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BackgroundDilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a cardiac disease with a poor prognosis of unclear etiology. Previous studies have shown that metabolism is associated with DCM. This study investigates the causal relationship between 1400 metabolites and DCM using a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.MethodsThe study utilized data from the OpenGWAS database, comprising 355,381 Europeans, including 1,444 DCM cases. A total of 1,400 metabolites were evaluated for their causal association with DCM. Instrumental variables (IVs) were selected based on genetic variation and used in the MR analysis. The primary analysis method was inverse variance weighting (IVW), supplemented by weighted median-based estimation and sensitivity analyses.ResultsOf the 1,400 metabolites analyzed, 52 were identified as causally associated with DCM. The analysis revealed both positively and negatively correlated metabolites with DCM risk. Notable findings include the positive correlation of Tryptophan betaine and 5-methyluridine (ribothymidine) levels, and an inverse association of Myristoleate and Erythronate levels with DCM.ConclusionsThe study provides significant insights into the metabolites potentially involved in the pathogenesis of DCM. These findings could pave the way for new therapeutic strategies and biomarker identification in DCM management.

BackgroundThe Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is strongly associated with cardiovascular disease risk factors, but the relationship with blood pressure (BP) remains unclear.ObjectivesTo assess the association between HCV infection status and BP in US adults.MethodsData for the study were obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2012. The association of HCV infection status (including HCV infection, current HCV infection, and past HCV infection) with hypertension, systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were explored using logistic or linear regression analyses respectively.ResultsA total of 25,850 participants (age≥18 years) were enrolled in the current study, including 14,162 participants with hypertension. After adjusting for all covariates, HCV infection/current HCV infection was not associated with hypertension and SBP compared to participants with non-HCV infection (OR: 1.34,95% CI 0.96–1.87/1.31 95% CI 0.91,1.91, β: -0.92, 95% CI -2.7–0.86/-0.35 95% CI -2.51,1.81, respectively). HCV infection/current HCV infection was only associated with elevated DBP (β: 4.1,95% CI 2.57–5.63/4.24,95% CI 2.27–6.21). However, there was no correlation with past HCV infection in participants with hypertension, SBP, and DBP compared to those with non-HCV infection (OR: 1.23,95% CI 0.59–2.54; β: -3.79, 95% CI -7.67–0.08 and 2.28 95% CI -0.36–4.92, respectively).ConclusionIn a representative sample of US adults, it was found that both HCV infection and current HCV infection were independently linked to higher DBP. However, there was no association between past HCV infection and DBP.

In the present study, we investigated the intervention effects of a purified Polygonatum cyrtonema polysaccharide (PCP) on high-fat diet (HFD)-induced atherosclerosis in male and female LDLr−/− mice. Results showed that HFD caused severe dyslipidemia, atherosclerotic lesions, oxidative damages and inflammation in male and female mice, and these effects seemed to be more pronounced in males than in females. However, the above variations could be dose-dependently reversed by PCP treatment, and the intervention effects on males were greater than those on females. Nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPKs) and protein kinase B (Akt) are 3 pivotal signaling pathways mediating the development of atherosclerosis. Consistently, PCP was also found to significantly decrease the phosphorylation of p65, p38, extracellular-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and Akt, and increase the protein expression of inhibitor of NF-κB (IκB) in the aortas of male and female mice induced by HFD. Taken together, these findings indicated that PCP could be effective for the prevention of atherosclerosis, and the intervention effect of PCP on male mice was more obvious than that of female mice.

BackgroundSeveral studies have shown that serum copper levels are related to coronary heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. However, the association of serum copper levels with all-cause, cause-specific [including cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer] mortality remains unclear.ObjectivesThis study aimed to prospectively examine the association of copper exposure with all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality among US adults.MethodsThe data for this analysis was obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2011 and 2014. Mortality from all-causes, CVD, and cancer mortality was linked to US National Death Index mortality data. Cox regression models were used to estimate the association between serum copper levels and all-cause, CVD, and cancer mortality.ResultsA total of 2,863 adults were included in the main study. During the mean follow-up time of 81.2 months, 236 deaths were documented, including 68 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 57 deaths from cancer. The weighted mean overall serum copper levels was 117.2 ug/L. After adjusting for all of the covariates, compared with participants with low (1st tertile, 0.05).ConclusionsThis prospective study found that serum copper concentrations were linearly associated with all-cause and CVD mortality in US adults. High serum copper levels is a risk factor for all-cause and CVD mortality.

In clinical practice, urinary tract infections (UTIs) are second only to respiratory infections in terms of infectious diseases. In recent years, drug resistance of Escherichia coli (E. coli) has increased significantly. The therapeutic effects of Shionone on UTI were assessed by modelling UTI in SD rats and SV-HUC-1 cells with E. coli solution. After treatment of Shionone, the UTI rat model showed a decrease in wet weight/body weight of bladder, as well as a reduction in cellular inflammatory infiltration of bladder tissue and a decrease in urinary levels of IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α. In addition, the levels of proinflammatory factors were significantly reduced in a dose-dependent manner in UTI cell model treated with different doses of Shionone (5, 10, and 20 μg/kg). The results of immunofluorescence analysis in both in vivo and in vitro experiments revealed that Shionone reduced bacterial load and the number of E. coli colonies growing on the plates was greatly reduced. These results suggested that Shionone has a good therapeutic effect on UTI, achieved by reducing bacterial load in bladder epithelial cells. The data presented here provide a basis for further research into the treatment of UTI.

Cross water–air interface acoustic and electromagnetic integrated communication (AEIC) technology refers to an underwater speaker that excites the water surface micro-amplitude wave (WSAW) on the water’s surface, and millimeter wave radar detects the vibrations of the WSAW to realize the transmission of information. The research on cross-media communication meets many challenges due to the large amplitude of the water surface disturbance and the small amplitude of the WSAW. In this paper, a novel sea wave interference suppression method based on improved complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and wavelet transform (WT) is presented. This method divides the phase change into different intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and obtains a reconstructed scale of the WSAW signal through wavelet decomposition and correlation procession to separate the WSAW signal and the sea wave interference. It is proved to be better than the reference filtering method by experiment. By using this novel method, the bit error rate (BER) of the communication system can be reduced effectively.

Machine recovery is met from time to time in real-life production. Rescheduling is often a necessary procedure to cope with it. Its instability gauges the number of changes to the existing scheduling solutions. It is a key criterion to measure a rescheduling solution's quality. This work aims at solving a flexible job shop problem with machine recovery, which arises from the scheduling and rescheduling of pump remanufacturing systems. In their scheduling phase, the objective is to minimize makespan. In their rescheduling phase, two objectives are to minimize both instability and makespan. By introducing two novel local search operators into the original Jaya algorithm, this work proposes an improved Jaya algorithm to solve it. It performs experiments on ten different-scale cases of real-life remanufacturing environment. The results show that the improved Jaya is effective and efficient for solving a flexible job shop scheduling and rescheduling problems. It can effectively balance instability and makespan in a rescheduling phase.

Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) with radicular pain is a common and complicated musculoskeletal disorder. Our previous study showed that LDH-induced methylglyoxal (MG) accumulation contributed to radicular pain. The underlying mechanisms through which MG accumulates are poorly understood. In the present study, we found that both MG and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-ɑ) levels in the herniated disc of patients with radicular pain were significantly increased, and the activity of Glyoxalase 1 (GLO1), the rate-limiting enzyme that metabolizes MG, was decreased. In rats, the LDH model was mimicked by implantation of autologous nucleus pulposus (NP) to the left lumbar five spinal nerve root. The mechanical allodynia was observed in LDH rats. Besides, MG and TNF-ɑ levels were increased, and GLO1 activity was significantly decreased in the implanted NP. In cultured rat NP cells, stimulation with the inflammatory mediator TNF-ɑ reduced GLO1 activity and expression. These results suggested that TNF-ɑ-induced GLO1 activity decrease contributed to MG accumulation in the herniated disc of patients with radicular pain.

In response to the frequent collapse of main girders caused by the breakage of suspenders on half-through and through arch bridges, a test specimen has been designed and fabricated with a through concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) arch bridge as the engineering background. A new electromagnetic disconnect trigger is employed to realize the rapid suspender breakage in the test specimen. Dynamic response tests of the residual structure of the arch bridge after suspender failures employing the test specimen have been carried out. A finite element model accounting for the suspender breakage dynamic process has been constructed by implementing ANSYS/LS-DYNA, and the results of the test and finite element analysis are compared. In order to simplify the dynamic response calculation process of the residual structure after hanger failures, the dynamic coefficient is introduced, and an equivalent static calculation method (ESCM) considering the dynamic effect of the suspender fracture is presented. Eleven kinds of CFST standard arch bridges with different spans are constructed, the static and dynamic effects of the standard arch bridge with various dynamic coefficients are compared, and then their corresponding dynamic coefficients for various suspender fractures are determined. The obtained results reveal that the proposed electromagnetic suspender breakage trigger can realize the hanger fracturing within 0.1 s, which accurately simulates the fracture process of an actual bridge suspender, and the influence on the value of the dynamic coefficient can be ignored when the duration for suspender fracture is less than or equal to 0.15 s. The influence of suspender fracture on the displacement and stress of the longitudinal beam is more notable than those of the arch rib. In particular, the long suspender breakage has the highest influence on the displacement and stress of the longitudinal beam and arch rib. The fracture of the second short suspender has a remarkable impact on the suspender force of the adjacent hanger. When the ESCM is utilized to assess the mechanical behavior of the half-through and through CFST arch bridge, the dynamic coefficients of the longitudinal beam (suspender) were evaluated to be, conservatively, 1.8 (1.8) and 1.8 (1.7), respectively.

Cross-media communication underpins many vital applications, especially in underwater resource exploration and the biological population monitoring domains. Water surface micro-amplitude wave (WSAW) frequency detection is the key to cross-media communication, where the WSAW frequency can invert the underwater sound source frequency. However, extracting the WSAW frequency information encounters many challenges in a real environment, such as low precision and symbol synchronization, leading to inaccurately estimating the WSAW frequency. Thus, this paper proposed a WSAW frequency estimation method based on an improved RELAX algorithm, incorporating two improvements. First, adding a nonlinear filter to the RELAX kernel function compensates for the filtered gain and enhances the WSAW frequency precision. Second, the improved RELAX kernel function is combined with the generalized inner product method to obtain the time distribution of the non-stationary signals, which is convenient for decoding. Several simulations and experiments applying our method on a Ka-band frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar demonstrate that our algorithm attains a better performance than traditional methods, e.g., periodogram and the RELAX algorithm. Using the improved algorithm affords to extract the frequency information of the WSAW signal accurately with a short sampling duration, further improving the performance indicators of the communication system, such as communication rate.

Abstract The WRKY family, one of the largest families of transcription factors, plays important roles in the regulation of various biological processes, including growth, development and stress responses in plants. In the present study, 63 DoWRKY genes were identified from the Dendrobium officinale genome. These were classified into groups I, II, III and a non-group, each with 14, 28, 10 and 11 members, respectively. ABA-responsive, sulfur-responsive and low temperature-responsive elements were identified in the 1-k upstream regulatory region of DoWRKY genes. Subsequently, the expression of the 63 DoWRKY genes under cold stress was assessed, and the expression profiles of a large number of these genes were regulated by low temperature in roots and stems. To further understand the regulatory mechanism of DoWRKY genes in biological processes, potential WRKY target genes were investigated. Among them, most stress-related genes contained multiple W-box elements in their promoters. In addition, the genes involved in polysaccharide synthesis and hydrolysis contained W-box elements in their 1-k upstream regulatory regions, suggesting that DoWRKY genes may play a role in polysaccharide metabolism. These results provide a basis for investigating the function of WRKY genes and help to understand the downstream regulation network in plants within the Orchidaceae.

Background/Aims: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is an inflammatory and immune disease leading to disability. Autophagy has been identified as a potential player in understanding the pathogenesis of AS. Methods: MiRNA-199a-5p and autophagy-related gene expression were determined by qRT-PCR or Western blot. Cytokine production was determined using ELISA assays. Proliferation was determined by MTT assay. MiRNA-199a-5p and Ras homolog enriched in brain (Rheb) were upregulated or downregulated by overexpression of plasmid or siRNA transfection. Results: Expression of miRNA-199a-5p, and autophagy-related genes LC3, beclin1, and ATG5 was significantly decreased in T cells of AS patients. Serum concentrations of TNF-α, IL-17, and IL-23 were promoted in AS patients, compared to healthy controls. MiRNA-199a-5p expression levels also showed significant negative correlations with the Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Score (ASDAS) and modified Stoke Ankylosing Spon dylitis Spinal Score (mSASSS) of AS patients. In Jurkat T cells and T cells isolated from AS patients, miRNA-199a-5p overexpression promoted autophagy-related genes expression and decreased TNF-α, IL-17, and IL-23 levels, whereas inhibition of miRNA-199a-5p attenuated these effects. As a direct target of miRNA-199a-5p, Rheb inhibition led to a striking decrease in the phosphorylation of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) and induced autophagy. Moreover, pcDNA3.1-Rheb effectively reduced the inhibiting effects of mTOR signaling caused by miRNA-199a-5p overexpression. All effects were offset by pretreating with rapamycin (an mTOR antagonist). Conclusions: AS patients with advanced spinal damage had decreased autophagy levels and that miRNA-199a-5p may induce autophagy and inhibit the pathogenesis of AS by modulating the mTOR signaling via direct targeting Rheb.

Behavior of solid matters and heavy metals during conductive drying process of sewage sludge was evaluated in a sewage sludge disposal center in Beijing, China. The results showed most of solid matters could be retained in the dried sludge after drying. Just about 3.1% of solid matters were evaporated with steam mainly by the form of volatile fatty acids. Zn was the dominant heavy metal in the sludge, followed by Cu, Cr, Pb, Ni, Hg, and Cd. The heavy metals in the condensate were all below the detection limit except Hg. Hg in the condensate accounted for less than 0.1% of the total Hg. It can be concluded that most of the heavy metals are also retained in the dried sludge during the drying process, but their bioavailability could be changed significantly. The results are useful for sewage sludge utilization and its condensate treatment.

To solve the problems from the existing moving objects data models, such as modeling spatiotemporal object continuous action, multidimensional representation, and querying sophisticated spatiotemporal position, we firstly established an object-oriented all-time-domain data model for moving objects. The model added dynamic attributes into object-oriented model, which supported all-time-domain data storage and query. Secondly, we proposed a new dynamic threshold location updating strategy. The location updating threshold was given dynamically in accordance with the velocity, accuracy, and azimuth positioning information from the GPS. Thirdly, we presented several different position estimation methods to estimate the historical location and future location. The cubic Hermite interpolation function is used to estimate the historical location. Linear extended positioning method, velocity mean value positioning method, and cubic exponential smoothing positioning method were designed to estimate the future location. We further implemented the model by abstracting the data types of moving object, which was established by PL∖SQL and extended Oracle Spatial. Furthermore, the model was tested through the different moving objects. The experimental results illustrate that the location updating frequency can be effectively reduced, and thus the position information transmission flow and the data storage were reduced without affecting the moving objects trajectory precision.