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Lactic acid bacteria have the ability to reduce sodium selenite to selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs). To obtain SeNPs in a more environmentally friendly way, this study first explored the effects of selenium concentration in the medium, selenium addition time and cultivating duration on the synthesis of SeNPs by Lactobacillus acidophilus, followed by a study of the particle size, zeta potential and antibacterial activity of the SeNPs produced. The results showed that when the selenium content in the medium was 0~600 μg/mL, the higher the selenium concentration was, the more nano-selenium was obtained. When the selenium concentration in the medium was higher than 600 μg/mL, the content of SeNPs in the fermentation broth decreased. The addition of sodium selenite in the early logarithmic stage of bacterial growth was more conducive to the synthesis of SeNPs. After 32 h of culture, SeNPs were almost no longer synthesized. The analysis using scanning electron microscopy and particle size and zeta potential analyzer revealed that the SeNPs produced by L.acidophilus were spherical in shape. Ultrasound treatment contributed to their release. The SeNPs carried a negative charge, with an absolute potential value of 40~50 mV, and their particle size predominantly ranged from 170~210 nm, exhibiting good stability. The results of antibacterial experiments showed that the SeNPs produced by L.acidophilus had inhibitory effects on the growth of Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus subtilis. In conclusion, L.acidophilus can transform sodium selenite into SeNPs, which have good antibacterial activity.

This paper describes a scoping review of China’s academic resource databases, relevant official websites, news reports and public accounts spanning a period from the end of 2019 to the end of 2022, to investigate the challenges in scientific integrity and ethical soundness of research conducted during and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic in China. By conducting the scoping review with keywords related to the research questions in Chinese, relevant data were extracted and classified into four categories: challenges in research, challenges in ethics review, challenges in publishing academic work, and research ethics guidelines during and after the pandemic. The paper points out that problematic studies and findings increased with the escalation in medical research projects during the pandemic in China. The situation faced by researchers was more difficult than before the pandemic. The mode of informed consent, and ethics review and oversight systems also underwent changes. In addition, Traditional Chinese Medicine as an alternative medical treatment for COVID-19, attracted attention from the research community and became a topic of discussion. We conclude that the various challenges and concerns identified indicate a need for a proper and timely response system be formulated in preparation for possible future occurrences of new pandemics or other critical situations.

Abstract Background Lymphoma is the most common secondary cause of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) in adults. Lymphoma‐associated HLH (LA‐HLH) in the elderly population is not rare, however, little has been reported regarding clinicopathological characteristics, prognostic factors, and outcomes of LA‐HLH in the elderly population. Methods We retrospectively analyzed a multicenter cohort of elderly patients with LA‐HLH. Clinicopathological features and treatment information were collected. The impacts of baseline characteristics and treatments on survival outcomes were analyzed. Results A total of 173 elderly patients with LA‐HLH were included. Compared with young patients, elderly patients showed different clinical and laboratory features. Regarding lymphoma subtypes, B‐cell lymphoma was more common in elderly patients (elderly 61.3% vs. young 32.3%, p 1407 U/L), and a higher creatinine level (>96.8 μmol/L) were independent predictors of decreased overall survival and 60‐day survival. A prognostic index was established and demonstrated to be robust in predicting the overall survival and 60‐day survival of elderly patients with LA‐HLH. Conclusions LA‐HLH in elderly patients displayed heterogeneous clinicopathological features and survival outcomes. Treatments need to be optimized to improve the outcomes of elderly patients with LA‐HLH.

Objective This study aimed to investigate the influence of peripapillary atrophy (PPA) area and axial elongation on the longitudinal changes in macular choroidal thickness (ChT) in young individuals with myopia.Methods and analysis In this longitudinal investigation, 431 eyes—342 categorised as non-high myopia (non-HM) and 89 as HM—were examined for 2 years. Participants were examined with swept-source optical coherence tomography. The macular ChT, PPA area and axial length (AL) were measured at baseline and follow-up visits. Multiple regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with ChT changes. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves were analysed to ascertain the predictive capacity of the PPA area and axial elongation for the reduction in macular ChT.Results Initial measurements revealed that the average macular ChT was 240.35±56.15 µm in the non-HM group and 198.43±50.27 µm in the HM group (p

Field leveling is crucial for efficiency and performance optimization of concentrated photovoltaic (PV) plants due to their large areas and uneven terrain. Manual adjustment combined with the block plane method is conventionally used for PV field leveling design, which is time-consuming and laborious with non-optimized results. There’s a lack of optimization method for large-scale PV field leveling. This paper introduces a quadratic programming-based optimization approach, dividing the leveling plane into grids and utilizing a hyperbolic paraboloid to model the surface. Constraints are imposed based on earthwork balance and slope ratio, with the objective function being the minimization of total cut-and-fill volume. The globally optimal solution for large-scale PV field leveling is through MATLAB R2022a programming. Case studies demonstrate that the quadratic optimization method, compared to the traditional block plane method, can yield savings of 55 % to 78 % in cut-and-fill volumes, with faster computation and more practical outputs. Moreover, the method proves to be more effective as site area and topography complexity increase. Parametric analyses obtain a critical slope ratio of 2 %, below which the cut-and-fill volumes are significantly impacted by the slope ratio, while above which, the influence diminishes. Meanwhile, the cut-and-fill volumes are found to increase continuously as the block size increases, while remaining mostly constant when the grid size changes within a range of 5–30 m. These findings highlight the significant influence of design slope ratio and block size on the cut-and-fill volume, while the grid size has a minor impact. Recommended parameters for PV field leveling design include a design slope ratio of 3 % to 7 %, a grid size of 5 to 20 m, and a block size of 30 to 50 m. This proposed method provides an optimization method for field leveling design of large-scale PV plants. It achieves the least engineering quantity, substantially improves design efficiencies, and provides more applicable outputs.

Abstract Plain pottery excavated from the Tang Dynasty tomb of Liu Jing was taken as the research object. The color, chemical composition, microstructure, and phase were tested to investigate the influencing factors of color for plain pottery fragments. The results indicated that the contents of Fe2O3 and TiO2 in all fragments varied little, and the influence of humic acids in clay as well as the firing atmosphere on the appearance color of plain pottery was excluded. Therefore, the main factor affecting color saturation (C*) was identified as the firing temperature (T). More importantly, the correlation between C* and firing temperature was established by replicas fired at different temperatures. Before the appearance of the glass phase, iron-containing minerals played a major role in coloring, and after that, iron ions in the glass phase and iron crystallization rose the important function of coloring. Consequently, with the increase of firing temperature, C* value increased firstly and then decreased. The inflection point of the fitted C* − T curve corresponded to the glass phase formation temperature. By comparing the estimated firing temperatures obtained by the fitted C* − T correlation curve with the known firing temperature of replicas, it was demonstrated that the color measurement is an ideal method for deducing the firing temperatures of ancient plain pottery.

Abstract Early detection of bipolar depression (BPD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) has been challenging due to the lack of reliable and easily measurable biological markers. This study aimed to investigate the accuracy of discriminating patients with mood disorders from healthy controls based on task state skin potential characteristics and their correlation with individual indicators of oxidative stress. A total of 77 patients with BPD, 53 patients with MDD, and 79 healthy controls were recruited. A custom-made device, previously shown to be sufficiently accurate, was used to collect skin potential data during six emotion-inducing tasks involving video, pictorial, or textual stimuli. Blood indicators reflecting individual levels of oxidative stress were collected. A discriminant model based on the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm was constructed for discriminant analysis. MDD and BPD patients were found to have abnormal skin potential characteristics on most tasks. The accuracy of the SVM model built with SP features to discriminate MDD patients from healthy controls was 78% (sensitivity 78%, specificity 82%). The SVM model gave an accuracy of 59% (sensitivity 59%, specificity 79%) in classifying BPD patients, MDD patients, and healthy controls into three groups. Significant correlations were also found between oxidative stress indicators in the blood of patients and certain SP features. Patients with depression and bipolar depression have abnormalities in task-state skin potential that partially reflect the pathological mechanism of the illness, and the abnormalities are potential biological markers of affective disorders.

Accurately extracting offshore floating raft aquaculture (FRA) areas from remotely sensed images is the key to rationally managing aquaculture resources. Currently, deep learning-based methods perform well in FRA area extraction tasks but are limited by the shortcomings of single-modality remote sensing data, which affect their extraction accuracies. To solve this problem, we constructed a multimodal dataset called CHN-YS3-FRA for FRA area extraction using heterogeneous Sentinel-1/-2 remote sensing image data and proposed a new multiscale synthetic aperture radar (SAR) guidance network (MSARG-Net) for performing FRA area extraction on multimodal remote sensing images. In this network, we designed a global-local Poolformer block to model the local and global relationships of FRA areas to more comprehensively learn the semantic features of these areas. In addition, we designed a multiscale SAR-guided attention block to efficiently fuse the semantic information acquired from different modalities. The experimental results obtained on the CHN-YS3-FRA dataset show that MSARG-Net could robustly extract offshore FRA regions with F1 scores, intersection-over-union and kappa coefficient values of 91.46%, 84.26%, and 89.69%, respectively. Compared with the latest remote sensing-based semantic segmentation methods, MSARG-Net has achieved significant quantitative and qualitative improvements and has significant potential for mapping and monitoring large-scale offshore FRA areas.

Soluble aluminum alloy materials used in underground operational tools are synthesized via a high-temperature smelting process. The microstructure and composition distribution of the alloy were analyzed using X-ray diffraction, metallographic microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray and electron backscatter diffraction techniques. The mechanical properties were evaluated using a universal testing machine and hardness tester, while solubility assessments were conducted in a constant-temperature water bath. This study focuses on the plasticity and dissolution characteristics of Al-Mg-Ga-Sn-In alloys with varying Mg contents. The tensile strength (σb) of the alloy was 181.99 MPa, with an elongation (δ) of 27.49% and cross-sectional shrinkage (φ) of 11.67% at a magnesium content of 3.0 wt.%. Additionally, in the compressive test, the compressive yield strength (σsc) was recorded at 188.32 MPa, while the compression rate (δ) was 27.06% and the section expansion rate (φ) was 138.66%. Furthermore, the alloy demonstrated the ability to dissolve spontaneously in water at 90 °C, exhibiting an average dissolution rate of 1.0 g·h−1cm−2 and a maximum dissolution rate of 3.25 g·h−1cm−2 after 12.0 h. Consequently, this alloy composition not only satisfies the requirements for rapid solubility but also exhibits favorable plasticity, providing a novel reference for the selection of soluble aluminum alloy materials.

As precious cultural heritage, earthen sites are susceptible to various natural factors, leading to diverse forms of degradation. To protect earthen sites, the effects of super absorbent polymers (SAPs) on soil water retention, physical properties, and color compatibility at different concentrations were studied. After applying SAP treatment to an earthen site with different degrees of weathering, we drew the following conclusions. SAP-2 improved soil water retention capacity, increased soil water content, and slowed down the precipitation of soluble salts. At the same time, SAP-2 had the least effect on soil color difference and reduced the development of cracks by filling soil pores and enhancing the cohesion between soil particles, thus giving the earthen sites better weathering resistance. Therefore, the results provide a useful reference for the surface cracking of earthen sites in semi-arid areas and the degradation caused by flaking and block spalling.

BackgroundIn 2023, the United States experienced its highest- recorded number of suicides, exceeding 50,000 deaths. In the realm of psychiatric disorders, major depressive disorder stands out as the most common issue, affecting 15% to 17% of the population and carrying a notable suicide risk of approximately 15%. However, not everyone with depression has suicidal thoughts. While “suicidal depression” is not a clinical diagnosis, it may be observed in daily life, emphasizing the need for awareness. ObjectiveThis study aims to examine the dynamics, emotional tones, and topics discussed in posts within the r/Depression subreddit, with a specific focus on users who had also engaged in the r/SuicideWatch community. The objective was to use natural language processing techniques and models to better understand the complexities of depression among users with potential suicide ideation, with the goal of improving intervention and prevention strategies for suicide. MethodsArchived posts were extracted from the r/Depression and r/SuicideWatch Reddit communities in English spanning from 2019 to 2022, resulting in a final data set of over 150,000 posts contributed by approximately 25,000 unique overlapping users. A broad and comprehensive mix of methods was conducted on these posts, including trend and survival analysis, to explore the dynamic of users in the 2 subreddits. The BERT family of models extracted features from data for sentiment and thematic analysis. ResultsOn August 16, 2020, the post count in r/SuicideWatch surpassed that of r/Depression. The transition from r/Depression to r/SuicideWatch in 2020 was the shortest, lasting only 26 days. Sadness emerged as the most prevalent emotion among overlapping users in the r/Depression community. In addition, physical activity changes, negative self-view, and suicidal thoughts were identified as the most common depression symptoms, all showing strong positive correlations with the emotion tone of disappointment. Furthermore, the topic “struggles with depression and motivation in school and work” (12%) emerged as the most discussed topic aside from suicidal thoughts, categorizing users based on their inclination toward suicide ideation. ConclusionsOur study underscores the effectiveness of using natural language processing techniques to explore language markers and patterns associated with mental health challenges in online communities like r/Depression and r/SuicideWatch. These insights offer novel perspectives distinct from previous research. In the future, there will be potential for further refinement and optimization of machine classifications using these techniques, which could lead to more effective intervention and prevention strategies.

BackgroundFundus photography is the most important examination in eye disease screening. A facilitated self-service eye screening pattern based on the fully automatic fundus camera was developed in 2022 in Shanghai, China; it may help solve the problem of insufficient human resources in primary health care institutions. However, the service quality and residents’ preference for this new pattern are unclear. ObjectiveThis study aimed to compare the service quality and residents’ preferences between facilitated self-service eye screening and traditional manual screening and to explore the relationships between the screening service’s quality and residents’ preferences. MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study in Shanghai, China. Residents who underwent facilitated self-service fundus disease screening at one of the screening sites were assigned to the exposure group; those who were screened with a traditional fundus camera operated by an optometrist at an adjacent site comprised the control group. The primary outcome was the screening service quality, including effectiveness (image quality and screening efficiency), physiological discomfort, safety, convenience, and trustworthiness. The secondary outcome was the participants’ preferences. Differences in service quality and the participants’ preferences between the 2 groups were compared using chi-square tests separately. Subgroup analyses for exploring the relationships between the screening service’s quality and residents’ preference were conducted using generalized logit models. ResultsA total of 358 residents enrolled; among them, 176 (49.16%) were included in the exposure group and the remaining 182 (50.84%) in the control group. Residents’ basic characteristics were balanced between the 2 groups. There was no significant difference in service quality between the 2 groups (image quality pass rate: P=.79; average screening time: P=.57; no physiological discomfort rate: P=.92; safety rate: P=.78; convenience rate: P=.95; trustworthiness rate: P=.20). However, the proportion of participants who were willing to use the same technology for their next screening was significantly lower in the exposure group than in the control group (P

White-box cryptography (WBC) seeks to protect secret keys even if the attacker has full control over the execution environment. One of the techniques to hide the key is space hardness approach, which conceals the key into a large lookup table generated from a reliable small block cipher. Despite its provable security, space-hard WBC also suffers from heavy performance overhead when executed on general purpose hardware platform, hundreds of magnitude slower than conventional block ciphers. Specifically, recent studies adopt nested substitution permutation network (NSPN) to construct dedicated white-box block cipher [BIT16], whose performance is limited by a massive number of rounds, nested loop dependency and high-dimension dynamic maximal distance separable (MDS) matrices. To address these limitations, we put forward UpWB, an uncoupled and efficient accelerator for NSPN-structure WBC. We propose holistic optimization techniques across timing schedule, algorithms and operators. For the high-level timing schedule, we propose a fine-grained task partition (FTP) mechanism to decouple the parameteroriented nested loop with different trip counts. The FTP mechanism narrows down the idle time for synchronization and avoids the extra usage of FIFO, which efficiently increases the computation throughput. For the optimization of arithmetic operators, we devise a flexible and vectorized modular multiplier (VMM) based on the complexity-reduced Montgomery algorithm, which can process multi-precision variable data, multi-size matrix-vector multiplication and different irreducible polynomials. Then, a configurable matrix-vector multiplication (MVM) architecture with diagonal-major dataflow is presented to handle the dynamic MDS matrix. The multi-scale (Inv)Mixcolumns are also unified in a compact manner by intensively sharing the common sub-operations and customizing the constant multiplier. To verify the proposed methodology, we showcase the unified design implementation for three recent families of WBCs, including SPNbox-8/16/24/32, Yoroi-16/32 and WARX-16. Evaluated on FPGA platform, UpWB outperforms the optimized software counterpart (executed on 3.2 GHz Intel CPU with AES-NI and AVX2 instructions) by 7x to 30x in terms of computation throughput. Synthesized under TSMC 28nm technology, 36x to 164x improvement of computation throughput is achieved when UpWB operates at the maximum frequency of 1.3 GHz and consumes a modest area 0.14 mm2. Besides, the proposed VMM also offers about 30% improvement of area efficiency without pulling flexibility down when compared to state-of-the-art work.

Accurately extracting large-scale offshore floating raft aquaculture (FRA) areas is crucial for supporting scientific planning and precise aquaculture management. While remote sensing technology offers advantages such as wide coverage, rapid imaging, and multispectral capabilities for FRA monitoring, the current methods face challenges in terms of establishing spatial–spectral correlations and extracting multiscale features, thereby limiting their accuracy. To address these issues, we propose an innovative multiscale spatial–spectral fusion network (MSSFNet) designed specifically for extracting offshore FRA areas from multispectral remote sensing imagery. MSSFNet effectively integrates spectral and spatial information through a spatial–spectral feature extraction block (SSFEB), significantly enhancing the accuracy of FRA area identification. Additionally, a multiscale spatial attention block (MSAB) captures contextual information across different scales, improving the ability to detect FRA areas of varying sizes and shapes while minimizing edge artifacts. We created the CHN-YE7-FRA dataset using Sentinel-2 multispectral remote sensing imagery and conducted extensive evaluations. The results showed that MSSFNet achieved impressive metrics: an F1 score of 90.76%, an intersection over union (IoU) of 83.08%, and a kappa coefficient of 89.75%, surpassing those of state-of-the-art methods. The ablation results confirmed that the SSFEB and MSAB modules effectively enhanced the FRA extraction accuracy. Furthermore, the successful practical applications of MSSFNet validated its generalizability and robustness across diverse marine environments. These findings highlight the performance of MSSFNet in both experimental and real-world scenarios, providing reliable, precise FRA area monitoring. This capability provides crucial data for scientific planning and environmental protection purposes in coastal aquaculture zones.

The accurate extraction and monitoring of offshore aquaculture areas are crucial for the marine economy, environmental management, and sustainable development. Existing methods relying on unimodal remote sensing images are limited by natural conditions and sensor characteristics. To address this issue, we integrated multispectral imaging (MSI) and synthetic aperture radar imaging (SAR) to overcome the limitations of single-modal images. We propose a cross-modal multidimensional frequency perception network (CMFPNet) to enhance classification and extraction accuracy. CMFPNet includes a local–global perception block (LGPB) for combining local and global semantic information and a multidimensional adaptive frequency filtering attention block (MAFFAB) that dynamically filters frequency-domain information that is beneficial for aquaculture area recognition. We constructed six typical offshore aquaculture datasets and compared CMFPNet with other models. The quantitative results showed that CMFPNet outperformed the existing methods in terms of classifying and extracting floating raft aquaculture (FRA) and cage aquaculture (CA), achieving mean intersection over union (mIoU), mean F1 score (mF1), and mean Kappa coefficient (mKappa) values of 87.66%, 93.41%, and 92.59%, respectively. Moreover, CMFPNet has low model complexity and successfully achieves a good balance between performance and the number of required parameters. Qualitative results indicate significant reductions in missed detections, false detections, and adhesion phenomena. Overall, CMFPNet demonstrates great potential for accurately extracting large-scale offshore aquaculture areas, providing effective data support for marine planning and environmental protection. Our code is available at Data Availability Statement section.

Converting low-grade thermal energy into electrical energy is crucial for the development of modern smart wearable energy technologies. The free-standing films of PEDOT@Bi2Te3 prepared by tape-casting hold promise for flexible thermoelectric technology in self-powered sensing applications. Bi2Te3 nanosheets fabricated by the solvothermal method are tightly connected with flat-arranged PEODT molecules, forming an S-Bi bonded interface in the composite materials, and the bandgap is reduced to 1.63 eV. Compared with the PEDOT film, the mobility and carrier concentration of the composite are significantly increased at room temperature, and the conductivity reaches 684 S/cm. Meanwhile, the carrier concentration decreased sharply at 360 K indicating the creation of defect energy levels during the interfacial reaction of the composites, which increased the Seebeck coefficient. The power factor was improved by 68.9% compared to PEDOT. In addition, the introduction of Bi2Te3 nanosheets generated defects and multidimensional interfaces in the composite film, which resulted in weak phonon scattering in the conducting polymer with interfacial scattering. The thermal conductivity of the film is decreased and the ZT value reaches 0.1. The composite film undergoes 1500 bending cycles with a 14% decrease in conductivity and has good flexibility. This self-supporting flexible thermoelectric composite film has provided a research basis for low-grade thermal energy applications.

Slope leveling is essential for the successful implementation of ground-mounted centralized photovoltaic (PV) plants, but currently, there is a lack of optimization methods available. To address this issue, a linear programming approach has been proposed to optimize PV slope leveling. This method involves dividing the field into blocks and grids and using hyperbolic paraboloids to simulate the design surface. By programming in MATLAB, the globally optimal solution for PV slope leveling can be calculated. Engineering case studies have demonstrated that this optimization method can achieve significant cut-and-fill volume savings ranging from 58% to 78%, when compared to the traditional segmented plane method. Additionally, the effectiveness of the optimization method improves with larger site areas and more complex terrains. A parameter analysis considering slope ratio, grid size, and block size reveals that grid size has a minimal impact on cut-and-fill volume, while slope ratio and block size have a significant influence. For typical PV projects, the recommended ranges of slope ratio, grid size, and block size are 3–7%, 5–20 m, and 30–50 m, respectively, for slope leveling design. In summary, the proposed linear optimization method provides an optimal slope leveling scheme for ground-mounted centralized PV plants, with convenient operation and fast computation.

Beira Lake, located in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has suffered severe anthropogenic impacts, with previous restoration attempts failing due to a limited understanding of pollutant dynamics. Aiming to fill this gap, a comprehensive study was conducted during dry and wet seasons to assess the spatiotemporal water pollution of Beira Lake, employing key physicochemical parameters, numerical indices, and remote sensing analysis. The water pollution index (WPI) results categorize Beira Lake as highly polluted, with WPI values ranging from 2.38 ± 0.92 in the wet season to 2.53 ± 1.32 in the dry season. Comparatively higher COD levels recorded in the Beira Lake network, especially for Gangarama Lake show significant pollution levels during both the dry and wet seasons, e.g., the highest COD levels, at 306.40 mg/L, were observed during the wet season. The Trophic State Index (TSI) results indicate eutrophic and hypereutrophic conditions in Beira Lake, which are particularly pronounced during the wet season. The heavy metal pollution index (HPI) results suggest elevated heavy metal concentrations in Beira Lake, especially in the wet season. Combined with field investigation results, a remote sensing data analysis between 2016 and 2023 reveals significant improvements in water transparency, suggesting positive effects of recent management interventions. Parameters demanding attention include COD, nitrate, and total phosphate levels due to their consistent exceedance of permissible limits. The PCA results of indices correlations between wet and dry seasons offer valuable insights into the complex dynamics of Beira Lake’s water quality. The study makes recommendations for restoring Beira Lake, including stringent pollution controls, regular dredging, green infrastructure implementation, implementing new rules and regulations, and community engagement.

The conventional lithofacies and facies model of subaerial and marine pyroclastic rocks cannot reflect the characteristics of subaqueous volcanic edifice in lacustrine basins. In order to solve this problem, the lithofacies of subaqueous eruptive pyroclastic rocks is discussed and the facies model is established by taking the tuff cone of Cretaceous Huoshiling Formation in the Chaganhua area of the Changling fault depression, Songliao Basin as the research object. The results indicate that the subaqueous eruptive pyroclastic rocks in the Songliao Basin can be divided into two facies and four subfacies. The two facies are the subaqueous explosive facies and the volcanic sedimentary facies that is formed during the eruption interval. The subaqueous explosive facies can be further divided into three subfacies: gas-supported hot pyroclastic flow subfacies, water-laid density current subfacies and subaqueous fallout subfacies. The volcanic sedimentary facies consists of pyroclastic sedimentary rocks containing terrigenous clast subfacies. A typical facies model of the tuff cone that is formed by subaqueous eruptions in the Songliao Basin was established. The tuff cone is generally composed of multiple subaqueous eruption depositional units and can be divided into two facies associations: near-source facies association and far-source facies association. The complete vertical succession of one depositional unit of the near-source facies association is composed of pyroclastic sedimentary rocks containing terrigenous clast subfacies, gas-supported hot pyroclastic flow subfacies, water-laid density current subfacies and subaqueous fallout subfacies from bottom to top. The depositional unit of the far-source facies association is dominated by the subaqueous fallout subfacies and contains several thin interlayered deposits of the water-laid density current subfacies. The gas-supported hot pyroclastic flow subfacies and the pyroclastic sedimentary rocks containing terrigenous clast subfacies are favorable subaqueous eruptive facies for reservoirs in continental lacustrine basins.

【Objective】In order to study whether hybrids of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens L.) have growth advantages, the hybrid progeny of Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain and the difference of growth performance between Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain were studied.【Method】Experimental strains F and F´ were obtained by cross and transverse cross between Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain, respectively. The growth performance, eclosion time and oviposition time of F and F´ were measured and compared with those of Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain.【Result】The eclosion time of F strain and F´ strain was 30.3 d and 35.3 d, and the oviposition time was 36.6 d and 40.3 d, respectively. The eclosion and oviposition time of F strain were 5 d shorter than that of Wuhan strain, 9 d shorter than that of Bioforte strain, and the oviposition time of F´ strain was 1.4 d shorter than that of Wuhan strain. The eclosion time was 4 d shorter than that of Bioforte strain, and the oviposition time was 5.4 d shorter than that of Bioforte strain. In terms of feed utilization, the apparent digestibility of F strain, F´ strain, Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain were 59.53%, 59.25%, 58.05% and 58.10%, ingested feed conversion efficiency were 4.11%, 4.58%, 3.41% and 3.74%, and the feed-weight ratio were 8.58, 7.78, 10.5 and 9.05, respectively. Compared with Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain, the apparent digestibility of F strain was significantly higher, and the eclosion time and oviposition time were significantly lower. The digested feed conversion efficiency, apparent digestibility and ingested feed conversion efficiency of F´ strain were significantly higher than those of Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain, while the feed-weight ratio and protein content were significantly lower than those of Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain. There were no significant differences in the number of egg laid, quality of egg mass, or hatching rate among F strain, F´ strain and the Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain.【Conclusion】F strain and F´ strain were superior to Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain in feed utilization, but the protein content was slightly lower than Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain; The number of egg laid, egg mass and hatching rate of F strain, F´ strain were well maintained at the level of Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain; F strain had an advantage in growth cycle, and its eclosion time and oviposition time were shorter than Wuhan strain and Bioforte strain.

The development of the textile and apparel (T&A) industry has led to an increasing focus on recycling used products. Remanufactured product quality raises consumer concerns, and blockchain can effectively solve this problem. We establish a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) in which a manufacturer, a retailer, or a third-party recycler collects used T&A products to examine the most efficient recycling mode with and without blockchain and the impact of blockchain on CLSC decisions. The results show that (1) if the manufacturer’s recycling cost coefficient is relatively low, used T&A products are collected directly by the manufacturer. Otherwise, the responsibility for recycling used T&A products falls to the retailer or the third-party recycler. It is noteworthy that the manufacturer’s choice of recycling mode remains unchanged whether a blockchain is implemented or not. (2) The implementation of blockchain by the manufacturer and the retailer can increase profits and consumers also benefit when the cost of validating blockchain units remains below a certain threshold. (3) When the recycling cost coefficient exceeds a certain threshold, the implementation of blockchain increases prices and recycling rates. These findings offer CLSC members’ management insights into how to select the optimal recycling mode and the consequences of implementing blockchain.

PurposePre-myopia, a non-myopic refractive state, is a key concern for myopia prevention because of its association with a significantly higher risk of myopia in children under 3 years of age. Amid the myopia pandemic, its onset at younger ages is increasing, yet research on screening methods for myopia and pre-myopia in preschool children remains limited. This study aimed to establish effective noncycloplegic screening methods for myopia and pre-myopia in preschool children.MethodsThis cross-sectional study included 16 kindergartens in Shanghai, China. Uncorrected distance visual acuity (UDVA) was recorded using a logMAR visual acuity chart. Pre- and post-cycloplegic refractions were obtained using an auto-refractor (TopconKR-800). Noncycloplegic axial length (AL) and corneal curvature radius (CR) were measured using the IOL Master-700. Logistic regression models were developed to establish accurate noncycloplegic screening methods for myopia and pre-myopia.ResultsA total of 1,308 children with a mean age of 4.3 ± 0.9 years were included; among them 640 (48.9%) were girls. The myopia prevalence rate was 2.8% (n = 36), and the prevalence of pre-myopia was 21.9% (n = 286). Pre-myopia screening (cycloplegic spherical equivalent [SE] ≤ −0.5

BackgroundThe clinical efficacy and safety of camrelizumab as a third- or later-line regimen in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have not been determined in large clinical trials.ObjectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of camrelizumab in combination with albumin-bound paclitaxel as a third- or later-line treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC.MethodsA total of 257 patients with advanced NSCLC who were histopathologically confirmed and failed in clinical second-line therapy regimens at Jiangxi Province Cancer hospital from January 2018 to December 2021 were retrospectively selected. Patients with advanced NSCLC were divided into the single treatment group (STG) of camrelizumab, and the combined treatment group (CTG) of camrelizumab in combination with albumin-bound paclitaxel according to the treatment regimen. The primary outcomes of interest were clinical efficacy[objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR)], progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). Survival data were analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and the log-rank test was performed. Additionally, Cox proportional hazard regression was used to analyze the correlation of prognosis and baseline characteristics between subgroups, to identify the potential independent risk factors for PFS and OS. Furthermore, the occurrence of side effects was assessed according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE 4.03).ResultsOf the 257 patients with advanced NSCLC included in the research, 135 patients received camrelizumab, and 122 patients received camrelizumab plus albumin-bound paclitaxel. The ORR of CTG and STG was 59.84% and 50.38%, and the DCR was 77.05% and 65.93%, respectively. The median PFS in CTG was higher than that in the STG (5.27 vs. 3.57 months, P = 0.0074), and the median OS was longer (7.09 vs. 6.47 months, P < 0.01). The lines of treatment, metastases, and PD-L1 expression levels were independent risk factors for the mPFS and mOS of patients with advanced NSCLC. The occurrence of adverse events was similar between camrelizumab and camrelizumab plus albumin-bound paclitaxel groups.ConclusionCamrelizumab combined with albumin-bound paclitaxel as the third- or later-line regimen greatly prolonged PFS and OS of advanced NSCLC patients. A prospective clinical trial is warranted.

This work presents a modified etching method for the synthesis of Ti3C2 MXene. The process involves two steps: washing Ti3AlC2 with a low concentration of HF and etching Ti3AlC2 with varying concentrations of FeCl3. FeCl3 can etch the Al layers of Ti3AlC2 by a metal displacement reaction at room temperature, resulting in Ti3C2 nanosheets with an accordion-like morphology. The obtained Ti3C2 MXene was tested as a working electrode for supercapacitors, achieving a maximum specific capacitance of 213.2F/g at 0.5 A/g in a 6 M KOH electrolyte solution, which is higher than that of a Ti3C2 electrode without modification. The method is simple, efficient and reduces the use of HF. This work shows the possibility of synthesizing various MXene-based frameworks using metallic cations with higher redox potentials.

In recent years, the rapid growth of vehicles has imposed a significant burden on urban road resources. To alleviate urban traffic congestion in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), real-time and accurate traffic flow prediction has emerged as an effective approach. However, selecting relevant parameters from traffic flow information and adjusting hyperparameters in intelligent algorithms to achieve high prediction accuracy is a time-consuming process, posing practical challenges in dynamically changing traffic conditions. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a novel prediction architecture called Multiple Variables Heuristic Selection Long Short-Term Memory (MVHS-LSTM). The key innovation lies in its ability to select informative parameters, eliminating unnecessary factors to reduce computational costs while achieving a balance between prediction performance and computing efficiency. The MVHS-LSTM model employs the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) method to intelligently reduce factors and optimize cost efficiency. Additionally, it dynamically selects hyperparameters through a heuristic iteration process involving epoch, learning rate, and window length, ensuring adaptability and improved accuracy. Extensive simulations were conducted using real traffic flow data from Shanghai to evaluate the enhanced performance of MVHS-LSTM. The prediction results were compared with those of the ARIMA, SVM, and PSO-LSTM models, demonstrating the innovative capabilities and advantages of the proposed model.

14-3-3 proteins are widely distributed in eukaryotic cells and play an important role in plant growth, development, and stress tolerance. This study revealed nine 14-3-3 genes from the genome of Nitraria sibirica Pall., a halophyte with strong salt tolerance. The physicochemical properties, multiple sequence alignment, gene structure and motif analysis, and chromosomal distributions were analyzed, and phylogenetic analysis, cis-regulatory elements analysis, and gene transcription and expression analysis of Ns14-3-3s were conducted. The results revealed that the Ns14-3-3 gene family consists of nine members, which are divided into two groups: ε (four members) and non-ε (five members). These members are acidic hydrophilic proteins. The genes are distributed randomly on chromosomes, and the number of introns varies widely among the two groups. However, all genes have similar conserved domains and three-dimensional protein structures. The main differences are found at the N-terminus and C-terminus. The promoter region of Ns14-3-3s contains multiple cis-acting elements related to light, plant hormones, and abiotic stress responses. Transcriptional profiling and gene expression pattern analysis revealed that Ns14-3-3s were expressed in all tissues, although with varying patterns. Under salt stress conditions, Ns14-3-3 1a, Ns14-3-3 1b, Ns14-3-3 5a, and Ns14-3-3 7a showed significant changes in gene expression. Ns14-3-3 1a expression decreased in all tissues, Ns14-3-3 7a expression decreased by 60% to 71% in roots, and Ns14-3-3 1b expression increased by 209% to 251% in stems. The most significant change was observed in Ns14-3-3 5a, with its expression in stems increasing by 213% to 681%. The yeast two-hybrid experiments demonstrated that Ns14-3-3 5a interacts with NsVP1 (vacuolar H+-pyrophosphatase). This result indicates that Ns14-3-3 5a may respond to salt stress by promoting ionic vacuole compartmentalization in stems and leaves through interactions with NsVP1. In addition, N. sibirica has a high number of stems, allowing it to compartmentalize more ions through its stem and leaf. This may be a contributing factor to its superior salt tolerance compared to other plants.

IntroductionThe emergence of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapy targeting B cell maturation antigen (BCMA) has improved the prognosis of patients with multiple myeloma (MM); however, the majority of patients eventually experience relapse.MethodsIn this study, employing the latest single-cell RNA sequencing technology, we examined 24 bone marrow or peripheral blood samples collected throughout the course of anti-BCMA CAR-T therapy, analyzing a total of 59,725 bone marrow cells and 72,479 peripheral blood cells.ResultsOur findings reveal that tumor cells in relapsed patient exhibit higher expression levels of HSP90B1 and HSPA5, and demonstrate significantly enriched pathways regarding endoplasmic reticulum stress and unfolded protein response. In the analysis of T cells, we observed that patient with impaired effector function and increased expression of immune checkpoints in endogenous T cell are more susceptible to relapse. Notably, T cells from both the bone marrow microenvironment and peripheral blood share highly similar biological characteristics.DiscussionOverall, this study provides a comprehensive atlas of endogenous immune cells, particularly in the relatively long term, after CAR-T therapy. It offers clinical evidence for a deeper understanding of the internal environment post CAR-T treatment and for identifying mechanisms underlying relapse.

Objective We developed and validated a nomogram for overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) prediction in patients with primary testicular diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (PT-DLBCL). Methods Patients diagnosed with PT-DLBCL were selected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Independent prognostic factors were analyzed to establish a nomogram of OS and CSS. Patients were reclassified into high- and low-risk groups; survival was compared using Kaplan–Meier curves and log-rank tests. Results We collected 1099 PT-DLBCL cases (2000–2019) from SEER and randomized into training (n = 771) and validation (n = 328) cohorts. In univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses, five prognostic indicators (age, treatment modality, diagnosis year, Ann Arbor stage, laterality) were used to establish a nomogram of OS and CSS. The nomogram demonstrated excellent discrimination and calibration, with concordance indices in the training and validation cohorts of 0.702 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.677–0.727) and 0.705 (95% CI 0.67–0.74) for OS and 0.694 (95% CI 0.663–0.725) and 0.680 (95% CI 0.63–0.72) for CSS. The calibration curve and ROC analysis indicated good predictive capability of the nomogram. Conclusions The constructed prognostic model showed good predictive value for PT-DLBCL to assist clinicians in developing individualized treatment strategies.

Abstract Background The desert shrub Nitraria tangutorum Bobr. is important for its resistance to salt and alkali in Northwest China. It is an ecologically important species in this region and provides edible and medicinal berries. This study showed a mutant of N. tangutorum (named Jincan, JC) that has a strong yellow pericarp vs red in a wild type (represented by NT). Results In this study, the secondary metabolic and molecular mechanisms responsible for Nitraria fruit coloration were investigated using LC–MS-based widely targeted metabolomics and transcriptomics data. As a result of our study, 122 and 104 flavonoid metabolites were differentially expressed throughout the mature and transition stages between JC and NT, respectively. Furthermore, two cyanidin derivatives (cyanidin 3-O-glucoside and cyanidin-3-O-(2''-O-glucosyl) glucoside) and one pelargonidin derivative (pelargonidin-3-O-glucoside) were identified only in the NT phenotype. The functional genes F3H (flavanone 3-hydroxylase), F3'H (flavonoid 3′-hydroxylase) and UFGT (flavonoid 3-O-glucosyltransferase) and the transcription factors MYB, bHLH, NAC and bZIP were significantly downregulated in JC. Meanwhile, the activity of UFGT was extremely low in both periods of JC, with a five-fold higher enzymatic activity of UFGT in RT than in YT. In summary, due to the lack of catalysis of UGFT, yellow fruit of JC could not accumulate sufficient cyanidin and pelargonidin derivatives during fruit ripening. Conclusion Taken together, our data provide insights into the mechanism for the regulation of anthocyanin synthesis and N. tangutorum fruit coloration and provide a theoretical basis to develop new strategies for developing bioactive compounds from N. tangutorum fruits.

Abstract Background Nitraria sibirica Pall. is a halophytic shrub with strong environmental adaptability that can survive in extremely saline-alkali and drought-impacted environments. Gene expression analysis aids in the exploration of the molecular mechanisms of plant responses to abiotic stresses. RT–qPCR is the most common technique for studying gene expression. Stable reference genes are a prerequisite for obtaining accurate target gene expression results in RT–qPCR analysis. Results In this study, a total of 10 candidate reference genes were selected from the transcriptome of N. sibirica, and their expression stability in leaves and roots under different treatment conditions (salt, alkali, drought, cold, heat and ABA) was evaluated with the geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper, comparative ΔCt and RefFinder programs. The results showed that the expression stability of the candidate reference genes was dependent on the tissue and experimental conditions tested. ACT7 combined with R3H, GAPDH, TUB or His were the most stable reference genes in the salt- or alkali-treated leaves, salt-treated roots and drought-treated roots, respectively; R3H and GAPDH were the most suitable combination for drought-treated leaves, heat-treated root samples and ABA-treated leaves; DIM1 and His maintained stable expression in roots under alkali stress; and TUB combined with R3H was stable in ABA-treated roots. TBCB and GAPDH exhibited stable expression in heat-treated leaves; TBCB, R3H, and ERF3A were stable in cold-treated leaves; and the three most stable reference genes for cold-treated roots were TBCB, ACT11 and DIM1. The reliability of the selected reference genes was further confirmed by evaluating the expression patterns of the NsP5CS gene under the six treatment conditions. Conclusion This study provides a theoretical reference for N. sibirica gene expression standardization and quantification under various abiotic stress conditions and will help to reveal the molecular mechanisms that confer stress tolerance to N. sibirica.

Background Despite conspicuous advances in innovating novel drugs and combination regimens in multiple myeloma (MM) in recent decades, the most appropriate maintenance regimens after inductive therapy are still controversial and opaque.Objective We aimed to identify the most effective maintenance treatment for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM) patients via network meta-analysis.Method We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Google Scholars from inception to April, 2022. Odds ratios (ORs) were generated for dichotomous variants. The primary endpoint was overall survival (OS).Results Eventually a total of 19 trials, including 11 treatments and 8337 patients, were included in this analysis. For OS, lenalidomide (OR ranged from 1.61 to 1.99) and daratumumab (OR ranged from 1.83 to 2.41) showed significant efficacy over placebo. Maintenance therapy comprising lenalidomide-carfilzomib (OR ranged from 3.19 to 6.95), lenalidomide-prednisone (OR ranged from 2.62 to 4.44), bortezomib-thalidomide (OR ranged from 2.48 to 3.64), daratumumab (OR ranged from 2.0 to 2.98), lenalidomide (OR ranged from 1.4 to 3.19), ixazomib (OR ranged from 1.36 to 2.05), thalidomide (OR ranged from 1.5 to 1.86) demonstrated significant effects in prolonging PFS compared with placebo; Among the efficient therapies, lenalidomide-carfilzomib was significantly superior to lenalidomide (OR ranged from 2.18 to 2.20), daratumumab (OR ranged from 1.49 to 2.66) and ixazomib (OR ranged from 2.75 to 3.57).Conclusion Considering OS and PFS, lenalidomide-carfilzomib should be recommended as the best therapy. In clinical practice, this must be weighed against the increased risk of adverse events and financial burden. However, more head-to-head studies are needed to confirm these findings.

Abstract The popular involvement of amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) in organisms, usually via a complicated non-classical crystallization pathway, has aroused interest in the scientific community. In recent years, a lot of work has been carried out for the preparation and application of ACC. In this paper, the effectiveness of ACC for the consolidation of calcareous matrix was evaluated. ACC was synthesized through direct carbonation of calcium oxide in ethanol and was introduced into simulated samples as consolidant. A comprehensive study for the assessment of protective effect was carried out by testing surface strength, chromaticity, compressive strength, water vapor permeability, water absorption and freezing–thawing resistance. The results showed that the addition of ACC could significantly improve the surface strength, compressive strength and weatherability of treated samples, while it had only a slight influence on color difference and water vapor permeability. It was confirmed that ACC could connect the loose calcite particles by ‘spot welding’ through heterogeneous nucleation and growth processes. As a consolidant, it demonstrated its merits in this study and could be proposed as an alternative for the protection of weathered calcareous stones.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in heightened levels of depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues due to sudden changes in daily life, such as economic stress, social isolation, and educational irregularity. Accurately assessing emotional and behavioral changes in response to the pandemic can be challenging, but it is essential to understand the evolving emotions, themes, and discussions surrounding the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. ObjectiveThis study aims to understand the evolving emotions and themes associated with the impact of COVID-19 on mental health support groups (eg, r/Depression and r/Anxiety) on Reddit (Reddit Inc) during the initial phase and after the peak of the pandemic using natural language processing techniques and statistical methods. MethodsThis study used data from the r/Depression and r/Anxiety Reddit communities, which consisted of posts contributed by 351,409 distinct users over a period spanning from 2019 to 2022. Topic modeling and Word2Vec embedding models were used to identify key terms associated with the targeted themes within the data set. A range of trend and thematic analysis techniques, including time-to-event analysis, heat map analysis, factor analysis, regression analysis, and k-means clustering analysis, were used to analyze the data. ResultsThe time-to-event analysis revealed that the first 28 days following a major event could be considered a critical window for mental health concerns to become more prominent. The theme trend analysis revealed key themes such as economic stress, social stress, suicide, and substance use, with varying trends and impacts in each community. The factor analysis highlighted pandemic-related stress, economic concerns, and social factors as primary themes during the analyzed period. Regression analysis showed that economic stress consistently demonstrated the strongest association with the suicide theme, whereas the substance theme had a notable association in both data sets. Finally, the k-means clustering analysis showed that in r/Depression, the number of posts related to the “depression, anxiety, and medication” cluster decreased after 2020, whereas the “social relationships and friendship” cluster showed a steady decrease. In r/Anxiety, the “general anxiety and feelings of unease” cluster peaked in April 2020 and remained high, whereas the “physical symptoms of anxiety” cluster showed a slight increase. ConclusionsThis study sheds light on the impact of COVID-19 on mental health and the related themes discussed in 2 web-based communities during the pandemic. The results offer valuable insights for developing targeted interventions and policies to support individuals and communities in similar crises.

The J-TEXT capability is enhanced compared to two years ago with several upgrades of its diagnostics and the increase of electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) power to 1 MW. With the application of electron cyclotron wave (ECW), the ECW assisted plasma startup is achieved; the tearing mode is suppressed; the toroidal injection of 300 kW ECW drives around 24 kA current; fast electrons are generated with toroidal injected ECW and the runaway current conversion efficiency increases with ECRH power. The mode coupling between 2/1 and 3/1 modes are extensively studied. The coupled 2/1 and 3/1 modes usually lead to major disruption. Their coupling can be either suppressed or avoided by external resonant magnetic perturbation fields and hence avoids the major disruption. It is also found that the 2/1 threshold of external field is significantly reduced by a pre-excited 3/1 mode, which can be either a locked island or an external kink mode. The disruption control is studied by developing prediction methods capable of cross tokamak application and by new mitigation methods, such as the biased electrode or electromagnetic pellet injector. The high-density operation and related disruptions are studied from various aspects. Approaching the density limit, the collapse of the edge shear layer is observed and such collapse can be prevented by applying edge biasing, leading to an increased density limit. The density limit is also observed to increase, if the plasma is operated in the poloidal divertor configuration or the plasma purity is increased by increasing the pre-filled gas pressure or ECRH power during the start-up phase.

Combined with the development trend of high speed generators and the high voltage of DC microgrids in high-power series hybrid aero propulsion system, a set of hybrid systems with a power of 200 kW, voltage of 540 V, and speed of 21,000 r/min is established in this article. Ground starting tests were conducted, focusing on the analysis of the coupling characteristics between the engine, generator and motors/propellers during the starting process, and further facilitated the optimization of the strategy of starting control. Firstly, the starting process of the series hybrid aero propulsion system mainly consists of four stages: the turboshaft engine is started, the gas turbine speed is increased, the controlled rectification intervenes, and the electric propeller is activated. The recommended definition of the idle state of the 200 kW hybrid propulsion system in this paper is as follows: power turbine speed NP = 10,500 rpm, grid system voltage UDC = 540 V, and the minimum stable power state of the electric motor PM = 150 W. Furthermore, experiments reveal that during the starting process, the resistance value and the rectification strategy, respectively, affect the steady-state and dynamic characteristics of the power turbine speed. By comparing multiple sets of experiments and utilizing data fitting software for optimal design, the results indicate that, based on the starting strategy of no-load protection and two-step controlled rectification, the total duration of the optimized starting process is shortened by 64.7%, and the gas turbine speed is reduced by 22.7% compared to the pre-optimized state. The starting control sequence is clearer, and the optimization effect is significant.

To essentially investigate the effect-mechanism of water contents (w), curing agent dosages (Wg) and ages (T) on the mechanical behavior of stabilized waste sludge, a series of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) tests under different w, Wg and T are conducted by taking the waste sludge solidified by magnesium oxysulfate cement as the research object. The effects of w, Wg and T on the micro-parameters of the stabilized sludge such as contact area ratio (RCA), average abundance (Cm) and fractal dimension (D) are addressed by using the Image Pro Plus. The results show that the increase in w will prevent the hydration of magnesium oxysulfate cement and enhance the dispersibility of the microstructure of the stabilized sludge, further decrease the values of RCA and Cm and improve the value of D. Among the aforementioned three factors, T has a significant influence on the development of RCA and D, and Wg plays an important role in the evolution of Cm.

In order to improve the surfactin production capacity of Bacillus subtilis FHYB201030, taking Bacillus subtilis FHYB201030 as the experimental strain, and CPC-BTB (cetylpyridyl chloride-bromothymol blue) value was used as the evaluation index. Single factor tests, Plackett-Burman test, steepest climbing test and response surface test were used to optimize the optimal fermentation conditions for surfactin production. Plackett-Burman test showed that temperature, lactose and glutamic acid (Glu) had significant effects on surfactin yield. The steepest climbing design and the Box-Behnken central combination design three-factor three-level test were used to calculate the culture medium composition with the highest surfactin yield: 25 g/L of lactose, 10 g/L of casein, 3 g/L of beef extract, 10 g/L of peptone, 5 g/L of NaCl, 0.5 mmol/L of Mn2+, 2.5 g/L of Glu. The optimum cultivation conditions were temperature of 40 ℃, rotation speed of 200 r/min, filling volume of 30%. Under the fermentation condition, the amount of surfactant produced by Bacillus subtilis FHYB201030 was 0.48 mg/mL, which was 34.56% higher than the 0.35 mg/mL before optimization. This result would lay a good foundation for improving the production level of surfactin.

The tissue-engineered blood vessel (TEBV) has been developed and used in cardiovascular disease modeling, preclinical drug screening, and for replacement of native diseased arteries. Increasing attention has been paid to biomechanical cues in TEBV and other tissue-engineered organs to better recapitulate the functional properties of the native organs. Currently, computational fluid dynamics models were employed to reveal the hydrodynamics in TEBV-on-a-chip. However, the biomechanical wall stress/strain conditions in the TEBV wall have never been investigated. In this paper, a straight cylindrical TEBV was placed into a polydimethylsiloxane-made microfluidic device to construct the TEBV-on-a-chip. The chip was then perfused with cell culture media flow driven by a peristaltic pump. A three-dimensional fluid–structure interaction (FSI) model was generated to simulate the biomechanical conditions in TEBV and mimic both the dynamic TEBV movement and pulsatile fluid flow. The material stiffness of the TEBV wall was determined by uniaxial tensile testing, while the viscosity of cell culture media was measured using a rheometer. Comparison analysis between the perfusion experiment and FSI model results showed that the average relative error in diameter expansion of TEBV from both approaches was 10.0% in one period. For fluid flow, the average flow velocity over a period was 2.52 cm/s from the FSI model, 10.5% higher than the average velocity of the observed cell clusters (2.28 mm/s) in the experiment. These results demonstrated the facility to apply the FSI modeling approach in TEBV to obtain more comprehensive biomechanical results for investigating mechanical mechanisms of cardiovascular disease development.

Urbanization induced changes have attracted widespread attention. Key challenges arise from the inherent uncertainties in attribution models diagnosing the driving mechanisms and the interrelationships of the attributes given by the complexity of interactions within a city. Here, we investigate urbanization dynamics from nighttime light signals before analyzing their driving mechanisms from 2014 to 2020 on both provincial and regional scale and a flat versus mountainous urbanization comparison. Model uncertainties are discussed comparing the contribution results from Geodetector and the Gini importance from Random Forest analyses. The method is applied to Shaanxi Province, where flat urban land is located mainly in its center and mountainous urban land is situated in the North and South. The following results are noted: i) Employing the Geodetector based maximum contribution method for urban region extraction of night time light reveals a notable accuracy improvement in flat urban land compared with the closest area method. ii) Geographical factors attain high contribution for mountainous urban land of Shannan, while for flat urbanization land dynamics, economic factors and community factors prevail. iii) The most obvious driving mechanisms are economic factors which, associated with local urban development strategies, show highest contribution values in 2014 (2018) over the flat (mountainous) urban land of Guanzhong Plain (Northern Shaanxi Plateau or Shanbei region) linked with an early (late) development. iv) Population factors achieve high contribution values in the initially low populated urban land of the northern mountainous land initiating huge migration. v) The contributions resulting from Geodetector are in agreement with the Gini importance from Random Forest in agriculture, geographical and population factors (R2 > 0.5) but not in economy, community and climatic factors (R2

【Objective】Aiming at the problems of ammonium-rich and low denitrification efficiency in landfill leachate wastewater, a heterotrophic nitrification bacterium was enriched and isolated from the activated sludge of landfill leachate biochemical reaction tank.【Method】By means of morphological observation, physiological and biochemical identification, 16S rDNA gene sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree construction, the effects of different inoculation amount, initial pH, temperature, shaking speed and carbon source type on the denitrification effect of the strain were studied. The strain was inoculated into landfill leachate wastewater to evaluate its ability of heterotrophic nitrification.【Result】The isolated heterotrophic nitrobacteria strain was Acinetobacter sp., named XJ-1. After single factor optimization, strain XJ-1 could grow in the medium with sodium acetate as the sole carbon source and carry out heterotrophic nitrification. When the inoculation amount was 6%, with initial pH 7.5, temperature at 30 ℃, and the shaking speed of incubator maintained at 150 r/min, the highest ammonia nitrogen degradation rate was obtained; while strain XJ-1 was inoculated into the sterilized landfill leachate wastewater, after 96 h cultivation under the optimal conditions, the initial concentration of ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N) decreased from 545.91 mg/L to 317.58 mg/L, the NH4+-N degradation rate reached 62.82%, and the intermediate products such as nitrite nitrogen (NO2--N) and nitrate nitrogen (NO3--N) did not accumulate significantly.【Conclusion】Strain XJ-1 has certain heterotrophic nitrification characteristics, and it has application value in the treatment of landfill leachate wastewater.

BackgroundCommunity-based telemedicine screening for diabetic retinopathy (DR) has been highly recommended worldwide. However, evidence from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) on the choice between artificial intelligence (AI)–based and manual grading–based telemedicine screening is inadequate for policy making. ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to test whether the AI model is more worthwhile than manual grading in community-based telemedicine screening for DR in the context of labor costs in urban China. MethodsWe conducted cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses by using decision-analytic Markov models with 30 one-year cycles from a societal perspective to compare the cost, effectiveness, and utility of 2 scenarios in telemedicine screening for DR: manual grading and an AI model. Sensitivity analyses were performed. Real-world data were obtained mainly from the Shanghai Digital Eye Disease Screening Program. The main outcomes were the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) and the incremental cost-utility ratio (ICUR). The ICUR thresholds were set as 1 and 3 times the local gross domestic product per capita. ResultsThe total expected costs for a 65-year-old resident were US $3182.50 and US $3265.40, while the total expected years without blindness were 9.80 years and 9.83 years, and the utilities were 6.748 quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and 6.753 QALYs in the AI model and manual grading, respectively. The ICER for the AI-assisted model was US $2553.39 per year without blindness, and the ICUR was US $15,216.96 per QALY, which indicated that AI-assisted model was not cost-effective. The sensitivity analysis suggested that if there is an increase in compliance with referrals after the adoption of AI by 7.5%, an increase in on-site screening costs in manual grading by 50%, or a decrease in on-site screening costs in the AI model by 50%, then the AI model could be the dominant strategy. ConclusionsOur study may provide a reference for policy making in planning community-based telemedicine screening for DR in LMICs. Our findings indicate that unless the referral compliance of patients with suspected DR increases, the adoption of the AI model may not improve the value of telemedicine screening compared to that of manual grading in LMICs. The main reason is that in the context of the low labor costs in LMICs, the direct health care costs saved by replacing manual grading with AI are less, and the screening effectiveness (QALYs and years without blindness) decreases. Our study suggests that the magnitude of the value generated by this technology replacement depends primarily on 2 aspects. The first is the extent of direct health care costs reduced by AI, and the second is the change in health care service utilization caused by AI. Therefore, our research can also provide analytical ideas for other health care sectors in their decision to use AI.

ObjectiveDue to the changing medical demands in the healthcare system, there is a need for a standardized and professionalized curriculum for genetic counselors. This mixed-method study will observe and evaluate the first Peer Experiential and Reciprocal Supervision (PEERS) training program on genetic counseling among medical practitioners in China; to provide feedback and recommendation for future training and practices.MethodsA genetic counselor training program was held from December 10–11, 2016 in a fetal medicine unit and prenatal diagnosis center in Shanghai with 59 participants from clinical centers, hospitals, and organizations in China. An ethnographic reflexive assessment with a structured questionnaire were used to provide insights and feedback on the training experience.ResultsResults indicate an inadequate mastery of genetic and fetal knowledge; lack of empathetic understanding and cultural sensitivity; difficulties in adopting a non-directive counseling approach; distance between reality and fictionality in the training; overall training's helpfulness.ConclusionThe professionalization of genetic counseling in China is in the making with the soaring demands for genetic counseling services; this first experiment of PEERS training turned out to be needed, worth to be adapted toward medical centers across China, to better understand and face the challenges rising from genetic counseling practice.

Coccidiosis, an acute epidemic intestinal disease of poultry, is caused by the parasitic protozoan genus Eimeria, with Eimeria tenella being the most pathogenic spp. Novel approaches are required to address the limitations of current treatments for this disease. We investigated the effects of eight plant extracts and essential oils and their mixture on Eimeria tenella as potential treatments for coccidial infection. The anticoccidial effects of non-toxic concentrations of Punica granatum L. (0.005 mg/mL), Plantago asiatica L. (0.780 mg/mL), Bidens pilosa L. (0.390 mg/mL), Acalypha australis L. (0.390 mg/mL), Pteris multifida Poir (0.050 mg/mL), and Portulaca oleracea L. sp. Pl. (0.050 mg/mL) extracts; Artemisia argyi Levl. et Vant. (0.010 μL/mL) and Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Ktze (0.050 μL/mL) essential oils; and their mixture (0.500 mL/mL) on Eimeria tenella were determined using cell viability assays, flow cytometry, and in vivo studies. The eight plant extracts and essential oils and their mixture inhibited Eimeria tenella sporozoites from invading chicken embryo fibroblast cells in vitro. The extract and essential oil mixture improved the feed conversion ratio and body weight gain, reduced fecal oocyst excretion, substantially reduced the mortality of Eimeria tenella-infected chickens, and reduced Eimeria tenella-induced cecal damage in vivo. The results suggest that the extract and essential oil mixtures inhibit Eimeria tenella invasion both in vitro and in vivo, demonstrating their potential as anticoccidial agents.

This work demonstrates a distinctive almost HF-free route of etching Ti3AlC2 MAX phase by metal displacement reaction at room temperature. The Ti3AlC2 particles are directly etched by CuCl2 solutions in different concentrations instead of HF. The etchant is reduced to nano CuCl particles, adhering to the surface of Ti3C2 layers to form the Ti3C2@CuCl composite which is evaluated as working electrodes for supercapacitors. Due to the synergistic effect between CuCl and Ti3C2 matrix, the appropriate amount of CuCl enhances the specific capacitance to 508.7 F·g−1 at 1A·g−1 in 6 M KOH electrolyte solution, which is much higher than pure Ti3C2 electrode. This work shows the possibility of synthesis of various Mxene-based frameworks by other metallic cations with lower metal activity.

An aircraft/engine integrated optimal control method is proposed for turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) engines based on the Gauss pseudospectral method. The optimal flight trajectory and TBCC control law are obtained for a TBCC-powered aircraft, and the “thrust trap” that occurs during turbo-ramjet mode transition is further analyzed and suppressed. Results show that the aircraft goes through the mode transition phase using a “climb-dive” trajectory, which is a strategy of applying gravity-assist and temporarily reducing the drag. Furthermore, the TBCC engine adjusts at the quickest rate to minimize thrust loss. With the coupling of the trajectory and TBCC control law, the minimum thrust during the mode transition is only 23% of the thrust before the mode transition, suggesting the “thrust trap” phenomenon. By decreasing the mode transition time from 60 s to 15 s, the minimum thrust can only increase to 30%, and the “thrust trap” phenomenon cannot be effectively suppressed. When the operating speed range of the turbine engine increases from Ma2.5 to 2.9, the minimum thrust will reach 80%, and the “thrust trap” tends to level off.

Abstract Background Pompe disease (PD) is a rare inherited disorder caused by the deficiency of acid-α glucosidase, which leads to the impairment of organ and tissue functions and causes disabilities. As the first national survey on patients with late-onset PD (LOPD) in China, this study investigated the quality of life (QOL) of adult patients with LOPD in China and explored its contributors. Methods Data were derived from a nation-based, cross-sectional, self-response survey on rare diseases (RDs) in early 2018. Answers from 68 adult Chinese patients with LOPD were used for data analysis. QOL was measured using the World Health Organization Quality of Life: Brief Version. Covariates included age, gender, education, employment, reliance on assistive devices, medication history, social support, and disease economic burden. Data were analyzed using linear regression in R. Results For adult patients with LOPD, the average scores and standard deviations (SD) of the four dimensions of QOL were physical health = 33.77 (SD = 18.28), psychological health = 43.81 (SD = 21.70), environmental health = 39.43 (SD = 16.93), and social relationship = 46.20 (SD = 19.76); the scoring for each dimension was evaluated on a scale of 0 to 100. At the significance level of p

Background COVID-19 has started to spread within China since the end of December 2019. As a special population, the pregnant and delivery women maybe influenced both in physical and psychological aspects. The meta-analysis was conducted about mental health in pregnant and delivery women. Methods We searched both MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library in English and CBM, CNKI, WANFANG and CSSCI in Chinese to find literature from December 2019 to 31 July 2020 related to COVID-19 and mental health in patient with pregnancy and delivery, among which results such as comments, letters, reviews and case reports were excluded. The prevalence of anxiety and depression in the population was synthesized and discussed. Results A total of 11,187 subjects were included in 15 studies. Random effect model is used to account for the data by Revman 5.2. The results showed that the prevalence of depression was 30% (95% CI: 0.23–0.37), the prevalence of anxiety was 34% (95% CI: 0.26–0.43) and prevalence of both anxiety and depression was 18% (95% CI: 0.09–0.29). The prevalence of anxiety (OR = 2.15, 95% CI: 1.39–3.31, Z = 3.47, p=.0005), depression (OR = 1.95, 95% CI: 1.07–3.56, Z = 2.19, p=.03) were higher than that of controls. Significant heterogeneity was detected across studies regarding these prevalence estimates. Subgroup analysis was taken according to assessment tools, and sensitivity analysis was done to explore the sources of heterogeneity. Conclusions The higher prevalence of depression, anxiety, both depression and anxiety in women with pregnancy and delivery during COVID-19 pandemic although the significant heterogeneity detected in studies. We must interpret the results with caution and also put attention to this result. As the epidemic is ongoing, it is vital to set up a comprehensive crisis prevention system.

Abstract Background Although an integral part of ethical and quality health care, little is known about the informed decision making of Chinese women with different socioeconomic backgrounds within the context of antenatal testing. Methods To explore women's viewpoints on informed decision making regarding antenatal screening, a Q‐methodology study that combines both quantitative factor analysis and interviews was conducted between June 2016 and February 2017 in Shanghai and Duyun. A total of 169 women (84 Shanghai and 85 Duyun) participated in the study of 41 ranked statements along a Q‐sorting grid. Results Using by‐person factor analysis, five distinct viewpoints are identified: (a) choice is shared with the partner/husband, but the mother has the right to make the final decision; (b) having antenatal tests is not about choice but about a mother's responsibility; (c) choice is a shared decision led primarily by the partner/husband and secondarily by the doctors; (d) choice should be made using the advice of doctors, but the decision should be made with the partner/husband; and (e) choice is a responsibility shared with the partner, family and doctors. Conclusions The study reveals that women with better education and higher incomes demonstrate more autonomy than those with less education. The nuclear family clearly emerges as the main decision makers in health‐care services in China. Patient and Public Contribution The 169 participants shared their views and stories for at least an hour. They were debriefed after the interviews and contributed their thoughts on our study design and interpretation of the data.

Abstract Background Myopic maculopathy (MM) is the most serious and irreversible complication of pathologic myopia, which is a major cause of visual impairment and blindness. Clinic proposed limited number of factors related to MM. To explore additional features strongly related with MM from optic disc region, we employ a machine learning based radiomics analysis method, which could explore and quantify more hidden or imperceptible MM-related features to the naked eyes and contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of MM and therefore may assist to distinguish the high-risk population in an early stage. Methods A total of 457 eyes (313 patients) were enrolled and were divided into severe MM group and without severe MM group. Radiomics analysis was applied to depict features significantly correlated with severe MM from optic disc region. Receiver Operating Characteristic were used to evaluate these features’ performance of classifying severe MM. Results Eight new MM-related image features were discovered from the optic disc region, which described the shapes, textural patterns and intensity distributions of optic disc region. Compared with clinically reported MM-related features, these newly discovered features exhibited better abilities on severe MM classification. And the mean values of most features were markedly changed between patients with peripapillary diffuse chorioretinal atrophy (PDCA) and macular diffuse chorioretinal atrophy (MDCA). Conclusions Machine learning and radiomics method are useful tools for mining more MM-related features from the optic disc region, by which complex or even hidden MM-related features can be discovered and decoded. In this paper, eight new MM-related image features were found, which would be useful for further quantitative study of MM-progression. As a nontrivial byproduct, marked changes between PDCA and MDCA was discovered by both new image features and clinic features.