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Improving individuals' low-carbon awareness has become an important research topic. Gamification design is regarded as a potential IT solution to this social problem. Although much research is concerned with the effect of low-carbon awareness to improve individuals' behaviour, little attention has been paid to exploring how to improve low-carbon awareness, especially in the context of green gamification. To fill this research gap, our study uses the cognitive dissonance theory to build a theoretical model for exploring the impacts of green gamification factors on individuals' low-carbon awareness. The model is also used to explore the mediating role of cognitive dissonance and the moderating effect of emotional dependence. Empirical results reveal that visibility of achievement, competition, and interactivity have positive impacts on users' cognitive dissonance, which further positively affect users' low-carbon awareness. In addition, users' emotional dependence positively moderates the relationship between green gamification factors and users' cognitive dissonance. These results extend the cognitive dissonance theory and the literature on green gamification. New insights and practical implications for the designers of gamification application and environmental protection organisations are also provided in our study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frustrated Lewis Pairs (FLPs) represent a unique class of interactions in Lewis acid‐base chemistry, driven by spatial hindrance or incongruent orbital energy levels that hinder the formation of effective coordination bonds. FLPs have received significant attention for their application in activating small molecules and facilitating organic synthesis reactions. Recent developments have led to the emergence of Frustrated Radical Pairs (FRPs) as an extension of the radical family. FRPs are formed from FLPs through Single Electron Transfer (SET) and exhibit the ability to activate a variety of chemical bonds. While research on FLPs is well‐established, investigations into FRPs in organic reactions remain limited. This review highlights the current state of FRPs in organic synthesis, delves into mechanistic insights, explores their potential, and underscores the challenges in this emerging field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article aims to explore the potential benefits of a virtual reality platform in cooperative learning. The study involved 48 freshman students in the table tennis class of Xinxiang Medical University. They were divided into control groups (M = 19.48, SD = 0.37) and experimental groups (M = 19.68, SD = 0.51). The Holofit platform and the model of cooperative learning principles served as an influence. The research utilized the Chinese Sport Motivation Scale-II (CSMS-II) and five physical fitness assessment tests as primary instruments. Following the intervention, a discernible reduction of 2.08 in mean scores within the amotivation subscale was observed in contrast to the pre-test. Conversely, positive shifts were noted in external regulation (1.88), introjected regulation (2.20), identified regulation (1.28), integrated regulation (1.48), and intrinsic motivation (1.96) subscales. Intragroup analyses, comparing pre-and post-test results, unveiled significant improvements in physical fitness indicators over six months for both the intervention and control groups. However, upon intergroup comparisons, it was discerned that the intervention failed to yield a statistically significant enhancement in physical performance in comparison to the traditional approach. Statistically significant distinctions were evident between the intervention and control groups across all CSMS-II subscales, signifying a demonstrable positive influence of cooperative learning and virtual reality on motivation for sports participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction:The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created lots of difficulties for individuals to seek medical help offline. Telehealth is considered as a potential approach to solve this issue. During the COVID-19 pandemic, although the use of telehealth has increased in the short term, it still remains unknown whether the use of telehealth can maintain a high level of development in the long term. The purpose of this article is to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on telehealth use across time and regional medical resources. Materials and Methods:Our research used the Internet search index from Baidu Index Platform in 31 provinces of China as the proxy of telehealth use. A total of 2,119,486 times of searching behaviors from January 2018 to December 2021 are included in our dataset. Changing plots, the method of analysis of variance and empirical models are applied to reveal the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic and telehealth use. Results:Baidu Index counts increased (p < 0.01) at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic (2020) but started to decline (p < 0.01) during the period of regular epidemic prevention and control (2021). Moreover, the counts of Baidu Index in regions with rich medical resources are higher than those in other regions in 2020. Comparing Baidu Index counts in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has higher positive effects on telehealth use during the period of 2021 in regions with average and poor medical resources. Conclusions:COVID-19 pandemic has a positive effect on telehealth use in 2020 but has a negative effect in 2021. During the epidemic, telehealth use differs in regions with rich, average, and poor medical resources. Our findings indicate that the use of telehealth should be promoted with different measures in regions with different medical resources, thereby contributing its healthy development in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most important piezoelectric materials for piezoelectricity related devices, the performance of wurtzite-type aluminum nitride (w-AlN) is still inhibited by its low piezoelectric coefficients. Herein, we have proposed a new co-alloying w-AlN system by Li+ and Ti4+ (or Zr4+) in a ratio of 1:2 and systematically compared its piezoelectric properties with state-of-the-art Sc-alloyed w-AlN via the first-principle method. It is found that the co-alloyed w-AlN shows obvious advantages over Sc-alloyed w-AlN in nearly all aspects of piezoelectric performance. The piezoelectric strain coefficient (d33) of (LiTi2)0.375Al0.625N reaches 213.25 pC/N, about 8 times and 41 times that of Sc0.375Al0.625N and pure w-AlN, respectively. Additionally, the large enhancement of piezoelectricity of co-alloyed w-AlN was successfully related to the elastic softening, the increased Born effective charge (Z ∗) , and the decreased internal strain sensitivity ( d u d δ ). This work provides a new way to enhance the performance of incumbent piezoelectric materials by accessible elements instead of Sc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Baeyer–Villiger oxidation represents a valuable reaction that enables the conversion of ketones into esters or lactones. Here, we present a novel and efficient approach utilizing I2 as a catalyst for the oxidative rearrangement of cyclobutenones, resulting in the synthesis of furan-2(5H)-one. Notably, this method employs dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as a greener oxidant and source of oxygen. The reaction proceeds smoothly with catalytic amounts of iodine, yielding lactones in good yields. Compared to conventional Baeyer–Villiger oxidation reactions that rely on peroxyl acids or hydrogen peroxide, the use of DMSO offers a safer and more versatile alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we address the distributed resilient fusion filtering (DRFF) problem for a class of nonlinear multi-sensor networked systems (MSNSs) with random sensor delay (RSD) under round-robin protocol (RRP). The RSD is depicted by the Bernoulli random variable with known occurrence probability. In order to relieve the network congestion, the RRP that can deal with information overload issue of the transmission process from sensor to the estimator is utilised. The major objective of this paper is that the resilient fusion filter is designed for nonlinear MSNSs with RSD and RRP in the light of the inverse covariance intersection approach, where the local upper bound regarding the filtering error covariance is obtained and then minimised by suitably exploiting the local filter gain. Finally, a simulation example that can show the validity of the provided DRFF algorithm is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Special protective clothing should have a certain thermal insulation and protective effect in the production in front of the blast furnace. In order to study the design of special protective clothing for blast furnace foreman, its temperature distribution and internal thickness structure are deeply analyzed. First, based on the existing experimental data, combined with heat transfer and the Fourier law theory, a one-dimensional unsteady heat conduction equation is established. Using the explicit finite difference solution algorithm, the distribution law of the temperature of each fabric layer with time is obtained and the error analysis is performed. The error result is 0.42877%, which shows that the numerical solution is stable and convergent. Then, through the intelligent optimization model of a simulated annealing ant colony (SA-ACO), compared with the single ant colony algorithm (ACO) and a simulated annealing algorithm (SA), it avoids falling into the local optimal solution, reversely solves the optimal thickness of two layers of protective clothing in front of the blast furnace, improves the convergence speed of optimization, and verifies the reliability of the model with a sensitivity test. Finally, this paper actually solves the problem of the protective clothing design and mathematical intelligent model in front of the blast furnace and combines it with numerical simulation software to realize the numerical simulation of temperature distribution and thickness optimization of special protective clothing in front of the blast furnace, so as to provide theoretical guidance for enterprise blast furnace production and development of special protective clothing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the combustion process of fuel in the microwave plasma torch, we designed a butane microwave plasma device exploiting a tungsten rod as an electrode. Through analysis of the image record by high-speed camera, we found that the discharge of butane microwave plasma torch is a cyclic process at atmospheric pressure at a frequency of around 100 Hz. During the discharge, the active particles continuously diffuse from the electrode to the outside like the bloom of the flower. Then, the variation of plasma torch of jet height and temperature with microwave power is obtained. In addition, we studied the effects of different butane flow rates on the plasma torch. The results illustrate that excessive butane will lead to carbon deposition on the electrode. All in all, this work provides a new understanding of the combustion of the microwave plasma torch, which is conducive to the further development of microwave plasma in the fields of waste gas treatment, fuel combustion, and plasma engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sparse principal component analysis (SPCA) produces principal components with sparse loadings, which is very important for handling data with many irrelevant features and also critical to interpret the results. To deal with orthogonal constraints, most previous approaches address SPCA with several components using techniques such as deflation technique and convex relaxations. However, the deflation technique usually suffers from suboptimal solutions due to poor approximations. On the other hand, the convex relaxations are often computationally expensive. To address the above issues, in this paper, we propose to address SPCA over the Stiefel manifold directly, and develop a stabilized Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (SADMM) to handle the nonconvex orthogonal constraints. Compared to traditional ADMM, the proposed SADMM method converges well with a wide range of parameters and obtains a better solution. We also theoretically study the convergence property of the proposed SADMM method. Furthermore, most existing methods ignore an inherent drawback of SPCA — the importance of different components is not considered when doing feature selection, which often makes the selected features nonoptimal. To address this, we further propose a two-stage method which considers the importance of different components to select the most important features. Empirical studies on both synthetic and real-world datasets show that the proposed algorithms achieve better performance compared to existing state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, social recommendation has attracted tremendous attention due to the ever-growing online social platform such as Twitter and Facebook. However, as the number of users increases rapidly, recommendation efficiency has become the bottleneck of many existing social recommender systems due to the computation and storage of real-valued models. For addressing the efficiency problem, recent researches resolve it by introducing hashing technique into social recommender systems. By mapping real values to discrete values, the computational speed is guaranteed as well as the storage cost is reduced. Nevertheless, these methods suffer from two critical limitations: (1) The inevitable quantization loss brought by hash function decreases recommendation accuracy to a certain extent. (2) The original social relations contain massive noise that may result in sub-optimal accuracy of recommendation without considering the fact that people can only pay attention to a small number of their friends. Therefore, to tackle the above limitations and have a better tradeoff between accuracy and efficiency, in this paper, we propose a novel social recommendation method called Discrete Limited Attentional Collaborative Filtering (DLACF), which models recommendation objective with limited attention as a constrained mix-integer optimization problem. Since the original problem is NP-hard, we further devise a computationally efficient optimization algorithm to learn the binary codes as well as to estimate the best influential friends. Experimental results conducted on two real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed model, achieving the averaged improvement of 118.7% and 54.7% compared to state-of-the-art discrete methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have used complex network theory to examine the characteristics of China's High-Speed Rail (HSR). Nevertheless, little attention is paid to China's HSR network's dynamic evolution and the coevolution of node attributes and embedded structural characteristics. Our study builds China's HSR network using a complex network approach and spatial analysis technique to address this issue. Additionally, we employ a stochastic actor-oriented model (SAOM) to properly decompose the three types of effects on the generation of China's HSR network (i.e., network structure, attribute-based similarity, and exogenous control variables). This study discusses the underlying hypotheses and indicates that 3-cycles is a critical structural factor for the formation of China's HSR network. In terms of the effects of attribute-based similarity, cities with similar Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and geographical proximity are essential nodal drivers for the evolution of the HSR network. Notably, the administrative rank of cities exhibits a significantly negative driving force and a alter effect. These findings shed light on the interactive process of urban regional development and the dynamic evolution of the HSR network, assisting the central and local governments in enacting and implementing appropriate HSR planning policies, ultimately achieving effective urban planning and management. • The 3-cycles has a positive effect on the formation of the HSR network. • Similar GDP and geographical proximity of cities are critical drivers for the HSR. • Urban rank exhibits a significantly negative driving force and a alter effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a challenging global health problem. To identify genetic loci involved in chronic HBV infection, we designed a three-phase genome-wide association study in Han Chinese populations. The discovery phase included 951 HBV carriers (cases) and 937 individuals who had naturally cleared HBV infection (controls) and was followed by independent replications with a total of 2,248 cases and 3,051 controls and additional replications with 1,982 HBV carriers and 2,622 controls from the general population. We identified two new loci associated with chronic HBV infection: rs3130542 at 6p21.33 (near HLA-C, odds ratio (OR) = 1.33, P = 9.49 × 10−14) and rs4821116 at 22q11.21 (in UBE2L3, OR = 0.82, P = 1.71 × 10−12). Additionally, we replicated the previously identified associations of HLA-DP and HLA-DQ variants at 6p21.32 with chronic HBV infection. These findings highlight the importance of HLA-C and UBE2L3 in the clearance of HBV infection in addition to HLA-DP and HLA-DQ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congenital heart malformation (CHM) is the most common form of congenital human birth anomaly and is the leading cause of infant mortality. Although some causative genes have been identified, little progress has been made in identifying genes in which low-penetrance susceptibility variants occur in the majority of sporadic CHM cases. To identify common genetic variants associated with sporadic non-syndromic CHM in Han Chinese populations, we performed a multistage genome-wide association study (GWAS) in a total of 4,225 CHM cases and 5,112 non-CHM controls. The GWAS stage included 945 cases and 1,246 controls and was followed by 2-stage validation with 2,160 cases and 3,866 controls. The combined analyses identified significant associations (P < 5.0 × 10−8) at 1p12 (rs2474937 near TBX15; odds ratio (OR) = 1.40; P = 8.44 × 10−10) and 4q31.1 (rs1531070 in MAML3; OR = 1.40; P = 4.99 × 10−12). These results extend current knowledge of genetic contributions to CHM in Han Chinese populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze the epidemiology of PRRSV in Hubei Province of China, 668 serum samples collected from 14 pig-breeding farms were tested. We found that the PRRSV-positive rate was 5.24 % and that HP-PRRSV had become the dominant strain. To further investigate the genetic variation of PRRSV strains in this region, the complete gene sequences of nsp2, orf5, and orf7 from nine PRRSV strains collected during 2011-2012 were determined and compared with 33 known sequences. The results revealed that diverse HP-PRRSV strains are present in this region. An analysis of orf5 gene sequences showed that the strains collected during 2009-2010 formed a tightly clustered branch. When compared with the JXA1 strain, they had one mutation (V29 → A29) in a decoy epitope. Furthermore, we found that the number of potential N-glycosylation sites had apparently increased since 2006. These findings increase our knowledge of PRRSV epidemiology in Central China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To find additional susceptibility loci for lung cancer, we tested promising associations from our previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) of lung cancer in the Chinese population in an extended validation sample size of 7,436 individuals with lung cancer (cases) and 7,483 controls. We found genome-wide significant (P < 5.0 × 10?8) evidence for three additional lung cancer susceptibility loci at 10p14 (rs1663689, close to GATA3, P = 2.84 × 10?10), 5q32 (rs2895680 in PPP2R2B-STK32A-DPYSL3, P = 6.60 × 10?9) and 20q13.2 (rs4809957 in CYP24A1, P = 1.20 × 10?8). We also found consistent associations for rs247008 at 5q31.1 (IL3-CSF2-P4HA2, P = 7.68 × 10?8) and rs9439519 at 1p36.32 (AJAP1-NPHP4, P = 3.65 × 10?6). Four of these loci showed evidence for interactions with smoking dose (P = 1.72 × 10?10, P = 5.07 × 10?3, P = 6.77 × 10?3 and P = 4.49 × 10?2 for rs2895680, rs4809957, rs247008 and rs9439519, respectively). These results advance our understanding of lung cancer susceptibility and highlight potential pathways that integrate genetic variants and smoking in the development of lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The issue of conflict has been around for a long time. With the development of economic development and the diversification of industries, conflicts have shown a trend of complex development. By reviewing interorganizational conflict in construction, this study aims to identify the formation, development and evolution of conflict and to assist organizational managers in using scientific conflict management tools to deal with and resolve conflict. Design/methodology/approach: This paper considers the following questions: "What is the overall research status of the interorganizational conflict in construction projects?" and "What are the trendy issues in interorganizational conflicts in construction projects?" This study uses R software's Biblioshiny program to describe the overall conflict between organizations to answer question 1. This study uses Netminer – a social network analysis (SNA) software and text mining to explore research trends and answer question 2. Findings: Interorganizational conflict has been one of the most important topics in recent years when it comes to conflict issues. This paper intends to examine interorganizational conflict in construction in an attempt to shed light on four main topics regarding the conflict: the application of conflict theory; factors that induce conflict; the effect of conflict on performance; and methods of conflict management. Research limitations/implications: Through a comprehensive analysis of interorganizational conflict, this study helps to increase the understanding of scholars in the field of conflict research. This study suggests future research directions and provides references for managers to improve their conflict management, decision-making and performance. Originality/value: This study combines bibliometrics, SNA and text mining research methods. Multidimensional and multiperspectival assessments are performed based on the status of the research, its evolution and trends. The results of this study can be used to guide the resolution of conflict in other industries. This study also enriches the scientific theory related to the interorganizational conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been demonstrated that there are abundant stable microRNAs (miRNAs) in plasma/serum, which can be detected and are potentially disease specific. However, the lack of suitable endogenous controls for serum miRNA detection is the restriction for the widely usage of this kind of biomarkers and for the between-laboratory comparison of the findings. We first systematically screened for endogenous control miRNAs (ECMs) by testing 10 pooling samples (using both Solexa sequencing and TaqMan low density array) and 50 individual samples (using quantitative reverse transcription–PCR) of different cancer traits and healthy controls. Then we assessed serum miRNAs used as potential biomarkers for breast cancer risk prediction based on a two-stage case–control analysis, including 48 breast cancer patients and 48 controls for the discovery stage and 76 breast cancer patients and 76 controls for validation. We identified two candidate ECMs (miRNA-191 and miRNA-484). Normalized by the two ECMs, we found four miRNAs (miR-16, miR-25, miR-222 and miR-324-3p) that were consistently differentially expressed between breast cancer cases and controls. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve is 0.954 for the four-miRNA signature in the discovery stage (sensitivity = 0.917 and specificity = 0.896) and 0.928 in the validation stage (sensitivity = 0.921 and specificity = 0.934). In conclusion, the four-miRNA signature from serum may serve as a non-invasive prediction biomarker for breast cancer. Furthermore, we proposed the combination of miRNA-484 and miRNA-191 as endogenous control for serum miRNA detection, at least for most common cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) is one of the most severe forms of male infertility. Its pathophysiology is largely unknown, and few genetic influences have been defined. To identify common variants contributing to NOA in Han Chinese men, we performed a three-stage genome-wide association study of 2,927 individuals with NOA and 5,734 controls. The combined analyses identified significant (P < 5.0 × 10?8) associations between NOA risk and common variants near PRMT6 (rs12097821 at 1p13.3: odds ratio (OR) = 1.25, P = 5.7 × 10?10), PEX10 (rs2477686 at 1p36.32: OR = 1.39, P = 5.7 × 10?12) and SOX5 (rs10842262 at 12p12.1: OR = 1.23, P = 2.3 × 10?9). These findings implicate genetic variants at 1p13.3, 1p36.32 and 12p12.1 in the etiology of NOA in Han Chinese men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gastric cancer, including the cardia and non-cardia types, is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. To identify genetic risk variants for non-cardia gastric cancer, we performed a genome-wide association study in 3,279 individuals (1,006 with non-cardia gastric cancer and 2,273 controls) of Chinese descent. We replicated significant associations in an additional 6,897 subjects (3,288 with non-cardia gastric cancer and 3,609 controls). We identified two new susceptibility loci for non-cardia gastric cancer at 5p13.1 (rs13361707 in the region including PTGER4 and PRKAA1; odds ratio (OR) = 1.41; P = 7.6 × 10?29) and 3q13.31 (rs9841504 in ZBTB20; OR = 0.76; P = 1.7 × 10?9). Imputation analyses also confirmed previously reported associations of rs2294008 and rs2976392 on 8q24, rs4072037 on 1q22 and rs13042395 on 20p13 with non-cardia gastric cancer susceptibility in the Han Chinese population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Nucleotide excision repair (NER) enzymes are critical for the removal of bulky DNA adducts caused by environmental carcinogens such as smoking. Of them, Cockayne syndrome complementation group B (CSB), coded by ERCC6, recruits NER repair factors to the DNA damage site and plays an important role in the repair process. Genetic variants of ERCC6 may alter the regulation of DNA repair and therefore were hypothesized to be associated with altered risk of smoking-related lung cancer. To test this hypothesis, we genotyped eight tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (tSNPs) and three potentially functional SNPs of ERCC6 in 500 incident lung cancer cases and 517 controls in a Chinese population. Single locus analyses showed that none of the single SNP alone had the significant main affect on the risk of lung cancer. However, the combined variant genotypes of the four loci with P trend approaching to 0.10 (rs2228526, rs4253160, rs12571445 and rs3793784) were associated with a significantly increased lung cancer risk (adjusted OR 1.35, 95% CI, 1.04–1.75 among subjects carrying three or more variant alleles), indicating that multiple loci in ERCC6 may jointly contribute to the susceptibility of lung cancer. These findings, if validated, may contribute to identify at-risk subjects in the general population for smoking-related lung cancer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: MDM2 is a phosphoprotein that interacts with P53 and inhibits its activity. Recently, a T/G substitution (SNP309) in the promoter of MDM2 was identified and has been demonstrated to be associated with an increased MDM2 expression and a significantly earlier age of onset of several tumors, including breast cancer. To test the hypothesis that this functional variant in the MDM2 promoter is associated with risk of breast cancer, we conducted a molecular epidemiological study of 366 breast cancer cases (BC), 263 patients with benign breast diseases (BBD) and 605 cancer-free controls in China, in which we genotyped this T/G variant and another common insertion/deletion polymorphism (Del1518) in the MDM2 promoter and evaluated the associations between these two polymorphisms and breast cancer risk. We found that the variant allele frequencies of these two polymorphisms were not statistically different between the cases and controls (SNP309G: 0.500, 0.542, and 0.506 in BC, BBD, and controls, respectively, and Del1518−: 0.296, 0.308, and 0.297 in BC, BBD, and controls, respectively). Logistic regression analyses revealed that the variant genotypes of both MDM2 SNP309 and Del1518 polymorphisms were not significantly associated with risk of breast cancer (adjusted OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 0.74–1.42 for SNP309 TG and GG; and adjusted OR, 1.09; 95% CI, 0.83–1.43 for Del1518 +/− and −/−). These findings suggest that these two MDM2 promoter variants may not play a major role in the etiology of breast cancer. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra), a structural variant of IL-1, binds to the same IL-1 receptor and acts as a competitive inhibitor of IL-1 bioactivity. IL-1ra protein has been widely investigated and found to be associated with different human malignancies. In the second intron of the IL-1RN gene, there is a functional polymorphism of a variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR), which is characterized as having an importance role in regulating the serum IL-1ra levels, human immune response and cancer risk. We genotyped this VNTR of IL-1RN in a case-control study of 885 histologically confirmed lung cancer patients and 1024 cancer-free controls frequency-matched to the cases on age and sex in a Chinese population to evaluate the association of this variant and lung cancer risk. We found that the presence of the allele 2 of IL-1RN (IL-RN*2) was associated with a 32% significantly decreased risk of lung cancer (adjusted OR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.52–0.89). Stratified analyses revealed that the reduced risks associated with the genotypes with IL-RN*2allele (I/II and II/II) were more evident in non-smokers (adjusted OR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.35–0.79) and in subjects with squamous cell carcinoma (adjusted OR, 0.49; 95% CI, 0.31–0.76). These findings support our priori hypothesis that the IL1RN*2 allele may contribute to lung cancer risk in the Chinese population. More functional data for this IL1RN polymorphism are warranted to explore its role in lung carcinogenesis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

X-ray repair cross complementing group 1 (XRCC1) is one of the major DNA repair proteins involved in the base-excision repair pathway. Functional Polymorphisms in the XRCC1 gene may lead to decreased DNA repair capacity and thus confer inherited predisposition to cancer risk. In this case-control study of 710 patients with incident lung cancer and 710 cancer-free controls who were frequency matched on age, sex and residential area, we genotyped a novel T>C transition at the promoter region (-77T>C) of XRCC1 and other two common non-synonymous polymorphisms (Arg194Trp and Arg399Gln) to determine their associations with risk of lung cancer. We found that compared with the -77TT wild-type homozygote, the variant genotypes were associated with significantly increased risk of lung cancer [adjusted odds ratio (OR)=1.51; 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.17-1.94 for -77TC; OR=2.98; 95% CI=0.93-9.59 for -77CC; and OR=1.55; 95% CI=1.21-1.98 for -77TC/CC]. By contrast, no significant associations were observed between the other two exonic variants (Arg194Trp and Arg399Gln) and lung cancer risk. Furthermore, we observed a 9.82-fold increased risk (95% CI=5.66-17.02) for heavy smokers carrying the -77C variant (-77TC/CC) and a 4.07-fold increased risk (95% CI=2.85-5.81) for heavy smokers not carrying the variant. However, the interaction between the -77T>C variant and cumulative smoking was not statistically significant (P=0.1560). These findings indicate that the new XRCC1 -77T>C polymorphism may contribute to the aetiology of lung cancer. Further functional studies are warranted to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms of the association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies suggest that IL-1β (encoded by IL-1B gene) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine and potent inhibitor of gastric acid secretion, which is proposed as a key determinant in gastric carcinogenesis. Two potentially functional polymorphisms (C-31T and T-511C) in the IL-1B promoter were suggested to be correlated with alteration of Helicobacter pylori infection and IL-1β expression and therefore may be associated with risk of gastric cancer. To test the hypothesis that these two polymorphisms are associated with gastric cancer risk, we performed a case–control study of 280 histologically confirmed gastric cancer patients and 258 age, sex frequency-matched cancer-free controls in a Chinese population. Multivariate logistic regression analyses revealed that the risks (adjusted odds ratio [OR] and 95% confidence interval [CI]) associated with the IL-1B variant genotypes were 1.64 (95% CI, 1.01–2.66) for -31TT and 1.52 (95% CI, 0.91–2.54) for -511CC, respectively, compared with their wild-type homozygotes. The risks were significantly more evident in individuals with H. pylori infection (adjusted OR, 2.14; 95% CI, 1.13–4.06 for -31TT; adjusted OR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.02–3.89 for -511CC), which was consistent with the biological effects of IL-1β. When we used the haplotype analyses and assumed the IL-1B -31T and -511C as risk alleles, no synergistic effect was found between these two loci. These findings indicate that these two IL-1B promoter variants may contribute to the risk of developing gastric cancer in the Chinese population, especially in individuals with H. pylori infection. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Personalized recommendation has been widely applied to many real-world services. Many of recent studies focus on collaborative filtering (CF) by deep neural networks, which pursue to predict users' preference on items based on the past user–item interactions (e.g., a user rates an item). A general CF approach consists of two key modules, embedding representation learning and interaction modeling. In most existing methods, the embedding module is followed by the interaction modeling module, and the user–item interaction information is only emploited in interaction modeling directly. Existing methods, however, defectively overlook the correlation between users and items, as well as the inherent connection between embedding learning and the interaction information. To fill this gap, we propose neural graph personalized ranking (NGPR) which directly makes use of the user–item interaction information in embedding learning by incorporating the user–item interaction graph in embedding learning. Specifically, we construct the user–item interaction graph using de facto interaction between a user and an item. Correlation between users and items can also be reserved by concatenating representations of users and items in the entire procedure of embedding learning. Moreover, more complicated structures like multilayer perceptron (MLP) can be used in interaction modeling to make the most use of the representations, rather than simple linear transformation. We conduct extensive experiments on three public benchmarks and demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed NGPR model on personalized ranking task. In addition, our ablation studies verify that our novel design to incorporate the user–item interaction graph in embedding learning is effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and reversible electromigration of intercalated K ions within an individual layered single crystalline KxMoO3 nanobundle is observed. When an electric current was applied to a KxMoO3 nanobundle, the K ions migrated readily and rapidly in the flowing direction of electrons within the nanobundle and accumulated near an electrode. Upon reversal of the applied current, the accumulated K ions near one electrode were driven back and gathered near the opposite electrode. This observation is attributed to the unique structure of KxMoO3 where K ions occupy O vacancies in the nanobundle and the location of K ions is exactly the channel of high current density within the nanobundle. The duration required to induce significant accumulation of K ions and relaxation time of accumulated ions were significantly shorter than the value reported in other interstitial systems. The reversible ion movement was repeated for hundred times and remarkably there were no obvious sign of structural damage in the nanobundle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exclusive breastfeeding is advantageous for infant neurodevelopment. Nevertheless, insufficient human milk supply in exclusively breastfed infants may elevate the risk of neonatal jaundice, which can potentially result in neurological harm. Whether mothers should adhere to exclusive breastfeeding in infants with neonatal jaundice remains unclear. Data comes from the Jiangsu Birth Cohort (JBC), a prospective and longitudinal birth cohort study in China. A total of 2,577 infants born from November 2017 to March 2021 were included in the analysis. Multivariate linear regression models were used to analyze the associations between breastfeeding status, neonatal jaundice, and their interaction with infant neurodevelopment. Analysis was performed in 2022. Compared with "exclusive breastfeeding," fine motor scores of infants were lower for "mixed feeding" (β adj , −0.16; 95% CI, −0.29 to −0.03; p =0.016) and "no breastfeeding" (β adj , −0.41; 95% CI, −0.79 to −0.03; p =0.034). Compared with "no neonatal jaundice," infants with "severe neonatal jaundice" had lower scores for cognition (β adj , −0.44; 95% CI, −0.66 to −0.23; p <0.001) and fine motor (β adj , −0.19; 95% CI, −0.35 to −0.03; p =0.024). In infants with severe neonatal jaundice, the termination of exclusive breastfeeding before 6 months was associated with worse cognition (β adj , −0.28; 95% CI, −0.57 to 0.01), while this association was not observed in those without neonatal jaundice (β adj , 0.09; 95% CI, −0.26 to 0.43). Exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months is beneficial to the neurodevelopment of infants, especially in those with severe neonatal jaundice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Taihu Biobank of Tumour Biomarkers (TBTB) study is a large-scale research project conducted in Wuxi, China, with the aim of understanding the prevalence, incidence, and mortality rates of cancer in middle-aged and elderly urban populations. The study recruited over 500,000 participants aged 45 and older and collected baseline data through physical examinations, serum tumor biomarkers, and questionnaire surveys. The study has identified thousands of new cancer cases and encourages collaborations with researchers worldwide. The study provides valuable data on demographic and health-related variables, laboratory test results, and the most commonly diagnosed cancers. However, there are limitations to the study, such as the lack of information on early life exposures and limited data on lifestyle factors. Researchers interested in the study are welcome to collaborate. [Extracted from the article]

The Jiangsu Birth Cohort (JBC) is a research study in China that examines the health outcomes of families who underwent assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment compared to families with spontaneous pregnancies. The cohort consists of over 7,600 ART-treated families and nearly 15,000 families with spontaneous pregnancies. Data on health were collected through questionnaires, medical records, and biospecimens from both parents and children. The study aims to assess the health and well-being of children conceived through ART and determine any factors that may contribute to elevated risks. The data from the study are available for research purposes. [Extracted from the article]

Pathogenic mutations in mitochondrial DNA cause severe and often lethal multi-system symptoms in primary mitochondrial defects. However, effective therapies for these defects are still lacking. Strategies such as employing mitochondrially targeted restriction enzymes or programmable nucleases to shift the ratio of heteroplasmic mutations and allotopic expression of mitochondrial protein-coding genes have limitations in treating mitochondrial homoplasmic mutations, especially in non-coding genes. Here, we conduct a proof of concept study applying a screened DdCBE pair to correct the homoplasmic m.A4300G mutation in induced pluripotent stem cells derived from a patient with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. We achieve efficient G4300A correction with limited off-target editing, and successfully restore mitochondrial function in corrected induced pluripotent stem cell clones. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of using DdCBE to treat primary mitochondrial defects caused by homoplasmic pathogenic mitochondrial DNA mutations. A proof-of-concept study applying a screened RNA-free DddA-derived cytosine base editor (DdCBE) pair to correct the homoplasmic m.A4300G mutation in induced pluripotent stem cells demonstrates the potential of DdCBE-based therapy for treating primary mitochondrial defects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Splicing quantitative trait loci (sQTLs) have been demonstrated to contribute to disease etiology by affecting alternative splicing. However, the role of sQTLs in the development of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains unknown. Thus, we performed a genome-wide sQTL study to identify genetic variants that affect alternative splicing in lung tissues from 116 individuals of Chinese ancestry, which resulted in the identification of 1,385 sQTL-harboring genes (sGenes) containing 378,210 significant variant-intron pairs. A comprehensive characterization of these sQTLs showed that they were enriched in actively transcribed regions, genetic regulatory elements, and splicing-factor-binding sites. Moreover, sQTLs were largely distinct from expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) and showed significant enrichment in potential risk loci of NSCLC. We also integrated sQTLs into NSCLC GWAS datasets (13,327 affected individuals and 13,328 control individuals) by using splice-transcriptome-wide association study (spTWAS) and identified alternative splicing events in 19 genes that were significantly associated with NSCLC risk. By using functional annotation and experiments, we confirmed an sQTL variant, rs35861926, that reduced the risk of lung adenocarcinoma (rs35861926-T, OR = 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.82–0.93, p = 1.87 × 10−5) by promoting FARP1 exon 20 skipping to downregulate the expression level of the long transcript FARP1 -011. Transcript FARP1 -011 promoted the migration and proliferation of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Overall, our study provided informative lung sQTL resources and insights into the molecular mechanisms linking sQTL variants to NSCLC risk. [Display omitted] This study provided a comprehensive catalog of splicing quantitative trait loci (sQTLs) in lung tissues. Integrative sQTL analysis revealed risk loci for non-small-cell lung cancer. Further experiments confirmed that rs35861926 could reduce lung adenocarcinoma risk by promoting FARP1 exon 20 skipping to downregulate the expression level of transcript FARP1 -011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representation learning provides an attractive opportunity to model the evolution of dynamic networks. However, the existing methods have two limitations: (1) most graph neural network-based methods fail to utilize the high-order proximity of nodes that captures the important properties of a network topology; (2) evolutionary dynamics-based methods are much fine-grained in modeling time information but neglect the coherence of dynamic networks, which leads to the model being susceptible to subtle noise. In this paper, we propose an enhanced hypergraph neural network framework for dynamic network embedding (HyperDNE) to tackle these issues. Specifically, we innovatively design a sequential hypergraph with dual-stream output to explore the group properties of nodes and edges, and a line graph neural network is added as an auxiliary enhancement scheme to further aggregate social influence from the degree of social convergence. Then, we compute the final embedding through attentions along the node and hyperedge levels to fuse multi-level variations in the network structure. The experimental results on six real networks demonstrate significant gains for HyperDNE over several state-of-the-art network embedding baselines. The dataset and source code of HyperDNE are publicly available at https://github.com/qhgz2013/HyperDNE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Growing evidence indicates the adverse effect of ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption. However, it remains unknown whether UPF consumption influences the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) precursors, namely conventional adenomas and serrated lesions. Methods We drew data from the Nurses' Health Study, Nurses' Health Study II, and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, comprising 142 052 participants who had undergone at least 1 lower gastrointestinal endoscopy during follow-up. To handle multiple records per participants, we used multivariable logistic regression for clustered data to calculate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of colorectal polyps in relation to cumulative average consumption of UPFs. All statistical tests were 2-sided. Results We documented 11 644 patients with conventional adenomas and 10 478 with serrated lesions during 18-20 years of follow-up. Compared with participants in the lowest quintile of UPF consumption, those in the highest quintile had an increased risk of conventional adenomas (OR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.11 to 1.26) and serrated lesions (OR = 1.20, 95% CI = 1.13 to 1.28). Similar results were found for high-risk polyps (ie, advanced adenomas and ≥10 mm serrated lesions; OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 1.07 to 1.28). These associations were slightly attenuated but remained statistically significant after further adjusting for body mass index, Western dietary pattern score, or individual dietary factors (fiber, folate, calcium, and vitamin D). The results remained essentially unchanged after excluding processed meat from total UPF intake. Conclusions Higher consumption of UPFs is associated with an increased risk of CRC precursors. UPFs might be a modifiable target for early prevention of CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The photo-induced voltage in an individual K enriched MoO3 nanobundle was studied with localized focused laser beam irradiation. Without an external bias voltage, a significant photo-induced voltage (36.5 mV) was produced in a single nanobundle under low laser power (2.2 mW). Remarkably, the amplitude and polarity of the voltage could be controlled by the location of the focused laser spot. Unlike the common photo-response that comes from metal–semiconductor junction or PN junction in hybrid nanomaterial, the observed photo-induced effect is from the nanobundle itself, attributed to the small band gap of the material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect worldwide and a main cause of perinatal and infant mortality. Our previous genome-wide association study identified 53 SNPs that associated with CHD in the Han Chinese population. Here, we performed functional screening of 27 orthologous genes in zebrafish using injection of antisense morpholino oligos. From this screen, 5 genes were identified as essential for heart development, including iqgap2, ptprt, ptpn22, tbck and maml3. Presumptive roles of the novel CHD-related genes include heart chamber formation (iqgap2 and ptprt) and atrioventricular canal formation (ptpn22 and tbck). While deficiency of maml3 led to defective cardiac trabeculation and consequent heart failure in zebrafish embryos. Furthermore, we found that maml3 mutants showed decreased cardiomyocyte proliferation which caused a reduction in cardiac trabeculae due to inhibition of Notch signaling. Together, our study identifies 5 novel CHD-related genes that are essential for heart development in zebrafish and first demonstrates that maml3 is required for Notch signaling in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Mosaic chromosomal alterations (mCAs) detected from blood-derived DNA are large structural alterations of clonal haematopoietic origin and are associated with various diseases, such as haematological malignancies, infections, and solid cancers. We aimed to investigate whether mCAs contribute to the risk of lung cancer and modify the effect of polygenic risk score (PRS) on lung cancer risk prediction.Methods: The blood-derived DNA of patients with lung cancer and cancer-free controls with Chinese ancestry from the Nanjing Lung Cancer Cohort (NJLCC) study were genotyped with a Global Screening Array, and mCAs were detected with the Mosaic Chromosomal Alterations (MoChA) pipeline. mCA call sets of individuals with European ancestry were obtained from the prospective cohort UK Biobank (UKB) study, including documented incident lung cancer. All patients with lung cancer from the NJLCC study (aged 15 years or older at diagnosis) were histopathologically confirmed as new lung cancer cases by at least two pathologists and were free of chemotherapy or radiotherapy before diagnosis. Participants with incident lung cancer (aged 37-73 years at assessment) diagnosed after recruitment to the UKB were identified through linkage to national cancer registries. Logistic regression and Cox proportional hazard models were applied to evaluate associations between mCAs and risk of lung cancer in the NJLCC (logistic regression) and UKB (Cox proportional hazard model) studies.Findings: The NJLCC study included 10 248 individuals (6445 [62·89%] men and 3803 [37·11%] women; median age 60·0 years [IQR 53·0-66·0]) with lung cancer and 9298 individuals (5871 [63·14%] men and 3427 [36·86%] women; median age 60·0 years [52·0-65·0]) without lung cancer recruited from three sub-regions (north, central, and south) across China between April 15, 2003, and Aug 18, 2017. The UKB included 450 821 individuals recruited from 22 centres across the UK between March 13, 2006, and Nov 1, 2010, including 2088 individuals with lung cancer (1075 [51·48%] men and 1013 [48·52%] women; median age 63·0 years [IQR 59·0-66·0]), and 448 733 participants were free of lung cancer (204 713 [45·62%] men and 244 020 [54·38%] women; median age 58·0 years [IQR 50·0-63·0]). Compared with non-carriers of mosaic losses, carriers had a significantly increased risk of lung cancer in the NJLCC (odds ratio [OR] 1·81, 95% CI 1·43-2·28; p=6·69 × 10-7) and UKB (hazard ratio [HR] 1·40, 95% CI 1·00-1·95; p=0·048) studies. This increased risk was even higher in patients with expanded cell fractions of mCAs (ie, cell fractions ≥10% vs cell fractions <10%) in the NJLCC (OR 1·61 [95% CI 1·26-2·08] vs 1·03 [0·83-1·26]; p for heterogeneity test=6·41 × 10-3). A significant multiplicative interaction was observed between PRS and mosaic losses on the risk of lung cancer in both the NJLCC (interaction p value=0·030) and UKB (p=0·043). Compared with non-carriers of mosaic loss abnormalities with low genetic risk, participants with expanded mosaic losses (cell fractions ≥10%) and high genetic risk had around a six-times increased risk of lung cancer in the NJLCC study (OR 6·40 [95% CI 3·22-12·69]), and an almost four-times increased risk of lung cancer (HR 3·75 [95% CI 1·86-7·55]) in the UKB study. The additive interaction also contributed a 3·67 (95% CI 0·49-6·85) relative excess risk of developing lung cancer in the NJLCC study, and a 2·15 (0·12-4·19) relative excess risk in the UKB study.Interpretation: mCAs act as a new endogenous indicator for the risk of lung cancer and might be jointly used with PRS to optimise personalised risk stratification for lung cancer.Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Outstanding Youth Foundation of Jiangsu Province, Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, and Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China.Translation: For the Chinese translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Body mass index (BMI) has been found to be associated with a decreased risk of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, the effect of BMI trajectories and potential interactions with genetic variants on NSCLC risk remain unknown.Methods: Cox proportional hazards regression model was applied to assess the association between BMI trajectory and NSCLC risk in a cohort of 138,110 participants from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. One-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was further used to access the causality between BMI trajectories and NSCLC risk. Additionally, polygenic risk score (PRS) and genome-wide interaction analysis (GWIA) were used to evaluate the multiplicative interaction between BMI trajectories and genetic variants in NSCLC risk.Results: Compared with individuals maintaining a stable normal BMI (n = 47,982, 34.74%), BMI trajectories from normal to overweight (n = 64,498, 46.70%), from normal to obese (n = 21,259, 15.39%), and from overweight to obese (n = 4,371, 3.16%) were associated with a decreased risk of NSCLC (hazard ratio [HR] for trend = 0.78, P < 2×10-16). An MR study using BMI trajectory associated with genetic variants revealed no significant association between BMI trajectories and NSCLC risk. Further analysis of PRS showed that a higher GWAS-identified PRS (PRSGWAS) was associated with an increased risk of NSCLC, while the interaction between BMI trajectories and PRSGWAS with the NSCLC risk was not significant (PsPRS= 0.863 and PwPRS= 0.704). In GWIA analysis, four independent susceptibility loci (P < 1×10-6) were found to be associated with BMI trajectories on NSCLC risk, including rs79297227 (12q14.1, located in SLC16A7, Pinteraction = 1.01×10-7), rs2336652 (3p22.3, near CLASP2, Pinteraction = 3.92×10-7), rs16018 (19p13.2, in CACNA1A, Pinteraction = 3.92×10-7), and rs4726760 (7q34, near BRAF, Pinteraction = 9.19×10-7). Functional annotation demonstrated that these loci may be involved in the development of NSCLC by regulating cell growth, differentiation, and inflammation.Conclusions: Our study has shown an association between BMI trajectories, genetic factors, and NSCLC risk. Interestingly, four novel genetic loci were identified to interact with BMI trajectories on NSCLC risk, providing more support for the aetiology research of NSCLC.Trial Registration: http://www.Clinicaltrials: gov , NCT01696968 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translational control is a fundamental mechanism regulating animal germ cell development. Gonadal somatic cells provide support and microenvironment for germ cell development to ensure fertility, yet the roles of translational control in gonadal somatic compartment remain largely undefined. We found that mouse homolog of conserved fly germline stem cell factor Pumilio, PUM1, is absent in oocytes of all growing follicles after the primordial follicle stage, instead, it is highly expressed in somatic compartments of ovaries. Global loss of Pum1, not oocyte-specific loss of Pum1, led to a significant reduction in follicular number and size as well as fertility. Whole-genome identification of PUM1 targets in ovarian somatic cells revealed an enrichment of cell proliferation pathway, including 48 key regulators of cell phase transition. Consistently granulosa cells proliferation is reduced and the protein expression of the PUM-bound Cell Cycle Regulators (PCCR) were altered accordingly in mutant ovaries, and specifically in granulosa cells. Increase in negative regulator expression and decrease in positive regulators in the mutant ovaries support a coordinated translational control of somatic cell cycle program via PUM proteins. Furthermore, postnatal knockdown, but not postnatal oocyte-specific loss, of Pum1 in Pum2 knockout mice reduced follicular growth and led to similar expression alteration of PCCR genes, supporting a critical role of PUM-mediated translational control in ovarian somatic cells for mammalian female fertility. Finally, expression of human PUM protein and its regulated cell cycle targets exhibited significant correlation with ovarian cancer and prognosis for cancer survival. Hence, PUMILIO-mediated cell cycle regulation represents an important mechanism in mammalian female reproduction and human cancer biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little prospective evidence exists about whether a combination of healthy lifestyle factors is related to a considerable reduction of liver cancer risk.Methods: Based on the prospective China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) cohort with a total of 492,640 Chinese adults, we examined the associations of five lifestyle factors with risk of liver cancer. Low-risk lifestyle factors were defined as non-smoking, non-drinking, median or higher level of physical activity, a healthy diet, and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) < 0.90 for men and <0.85 for women.Results: During a median of 10.12 years of follow-up, 2529 liver cancer events were observed. There was a significant decrease in liver cancer risk with the increasing of the healthy lifestyle index scores (P < 0.001). Participants with a favourable lifestyle (4 or 5 healthy lifestyle factors) had a 43% reduced liver cancer risk compared with those with an unfavourable lifestyle (0 or 1 healthy lifestyle factor) (HR, 0.57 [95% CI, 0.47-0.68]). The cumulative protective effect of a healthy lifestyle on liver cancer appeared to be more dramatic for patients with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive, the individuals at high risk of liver cancer.Conclusions: Individuals adhering to a favourable lifestyle was associated with a considerable absolute risk reduction of liver cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] OH radicals functioned as the main ROSs for the degradation of thiamethoxam. [•] Oxidative ions promote the degradation rate, while reductive anions inhibit it. [•] The thiophene ring is the most active site which reacts with ROSs. [•] 7 Photocatalytic intermediates were separated and identified by HPLC and HPLC/MS/MS. [•] Cleavage of oxadiazinane and hydroxylation of thiophene were led to degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify new genetic risk factors for cervical cancer, we conducted a genome-wide association study in the Han Chinese population. The initial discovery set included 1,364 individuals with cervical cancer (cases) and 3,028 female controls, and we selected a 'stringently matched samples' subset (829 cases and 990 controls) from the discovery set on the basis of principal component analysis; the follow-up stages included two independent sample sets (1,824 cases and 3,808 controls for follow-up 1 and 2,343 cases and 3,388 controls for follow-up 2). We identified strong evidence of associations between cervical cancer and two new loci: 4q12 (rs13117307, Pcombined, stringently matched = 9.69 × 10−9, per-allele odds ratio (OR)stringently matched = 1.26) and 17q12 (rs8067378, Pcombined, stringently matched = 2.00 × 10−8, per-allele ORstringently matched = 1.18). We additionally replicated an association between HLA-DPB1 and HLA-DPB2 (HLA-DPB1/2) at 6p21.32 and cervical cancer (rs4282438, Pcombined, stringently matched = 4.52 × 10−27, per-allele ORstringently matched = 0.75). Our findings provide new insights into the genetic etiology of cervical cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposing a member based single step optimization method for seismic design. • Establishing equivalent SDOF system through composite mode. • Design method based on reference structure rather than uncontrolled structure. • The proposed method is suitable for multiple BRB damped outrigger structure. Using the passive control performance curve and the idea of mapping, a single step seismic optimal design method for damped outrigger structure with buckling-restrained brace (BRB) was proposed in this paper. In order to consider the influence of high order modes on earthquake responses, composite modes were used to establish equivalent single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system of uncontrolled structure and reference structure. The passive control performance curve based on SDOF reference structure was established through the simplified mapping method. According to the performance point determined on the passive control performance curve, seismic mitigation design based on reference structure was conducted using single step optimization method. The proposed method can accurately and simply determine the parameters of BRB and is quite practical as only the response spectrum analysis is needed. Moreover, it can be used for seismic mitigation design of multiple damped outrigger structure and breaks the limitation of the single outrigger structure. Numerical examples show that the damped outrigger structure designed by this method can achieve the desired performance objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 51 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) risk loci have been identified by genome-wide association studies (GWASs). We conducted a high throughput RNA-interference (RNAi) screening to identify the candidate causal genes in NSCLC risk loci. KIAA0391 at 14q13.1 had the highest score and could promote proliferation and metastasis of NSCLC in vitro and in vivo. We next prioritized rs3783313 as a causal variant at 14q13.1, by integrating a large-scale population study consisting of 27,120 lung cancer cases and 27,355 controls, functional annotation, and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis. Then we found that rs3783313 could facilitate a promoter-enhancer interaction to upregulate KIAA0391 expression by affecting the affinity of transcription factor NFYA. Mechanistically, KIAA0391 knockdown dramatically influenced pyroptosis-related pathways and increased the expression of CASP1. And KIAA0391 transcriptionally repressed CASP1 by binding to SMAD2 and induced an anti-pyroptosis phenotype, promoting tumorigenesis of NSCLC, which provides new insights and potential target for NSCLC. • The high throughput screening based on RNA interference (RNAi) has become a powerful approach that enables the systematic screening for genome-wide association studies (GWAS)-defined genes, and it has been effectively used to identify causal genes. • A Causal SNP could facilitate a promoter-enhancer interaction to upregulate KIAA0391 expression in 14q13.1, which could function as a novel oncogenic driver in tumorigenesis of lung cancer, by inducing an anti-pyroptosis phenotype. • These findings would provide new insights into understanding inherited mechanisms behind non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Comitant strabismus (CS) is a heterogeneous disorder that is a major contributing factor to unilateral childhood-onset visual impairment. Studies have confirmed that genetic factors play an important role in the development of CS. The aim of this study was to identify the genetic cause of non-syndromic familial CS.Methods: Fourteen unrelated CS families were recruited for the study. Twelve affected and 2 unaffected individuals from a large four-generation family (CS08) were selected to perform whole genome-wide linkage analysis. Parallel whole-exome sequencing (WES) was conducted in the same family (9 patients and 1 unaffected member) and 31 additional CS cases from 13 other unrelated families. Sanger sequencing was used to determine whether any of the remaining variants co-segregated with the disease phenotype in the corresponding family.Results: Based on linkage analysis, CS in family CS08 mapped to a novel region of 34.17 centimorgan (cM) on chromosome 2q22.3-2q32.1 between markers D2S151 and D2S364, with a maximum log odds (LOD) score of 3.54 (theta = 0) at D2S142. Parallel WES identified a heterozygous variant, LRP2 c.335 A > G (p.Q112R), located in such a linkage interval that completely co-segregated with the disease in the family. Furthermore, another novel heterozygous variant (c.7274A > G, p.D2425G) in LRP2 that co-segregated was detected in 2 additional affected individuals from another unrelated family by WES. Both variants are predicted to be damaging by PolyPhen-2, SIFT and MutationTaster, and were absent in 100 ethnically matched normal controls.Conclusion: LRP2 is a novel candidate genetic cause of non-syndromic familial CS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]