to abortion, WS forced the ovary to allocate more resources to the synthesis of amino acids involved in the stress response, inhibited the energy metabolism, glutathione metabolism and methionine salvage pathway, and overaccumulation of H2O2. In silks, WS led to lower accumulation levels of specific flavonoid metabolites with antioxidant capacity, and to over accumulation of H2O2. Thus, compared with each single stress, WS more seriously disrupted the normal metabolic process, and resulted more serious oxidative stress in ovaries and silks. Amino acids involved in the stress response in ovaries and specific flavonoid metabolites with antioxidant capacity in silks play important roles during ovary abortion. These results identify novel traits for selection in breeding programs and targets for genome editing to increase maize yield under WS stress.

Objectives: Probenecid is an anion transport inhibitor, which, according to the connectivity map (CMap; a biological application database), interferes with hypoxia-induced gene expression changes in retinal vascular endothelial cells (ECs). Here, we investigated the influence of probenecid on retinal EC cytotoxicity and retinal neovascularization in a murine oxygen-induced retinopathy (OIR) model.Methods: The retinal EC growth rate in the presence of hypoxia-mimicking concentrations of cobalt chloride (CoCl2) was determined using the thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) expression. In OIR rats, probenecid was administered by intraperitoneal injection (i.p.) from postnatal day (P) 1 to P7. The concentrations of vitreous humor vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α, and placental growth factor (PlGF) were determined by using the ELISA kit at P21. The amount of newly formed vascular lumen was evaluated by histopathological examination. Retinopathy and neovascularization were assessed by scoring isolectin B4 fluorescein–stained retinal flat mounts. Western blots for liver tissue HIF-1α and hepcidin (HAMP) were performed.Results:In vitro, probenecid led to the recession of the hypoxia-induced EC growth rate. In vivo, compared to the OIR retina, the upregulation of VEGF, HIF-1α, and PlGF in phase II retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) was inhibited by probenecid administration. Moreover, probenecid ameliorated neovascularization and resulted in significantly reduced relative leakage fluorescence signal intensity in fluorescein-stained retinal flat mounts (p < 0.05). Probenecid alleviated the liver overactivation of HAMP and downregulation of HIF-1α in OIR rats.Conclusions: This is the first demonstration that implies that probenecid might be a protective compound against retinal angiogenesis in OIR. These changes are accompanied with decreased hyperoxia-mediated hepcidin overproduction. Although the relevance of the results to ROP needs further research, these findings may help establish potential pharmacological targets based on the CMap database.

Waterlogging is a major threat to maize production worldwide. The exogenous application of spermidine is well known to enhance plant tolerance to abiotic stresses. The role of exogenous spermidine application in waterlogging tolerance in maize was investigated in this study. Two maize varieties (a waterlogging-tolerant variety: Xundan 20 (XD20) and a waterlogging-sensitive variety: Denghai 662 (DH662)) were subjected to waterlogging stress at the seedling stage, and then foliar spraying of 0.75 mM spermidine or purified water. Findings demonstrated lower chlorophyll content, reduced growth indices, considerable increase in superoxide anion (O2−) generation rate, and H2O2/malondialdehyde accumulation in the two maize varieties under waterlogging stress compared to the control treatment. However, the tolerance variety performed better than the sensitive one. Foliar application of spermidine significantly increased antioxidant enzyme activities under waterlogging stress. In addition, the application of spermidine increased polyamine levels and led to the reduction of ethylene levels under waterlogging. Consequences of spermidine application were most apparent for the waterlogging-sensitive cultivar DH662 under waterlogging than the waterlogging-tolerant variety XD20.

Dimpled particles are synthesized through the seeded polymerization of fluoroacrylate and styrene on swelled polystyrene spheres. The morphologies of the particles can be controlled by the polymerization temperature, the amount of solvent swelling the seeds or the ratio of the fluoroacrylate monomer over styrene. Golf-ball-like particles with many small dimples on their surfaces are obtained at low polymerization temperatures or with a small amount of solvent. Particles with a large single dimple are formed at higher polymerization temperatures, with larger solvent amounts or a higher ratio of fluoroacrylate over styrene. The morphology formation mechanism of these dimpled particles is proposed and the application of these particles in the fabrication of superhydrophobic coatings is demonstrated.

Abstract Background Early life microflora is an important determinant of immune and metabolic development and may have lasting consequences. However, the mode of delivery and the effect of povidone iodine disinfection on neonatal oral microflora colonization are still unclear. The objective of the study was to understand the effects of the use of polyvidone iodine on infant’s oral microflora after transvaginal examination during delivery, provided data support for the establishment of neonatal oral microflora health. Methods A total of 20 cases of full-term neonatal delivered in October 2017 in Shenzhen Bao’an Maternity and Child Health Hospital through vaginal delivery. These neonates were randomly divided into two groups, the conventional disinfection group and the non-disinfection group. Simultaneously, 10 infants with elective cesarean section were taken as comparison. With Illumina MiSeq platform, 16S rRNA V3-V4 sequencing method was used to analyze bacterial DNA of oral secretions. Results At the phylum level, compared to the non-disinfection group, higher relative abundance of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria, and lower proportion of Firmicutes were observed in the cesarean section group and the disinfection group. As main composition of phylum Firmicutes, genus Lactobacillus presented extremely low in the cesarean section group and the disinfection group, whereas it was the absolute dominant bacteria in the non-disinfection group. Compared with the caesarean section group, only Lactobacillus increased in majority of the non-disinfection group. There was no increase in Lactobacillus in the disinfection group, but Prevotella, Escherichia-Shigella, Staphyloccus, and Klebsiella increased significantly. Through KEGG pathway analysis, we found that there were more harmful pathways such as staphylococcus aureus infection, viral myocarditis and sporulation in the disinfection group. Conclusions The mode of delivery affects the infant’s Lactobacillus obtained from the mother. Moreover, vulvar disinfection played an important part in the colonization of neonatal oral microbiota. And the impact of the first oral colonizers on infant health needs further follow-up investigations.

Ovarian cancer: Suppressing the spread A member of a protein family known to suppress tumors could help tackle ovarian cancer metastasis. Ovarian cancer remains challenging to treat because the molecular mechanisms inherent in the disease are poorly understood. Hongping Li at Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, Yuanfang Zhu at Bao’an Maternity and Child Health Hospital, and co-workers showed that low levels of a tumor-suppressing protein, Rho GTPase-activating protein 26 (ARHGAP26), promote the invasion and migration of ovarian cancer cells. The team took tumor and healthy tissue samples from 85 patients and confirmed that reduced levels of ARHGAP26 in the cancerous tissues coincided with an increase in an enzyme involved in protein degradation. This enzyme-led destruction of ARHGAP26 may enable cancer metastasis. The team backed up their hypothesis by observing reduced cancer cell proliferation in mice with high levels of ARHGAP26.

A comparative study of the extractive desulfurization (EDS) mechanism by Cu(II) and Zn-based ILs ([C4mim]2[MCl4], M = Cu(II) or Zn) has been performed. It is found that the π–π interaction and C-H⋯π interaction play important roles in EDS for both Cu(II) and Zn-based ILs, which is different from Al, Fe-based ILs. In the gas phase models, the interaction energy between Zn-based ILs and dibenzothiophene (DBT) is stronger than the interaction energy of Cu(II)-based ILs. In order to consider the solvent effect, a generic ionic liquid of solvation model has been implemented, which is few considered in the previous calculations of EDS. It is interesting to find that the gap of interaction energies between Cu(II), Zn-based ILs and DBT are reduced when the solvent effect is considered. In addition, by combined discussion of currently theoretical and experimental evidences for metal-based ILs with different compositions, we firstly propose that the EDS performance should be influenced by the balance of the contribution of cation, metal-based anion, metal chlorides and the viscosity. Keywords: Extractive desulfurization, Metal-based ILs, Mechanism, Density functional theory

Based on the acid–base neutralization, the (1-methylimidazolium)(tetrazol-1-yl)borane was successfully synthesized by taking advantage of the acidity of the tetrazole and the basicity of the 1-methylimidazole borane complex. Through HRMS, NMR, and FT−IR, the structure of synthetic compounds was characterized in detail. Concerning about the (1-methylimidazolium)(tetrazol-1-yl)borane, it had an ignition−delay time of about 25 ms and a density specific impulse over 351 s·g/cm3, making it a suitable candidate for green hypergolic fuels. Moreover, it also demonstrated that introducing tetrazole into the borane could be an appropriate strategy to adjust the performance of the energy of those borane compounds.

To identify hygrothermal transfer patterns of exterior walls is a crucial issue in the design, assessment, and construction of buildings. Temperature and relative humidity, as sensor monitoring data, were collected from the outside of the wall to interior bamboo and wood composite sheathing over the year in Huangshan Mountain District, Anhui Province, China. Combining the machine learning method of reservoir computing (RC) with agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC), a novel clustering framework was built for better extraction of the characteristics of hygrothermal transfer on the time series data. The experimental results confirmed the hypothesis that the change in the temperature and relative humidity of the outside of the wall (RHT12) dominated the change of the interior sheathing (RHT11). The delay time between two adjacent peaks in temperature was 1 to 2 h, while that in relative humidity was 1 to 4 h from the outside of the wall to interior bamboo and wood composite sheathing. There was no significant difference in temperature peak delay time between April and July. Temperature peak delay time was 50 to 120 min. However, relative humidity peak delay time was 100 to 240 min in April, whereas it was 20 to 120 min in July. The impact formed a relatively linear relationship between outdoor temperature and relative humidity peak delay time. The hygrothermal transfer patterns were characterized effectively by the peak delays. The discovery of the hygrothermal transfer patterns for the bamboo and wood composite walls using the machine learning method will facilitate the development of energy-efficient and durable bamboo and wood composite wall materials and structures.

Single atom adsorbents (SAAs) are a novel class of materials that have great potential in various fields, especially in the field of adsorptive desulfurization. However, it is still challenging to gain a fundamental understanding of the complicated behaviors on SAAs for adsorbing thiophenic compounds, such as 1-Benzothiophene (BT), Dibenzothiophene (DBT), and 4,6-Dimethyldibenzothiophene (4,6-DMDBT). Herein, we investigated the mechanisms of adsorptive desulfurization over a single Ag atom supported on defective hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets via density functional theory calculations. The Ag atom can be anchored onto three typical sites on the pristine h-BN, including the monoatomic defect vacancy (B-vacancy and N-vacancy) and the boron-nitrogen diatomic defect vacancy (B-N-divacancy). These three Ag-doped hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets all exhibit enhanced adsorption capacity for thiophenic compounds primarily by the S-Ag bond with π-π interaction maintaining. Furthermore, from the perspective of interaction energy, all three SAAs show a high selectivity to 4,6-DMDBT with the strong interaction energy (−33.9 kcal mol−1, −29.1 kcal mol−1, and −39.2 kcal mol−1, respectively). Notably, a little charge transfer demonstrated that the dominant driving force of such S-Ag bond is electrostatic interaction rather than coordination effect. These findings may shed light on the principles for modeling and designing high-performance and selective SAAs for adsorptive desulfurization.

The Earth Exploration Satellite Service (EESS) for passive sensing has a primary frequency allocation in the 1400–1427 MHz band. All emissions unauthorized in this band are called RFI (Radio Frequency Interference). The SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission is greatly perturbed by RFI impeding ocean salinity retrieval, especially in coastal areas such as the SCS (South China Sea), where the observed data has been discarded massively. At present, there is no way to eliminate the RFI impact on the retrieved salinity, other than by detecting and shutting down the emissions from the sources. However, it may be effective in a scientific sense if RFI can be quantified and applied to the salinity retrieval process. Therefore, this study proposes an RFI measuring method that can investigate contamination in both prominent and moderate respects, aroused either by on-site emissions or nearby continents. Based on the proposed method, two levels of hierarchical RFI maps of the SCS region, including the separated one and the merged one, are presented and discussed, indicating more severe contamination in northern and western SCS. Moreover, to verify the generalization of the method on open oceans far from continents, an area in the middle central Pacific is selected and tested. The result shows few or no RFI in this unattended region, which is consistent with the authors’ knowledge. This study presents the concept of the “RFI map” to describe the contamination, which will hopefully help researchers comprehend the RFI state intuitively and assist in ocean salinity retrieval statistically.

The impact of aging on reproductive outcomes has received considerable critical attention; however, there is much less information available on the effects of paternal age compared to the effects of maternal age. In this study, methylation levels of sperm rDNA promoter regions and Long Interspersed Nucleotide Element 1 (LINE-1) were measured using pyrosequencing and fertilization, day 3 good-quality embryo, pregnancies, and implantation results were assessed. We observed significantly increasing levels of DNA methylation in the sperm rDNA promoter regions with age based on stratifying the samples by age alone (P = 0.0001) and performing linear regression analysis (P < 0.0001). Meanwhile, no statistically significant correlations were observed between global LINE-1 methylation with age. No statistically significant correlations were observed between sperm rDNA promoter methylation levels and either the day 3 good-quality embryo rate or clinical pregnancy rate. In contrast, the correlation between sperm rDNA promoter methylation levels and fertilization (2 pronuclei) rate was nearly significant (P = 0.0707), especially the methylation levels of some individual CpG units (CpG_10, P = 0.0176; CpG_11, P = 0.0438; CpG_14, P = 0.0232) and rDNA promoter methylation levels measured using primerS2 (P = 0.0513). No significant correlation was found between sperm rDNA promoter methylation levels and fertilization rates (2 pronuclei, 1 pronuclei, and 1 polypronuclei). Our results demonstrate that sperm are susceptible to age-associated alterations in methylation levels of rDNA promoter regions, suggesting that sperm rDNA promoter methylation levels can be applied to DNA methylation-based age prediction, and that the aberrant methylation of rDNA promoters may be partially responsible for enhanced disease susceptibility of offspring sired by older fathers. Methylation levels of sperm rDNA promoter regions may correlate with polypronuclei rates of IVF programs.

Abstract Supported ionic liquid (IL) catalysts [C n mim]3PMo12O40/Am TiO2 (amorphous TiO2) were synthesized through a one-step method for extraction coupled catalytic oxidative desulfurization (ECODS) system. Characterizations such as FTIR, DRS, wide-angle XRD, N2 adsorption–desorption and XPS were applied to analyze the morphology and Keggin structure of the catalysts. In ECODS with hydrogen peroxide as the oxidant, it was found that ILs with longer alkyl chains in the cationic moiety had a better effect on the removal of dibenzothiophene. The desulfurization could reach 100% under optimal conditions, and GC–MS analysis was employed to detect the oxidized product after the reaction. Factors affecting the desulfurization efficiencies were discussed, and a possible mechanism was proposed. In addition, cyclic experiments were also conducted to investigate the recyclability of the supported catalyst. The catalytic activity of [C16mim]3PMo12O40/Am TiO2 only dropped from 100% to 92.9% after ten cycles, demonstrating the good recycling performance of the catalyst and its potential industrial application.