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Abstract During ovulation, the apical wall of the preovulatory follicle breaks down to facilitate gamete release. In parallel, the residual follicle wall differentiates into a progesterone-producing corpus luteum. Disruption of ovulation, whether through contraceptive intervention or infertility, has implications for women’s health. In this study, we harness the power of an ex vivo ovulation model and machine-learning guided microdissection to identify differences between the ruptured and unruptured sides of the follicle wall. We demonstrate that the unruptured side exhibits clear markers of luteinization after ovulation while the ruptured side exhibits cell death signals. RNA-sequencing of individual follicle sides reveals 2099 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between follicle sides without ovulation induction, and 1673 DEGs 12 h after induction of ovulation. Our model validates molecular patterns consistent with known ovulation biology even though this process occurs in the absence of the ovarian stroma, vasculature, and immune cells. We further identify previously unappreciated pathways including amino acid transport and Jag-Notch signaling on the ruptured side and glycolysis, metal ion processing, and IL-11 signaling on the unruptured side of the follicle. This study yields key insights into follicle-inherent, spatially-defined pathways that underlie follicle rupture, which may further understanding of ovulation physiology and advance women’s health.

Abstract Background Anlotinib is a targeted therapy indicated for some malignancies, including advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, noninvasive biomarkers for identifying patients who will benefit from this disease remain lacking. Methods Here, we investigated the potential of small extracellular vesicle (sEV) microRNAs (miRNAs) as predictive biomarkers for anlotinib efficacy. A total of 20 advanced NSCLC patients were enrolled. Patients were classified as having stable disease (SD) or progressive disease (PD) after the initial efficacy assessment. Results Seven differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs) were identified. Among them, miR-941 was significantly upregulated in the PD group, while the others were downregulated. Furthermore, these six downregulated miRNAs (miR-30a-3p, miR-150-5p, miR-122-5p, miR-10b-5p, miR-92a-3p, and miR-150-3p) were more pronounced in nonsmoking patients. Conclusions It was found that sEV miRNAs have the potential to predict the benefit of anlotinib.

BackgroundThe pancreas plays an important role in the nutrition and metabolism of the whole body. Many disease processes including obesity, diabetes mellitus (DM), acute or chronic pancreatitis, and pancreatic carcinoma result in abnormality of pancreas morphology and function. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides quantitative parameters including T1, T2, and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values for evaluating normal and abnormal pancreas. Based on the normal range of these quantitative parameters, pancreatic abnormality could be detected early. However, the range and the relationship of T1, T2, and ADC values with gender and age groups using the same dataset have not been explored.PurposeTo establish the ranges of MRI tissue and functional parameters, including T1, T2, and ADC values, in healthy adult pancreas and their correlations with gender, subregion, and age.Materials and methodsThe T1, T2, and ADC values of healthy pancreas in 86 adults were measured using a 3.0-T MRI scanner. The average T1, T2, and ADC values were obtained in the whole pancreas and subregions (head, neck, body, and tail). Their correlations with gender and age were investigated.ResultsThe T1, T2, and ADC values of the whole pancreas from all subjects were 870.07 ± 61.86 ms, 44.07 ± 6.14 ms, and 1.072 ± 0.212 × 10−3 mm2/s, respectively. T2 values were significantly different between genders (P < 0.05). No significant differences were found between subregions. The T1, T2, and ADC values differed significantly among the age groups (P < 0.05). The T1 value revealed a moderately positive correlation, while the T2 and ADC values displayed negative correlations with age (r = 0.31, −0.45, and −0.39, respectively). The combination of T1, T2, and ADC values achieved the highest AUC value and showed a significant difference compared to T1, T2, and ADC values alone in predicting age older than 45 years.ConclusionThis study established the normal ranges of T1, T2, and ADC. We found that T2 is different between men and women, and T1, T2, and ADC are age-dependent. These results could be useful for quantitative MRI of pancreatic disease.

Abstract Down-polyethylene film material has been introduced for the first time as an excellent non-frame sound absorber, showing a distinctively outstanding performance. It contains down fiber adjacent to each other without firm connection in between, forming a structure of elastic fiber network. The unique structure has broadband response to sound wave, showing non-synchronous vibration in low and middle frequency and synchronous vibration in middle and high frequency. The broadband resonance in middle and high frequency allows the structure to achieve complete sound absorption in resonance frequency band. Moreover, down-polyethylene film material possesses forced vibration, corresponding sound absorption coefficient has been obtained based on vibration theory. The down-film sound absorption material has the characteristics of light weight, soft, environment-friendly, and has excellent broadband sound absorption performance.

Over-input of nitrogen (N) fertilizer coupled with flood irrigation resulted in low N and water productivity and serious NO3--N leaching in maize fields in the North China Plain (NCP). Drip-fertigation can enhance water-N use efficiency by precisely regulating water and N fertilizer application. In this study, a three-year drip-fertigation experiment on maize was carried out during the 2018–2020 growing seasons with three irrigation levels, i.e. 50 (W1, 100 %), 40 (W2, 80 %), and 30 mm (W3, 60 %), and five N levels, i.e. 0 (N0), 90 (N1), 180 (N2), 270 (N3), and 360 (N4) kg ha−1 were designed to investigate the responses of soil water consumption, NO3--N distribution, grain yield (GY), N uptake (UN), and water-N productivity to different irrigation and N application regimes. The results demonstrated that 80 % deficit irrigation (W2) obtained comparable GY to sufficient irrigation (W1), but significantly increased water productivity (WP) by 7.2 % compared with W1. Soil NO3--N contents in the 0–100 cm soil layers increased as the N application rate increased, but decreased with the increase of irrigation level. When the N application rate exceeded 180 kg N ha−1, soil NO3--N contents in the 60–100 cm soil layers were greatly increased. With the increasing N application rate, GY increased first and then tended to be stabilized when the N application rate reached 180 kg ha−1, UN showed an increased trend, while N agronomic efficiency (AEN) showed a decreased trend, the N recovery efficiency (REN) increased firstly and then decreased. When water consumption ranged from 374 to 388 mm and N application rate from 186 to 257 kg ha−1, respectively, GY and WP obtained 95 maximum values and AEN got 70 % maximum value, simultaneously. In conclusion, the regime of N application rate at about 180 kg ha−1 coupled with 40 mm irrigation level (per event) is recommended for drip-fertigated maize fields in the NCP.

Background A combination of axitinib and immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) demonstrated promising efficacy in the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). This study aims to prospectively evaluate the safety, efficacy, and biomarkers of neoadjuvant toripalimab plus axitinib in non-metastatic clear cell RCC.Methods This is a single-institution, single-arm phase II clinical trial. Patients with non-metastatic biopsy-proven clear cell RCC (T2-T3N0-1M0) are enrolled. Patients will receive axitinib 5 mg twice daily combined with toripalimab 240 mg every 3 weeks (three cycles) for up to 12 weeks. Patients then will receive partial (PN) or radical nephrectomy (RN) after neoadjuvant therapy. The primary endpoint is objective response rate (ORR). Secondary endpoints include disease-free survival, safety, and perioperative complication rate. Predictive biomarkers are involved in exploratory analysis.Results A total of 20 patients were enrolled in the study, with 19 of them undergoing surgery. One patient declined surgery. The primary endpoint ORR was 45%. The posterior distribution of πORR had a mean of 0.44 (95% credible intervals: 0.24–0.64), meeting the predefined primary endpoint with an ORR of 32%. Tumor shrinkage was observed in 95% of patients prior to nephrectomy. Furthermore, four patients achieved a pathological complete response. Grade ≥3 adverse events occurred in 25% of patients, including hypertension, hyperglycemia, glutamic pyruvic transaminase/glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (ALT/AST) increase, and proteinuria. Postoperatively, one grade 4a and eight grade 1–2 complications were noted. In comparison to patients with stable disease, responders exhibited significant differences in immune factors such as Arginase 1(ARG1), Melanoma antigen (MAGEs), Dendritic Cell (DC), TNF Superfamily Member 13 (TNFSF13), Apelin Receptor (APLNR), and C-C Motif Chemokine Ligand 3 Like 1 (CCL3-L1). The limitation of this trial was the small sample size.Conclusion Neoadjuvant toripalimab combined with axitinib shows encouraging activity and acceptable toxicity in locally advanced clear cell RCC and warrants further study.Trial registration number clinicaltrials.gov, NCT04118855.

Abstract To compensate for the influence of temperature on the efficiency of an ultrasonic motor (USM), this paper proposed a maximum efficiency point tracking control method for temperature drift by analysing the relationships between the maximum efficiency point and the voltage and frequency of the driving circuit. The method first calculates the frequency update step of the driving circuit by the polynomial surface fitting method, considers the influence of temperature rise on the voltage‐efficiency‐frequency characteristics, and then adjusts the frequency in real time to compensate for temperature effects. Simulation and experimental results show that our method can improve the USM performance at the maximum efficiency point under changing temperature. Maximum efficiency point tracking algorithm with temperature compensation algorithm achieves maximum efficiency in experiment.

Since the development of industry, sound absorption and noise reduction have gradually become an urgent problem to be solved. Lightweight polymer film materials are very effective in response to sound waves, and sound waves can easily cause vibration of the film, which can convert sound energy into vibration and film friction to achieve sound absorption. The application conditions of the film material are very harsh, that is, a support body is required to fix the film and the film needs to be tensioned. The film is very thin and easy to damage. The idea of this research is to transform the film into a bubble structure and use a large number of film bubbles to form a cavity structure material. As a unit of the sound absorption structure, bubbles can avoid damage to the film. In this paper, commercial polyvinyl chloride film bubble materials are used to prepare two kinds of film multicavity structure materials, and the sound absorption performance of this film multicavity structure material is studied. The research results show that this film multicavity structure material has very excellent broadband sound absorption performance, which changes the narrow band sound absorption properties of the usual film single cavity. The average sound absorption coefficient can reach 0.84 in frequency range from 500 Hz to 6400 Hz. This structural material has a single peak sound absorption curve at the middle and low frequency bands, which is the characteristic of resonance sound absorption. And at the middle and high frequency bands, it exhibits the characteristics of broadband sound absorption. The film multicavity structure material has both cavity sound absorption and broadband sound absorption characteristics.

It is well known that extreme heat events happen frequently due to climate change. However, studies examining the direct health impacts of increased temperature and heat waves are lacking. Previous reports revealed that heatstroke induced acute lung injury and pulmonary dysfunction. This study aimed to investigate whether heat exposure induced lung fibrosis and to explore the underlying mechanisms. Male C57BL/6 mice were exposed to an ambient temperature of 39.5 ± 0.5 °C until their core temperature reached the maximum or heat exhaustion state. Lung fibrosis was observed in the lungs of heat-exposed mice, with extensive collagen deposition and the elevated expression of fibrosis molecules, including transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and Fibronectin (Fn1) (p < 0.05). Moreover, epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) occurred in response to heat exposure, evidenced by E-cadherin, an epithelial marker, which was downregulated, whereas markers of EMT, such as connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) and the zinc finger transcriptional repressor protein Slug, were upregulated in the heat-exposed lung tissues of mice (p < 0.05). Subsequently, cell senescence examination revealed that the levels of both senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) staining and the cell cycle protein kinase inhibitor p21 were significantly elevated (p < 0.05). Mechanistically, the cGAS–STING signaling pathway evoked by DNA damage was activated in response to heat exposure (p < 0.05). In summary, we reported a new finding that heat exposure contributed to the development of early pulmonary fibrosis-like changes through the DNA damage-activated cGAS–STING pathway followed by cellular senescence.

Multi-layer lightweight composite structures are widely used in the field of aviation and aerospace during the processes of manufacturing and use, and, as such, they inevitably produce defects, damage, and other quality problems, creating the need for timely non-destructive testing procedures and the convenient repair or replacement of quality problems related to the material. When using terahertz non-destructive testing technology to detect defects in multi-layer lightweight composite materials, due to the complexity of their structure and defect types, there are many signal characteristics of terahertz waves propagating in the structures, and there is no obvious rule behind them, resulting in a large gap between the recognition results and the actual ones. In this study, we introduced a U-Net-BiLSTM network that combines the strengths of the U-Net and BiLSTM networks. The U-Net network extracts the spatial features of THz signals, while the BiLSTM network captures their temporal features. By optimizing the network structure and various parameters, we obtained a model tailored to THz spectroscopy data. This model was subsequently employed for the identification and quantitative analysis of defects in multi-layer lightweight composite structures using THz non-destructive testing. The proposed U-Net-BiLSTM network achieved an accuracy of 99.45% in typical defect identification, with a comprehensive F1 score of 99.43%, outperforming the CNN, ResNet, U-Net, and BiLSTM networks. By leveraging defect classification and thickness recognition, this study successfully reconstructed three-dimensional THz defect images, thereby realizing quantitative defect detection.

Abstract Achievement of steady and reliable super-low friction at the steel/steel contact interface, one of the most tribological systems applied for mechanical moving parts, is of importance for prolonging machine lifetime and reducing energy consumption. Here we reported that the superlubricity performance of the steel/steel sliding interface lubricated with tiny amounts of diketone solution strongly depends on the oxygen content in surrounding environment. The increase of oxygen not only significantly shortens the initial running-in time but also further reduces the stable coefficient of friction in superlubricity stage due to the enhancement of tribochemical reactions. On the one hand, more severe oxidation wear occurring at higher oxygen content facilitates material removal of the contact interface, lowering the contact pressure and the corresponding initial friction. On the other hand, the growth of iron ions during the shear process in high oxygen environment promotes the formation of chelate which acted as an effective lubricated film chemisorbed at the steel/steel friction interface to further lower the interfacial friction. The results provide a new opportunity to further optimize the tribological performance of diketone superlubricity system, especially towards the lubrication of mechanical engineering materials.

Abstract Background The identification of indeterminate pulmonary nodules (IPNs) following a low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is a major challenge for early diagnosis of lung cancer. The inadequate assessment of IPNs’ malignancy risk results in a large number of unnecessary surgeries or an increased risk of cancer metastases. However, limited studies on non-invasive diagnosis of IPNs have been reported. Methods In this study, we identified and evaluated the diagnostic value of circulating small extracellular vesicle (sEV) microRNAs (miRNAs) in patients with IPNs that had been newly detected using LDCT scanning and were scheduled for surgery. Out of 459 recruited patients, 109 eligible patients with IPNs were enrolled in the training cohort (n = 47) and the test cohort (n = 62). An external cohort (n = 99) was used for validation. MiRNAs were extracted from plasma sEVs, and assessed using Small RNA sequencing. 490 lung adenocarcinoma samples and follow-up data were used to investigate the role of miRNAs in overall survival. Results A circulating sEV miRNA (CirsEV-miR) model was constructed from five differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs), showing 0.920 AUC in the training cohort (n = 47), and further identified in the test cohort (n = 62) and in an external validation cohort (n = 99). Among five DEMs of the CirsEV-miR model, miR-101-3p and miR-150-5p were significantly associated with better overall survival (p = 0.0001 and p = 0.0069). The CirsEV-miR scores were calculated, which significantly correlated with IPNs diameters (p

Transparent soil (TS) was specifically designed to support root growth in the presence of air, water, and nutrients and allowed the time-resolved phenotyping of roots in vivo. Nevertheless, it is imperative to further optimize the reagent cost of TS to enable its wider utilization. We substituted the costly Phytagel obtained from Sigma with two more economical alternatives, namely Biodee and Coolaber. TS beads from each brand were prepared using 12 different polymer concentrations and seven distinct crosslinker concentrations. A comprehensive assessment encompassing transparency, mechanical characteristics, particle size, porosity, and stability of TS was undertaken. Compared to the Sigma Phytagel brand, both Biodee and Coolaber significantly reduced the transparency and collapse stress of the TS they produced. Consequently, this led to a significant reduction in the allowable width and height of the growth box, although they could still simultaneously exceed 20 cm and 19 cm. There was no notable difference in porosity and stability among the TS samples prepared using the three Phytagel brands. Therefore, it is feasible to consider replacing the Phytagel brand to reduce TS production costs. This study quantified the differences in TS produced using three Phytagel brands at different prices that will better promote the application of TS to root phenotypes.

In order to attenuate the vibration caused by the radial imbalance in the Magnetically Suspended Flywheel (MSF), a parallel automatic balance control method is proposed. First, after the conduction of comparison between the parallel and series notch filter, a conclusion is drawn that the MSF achieves a better dynamic performance with greater attenuation on current vibration using the parallel notch filter. Then, experiments are performed under three conditions: without using the unbalance control, using radial unbalance control, and using axial unbalance control. The experimental results indicates that the stable automatic balance control and faster converging speed are achieved with the adoption of the proposed method. Furthermore, the vibration on the base is reduced significantly when the proposed method is introduced for all channels.

Land acquisition and subsequent prevention of future development in flood-prone areas offers high economic potential in reducing flood damage. However, there is an urgent need to evaluate the social outcome of this flood adaptation policy given the unequal exposure of vulnerable populations to flood impacts. Here, we use two additional evaluation criteria – equity of benefit distribution and population exposure reduction, along with economic benefit, to assess the social and economic outcomes of five land acquisition strategies in the United States. Under an assumed budget of US$1 billion, we found that land acquisition would generate an economic benefit of US$6.06 to $10.56 billion, ensure an equitable distribution of benefit, and remove 266,000 to 593,000 people from future flood risks. Compared to acquiring lands with high benefit-cost ratios, strategically acquiring lands in poorer and more populous areas would improve both social outcomes with only low to moderate reductions (13 %–43 %) in the economic efficiency. As global flood risk is projected to rise with disproportionate impact on the poor, our research highlights the social and economic capacities of strategic land acquisition for nationwide flood adaptation.

The interface-debonding defects of adhesive bonding structures may cause a reduction in bonding strength, which in turn affects the bonding quality of adhesive bonding samples. Hence, defect recognition in adhesive bonding structures is particularly important. In this study, a terahertz (THz) wave was used to analyze bonded structure samples, and a multi-feature fusion convolutional neural network (CNN) was used to identify the defect waveforms. The pooling method of the squeeze-and-excitation (SE) attention mechanism was optimized, defect feature weights were adaptively assigned, and feature fusion was conducted using automatic label net-works to segment the THz waveforms in the adhesive bonding area with fine granularity waveforms as an input to the multi-channel CNN. The results revealed that the speed of the THz waveform labeling with the automatic labeling network was 10 times higher than that with traditional methods, and the defect-recognition accuracy of the defect-recognition network constructed in this study was up to 99.28%. The F1-score was 99.73%, and the lowest pre-embedded defect recognition error rate of the generalization experiment samples was 0.27%.

Abstract Background Oncopanel genomic testing, which identifies important somatic variants, is increasingly common in medical practice and especially in clinical trials. Currently, there is a paucity of reliable genomic reference samples having a suitably large number of pre-identified variants for properly assessing oncopanel assay analytical quality and performance. The FDA-led Sequencing and Quality Control Phase 2 (SEQC2) consortium analyze ten diverse cancer cell lines individually and their pool, termed Sample A, to develop a reference sample with suitably large numbers of coding positions with known (variant) positives and negatives for properly evaluating oncopanel analytical performance. Results In reference Sample A, we identify more than 40,000 variants down to 1% allele frequency with more than 25,000 variants having less than 20% allele frequency with 1653 variants in COSMIC-related genes. This is 5–100× more than existing commercially available samples. We also identify an unprecedented number of negative positions in coding regions, allowing statistical rigor in assessing limit-of-detection, sensitivity, and precision. Over 300 loci are randomly selected and independently verified via droplet digital PCR with 100% concordance. Agilent normal reference Sample B can be admixed with Sample A to create new samples with a similar number of known variants at much lower allele frequency than what exists in Sample A natively, including known variants having allele frequency of 0.02%, a range suitable for assessing liquid biopsy panels. Conclusion These new reference samples and their admixtures provide superior capability for performing oncopanel quality control, analytical accuracy, and validation for small to large oncopanels and liquid biopsy assays.

Polyethylene (PE) is widely used in pipeline transportation owing to its excellent corrosion resistance, good stability, and ease of processing. As organic polymer materials, PE pipes inevitably undergo different degrees of aging during long-term use. In this study, terahertz time-domain spectroscopy was used to study the spectral characteristics of PE pipes with different degrees of photothermal aging, and the variation in the absorption coefficient with aging time was obtained. The absorption coefficient spectrum was extracted using uninformative variable elimination (UVE), successive projections algorithm (SPA), competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS), and random frog RF spectral screening algorithms, and the spectral slope characteristics of the aging-sensitive band were selected as the evaluation indices of the degree of PE aging. Based on this, a partial least squares aging characterization model was established to predict white PE80, white PE100 and black PE100 pipes with different aging degrees. The results showed that the prediction accuracy of the absorption coefficient spectral slope feature prediction model for the aging degree of different types of pipes was greater than 93.16% and the verification set error was within 13.5 h.

Abstract Graphene is a promising material as a lubricant additive for reducing friction and wear. Here, a dispersing method which combines chemical modification of graphene by octadecylamine and dicyclohexylcarbodiimide with a kind of effective dispersant has been successfully developed to achieve the remarkable dispersion stability of graphene in base oil. The stable dispersion time of modified graphene (0.5 wt%) with dispersant (1 wt%) in PAO-6 could be up to about 120 days, which was the longest time reported so far. At the same time, the lubricant exhibits a significant improvement of tribological performance for a steel ball to plate tribo-system with a normal load of 2 N. The coefficient of friction between sliding surfaces was ~0.10 and the depth of wear track on plate was ~21 nm, which decreased by about 44% and 90% when compared to pure PAO-6, respectively. Furthermore, the analysis of the lubricating mechanisms in regard to the sliding-induced formation of nanostructured tribo-film has been contacted by using Raman spectra and TEM.

Optimizing planting structure that balances both high yield and water resources shortage is essential for developing efficient water-saving agriculture. To provide insights about the relationship between planting structure optimization and water resource constraint, crop water requirement, precipitation coupling degree, gross total water requirement and irrigation project metrics were calculated and analyzed with the dataset collected from 16 locations in Xuchang City, China. The strategy of reducing the planting proportion of high water-consumption crops and increasing low consumption and high precipitation coupling degree crops was adopted to determine a suitable water-saving planting scheme based on the IQR (interquartile range) method. Evapotranspiration had a decreasing trend from northwest to southeast areas. There were positive correlations between gross total water requirement (GTWR) and annual total yields (r = 0.825, p = 0.002), and between GTWR and proportion of vegetable planting areas (PVPA) (r = 0.734, p = 0.0101). The GTWR was negatively correlated with the ratio of water-saving irrigated areas to effective irrigated areas (RSEA), proportion of wheat planting areas (PWPA) and proportion of bean planting areas (PBPA), with coefficients of −0.787, −0.936 and −0.828, respectively. The planting proportion of winter wheat, summer maize, vegetables and flowers decreased by 8.8%, 25.8%, 16.2%, and 28.7%, respectively, while oil-beans and tubers increased by 62.4% and 95.6%, respectively. The irrigation water consumption was reduced by 5.2%, saving 3.25 × 107 m3 irrigation water without sacrificing economic benefits after adjusting for the whole region. Consequently, precipitation coupling degree, water-saving technology and historical planting habits should be considered when optimizing cropping distributions. This research provided a new theoretical basis and comprehensive approach for agriculture irrigation water management and regional planting structure optimization from a realistic perspective.

The tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (TRUAV) has vertical take-off and landing and high-speed flight capabilities through conversion and reconversion modes, thereby presenting wide application prospects. This article presents a compact tilt tri-rotor UAV. For flying in the conversion mode, the TRUAV needs to realize the transition of two control logic and two kinds of actuators in both of the rotor and fixed-wing modes, achieving the control of the multi-input multioutput, input nonaffine, and nonlinear multichannel cross-coupling UAV system. Furthermore, the lateral dynamics of a tilt tri-rotor UAV is more unstable for unpaired rotors. These system characteristics present a great challenge to conversion control. To solve these problems, the nonlinear dynamic model of the vehicle in the conversion mode is provided. Furthermore, a cascade control system consisting of position control, velocity control, angle control, angular velocity control, and control mixer is proposed. The simulation result of the control system shows steady flight and a fast transition in the conversion mode with modeling uncertainty in case of no wind.

The genomic and immune landscape of pre-invasive lung adenocarcinoma is poorly understood. Here, the authors perform exome and transcriptome sequencing on precursor legions and invasive lung adenocarcinomas, identifying recurrently mutated genes in pre/minimally invasive cases, and arm level alteration events linked to immune infiltration.

Prior work has demonstrated that murine ovarian explants and isolated ovarian follicles can recapitulate human-like 28-day cycles in vitro with normal patterns of estradiol and progesterone secretion in response to gonadotropin stimulation. The objective of this study was to manipulate the gonadotropin stimulation protocol to mimic polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and assess the resulting changes in ovarian steroidogenesis. A secondary aim of the study was to develop a high-throughput, sensitive, and specific liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) assay to measure seven steroid hormones (estrone, estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, androstenedione, dehydroepiandrosterone, and dihydrotestosterone) in conditioned culture media. Ovaries were harvested from 12-day-old CD-1 mice and cultured for 28 days, with ovulation induction on culture day 14. Media were supplemented human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG, a luteinizing hormone analog) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) at ratios of 1:0 (standard media), 1:1 (physiologic ratio), and 3:1 (PCOS-like ratio). Ovaries cultured in PCOS-like media displayed hyperandrogenism and impaired ovulation, two key features of a PCOS-like phenotype. Taken together, this first-of-its-kind presentation of hormone levels from single tissues creates a map of the enzymatic steps most acutely affected by gonadotropin dysregulation and may provide opportunities for assessing other potential insults in PCOS pathogenesis.

In this paper, we show the influence of stone powder content on the mechanical properties of concrete by experiments and numerical simulations. In numerical simulation, this paper proposed a method whereby the stone powder in the numerical simulation of concrete is considered by the mechanical performances of mortar with the stone powder. The results of numerical models established based on inclusion theory and random aggregate distribution were basically consistent with the experiment, which indicated that the simulation method of concrete under different stone powder was feasible. In the range of stone powder content from 0% to 15%, the model based on inclusion theory is very close to the experimental results, and the model based on 2D random aggregate distribution is closer to the experimental value once the stone powder content is 7%. The research showed that with increased stone powder, cubic compressive strength had greater dispersion between the simulation and the experiment; axial compressive and split tensile strength reached the best levels at 5%. The best stone powder content was 5% for C80 high-strength concrete by comprehensively considering concrete’s consistency and its mechanical properties.

Summary: Decades of artificial selection have significantly improved performance and efficiency of animal production systems. However, little is known about the microevolution of genomes due to intensive breeding. Using whole-genome sequencing, we document dynamic changes of chicken genomes under divergent selection on adiposity over 19 generations. Directional selection reduced within-line but increased between-line genomic differences. We observed that artificial selection tended to result in recruitment of preexisting variations of genes related to adipose tissue growth. In addition, novel mutations contributed to divergence of phenotypes under selection but contributed significantly less than preexisting genomic variants. Integration of 15 generations genome sequencing, genome-wide association study, and multi-omics data further identified that genes involved in signaling pathways important to adipogenesis, such as autophagy and lysosome (URI1, MBL2), neural system (CHAT), and endocrine (PCSK1) pathways, were under strong selection. Our study provides insights into the microevolutionary dynamics of domestic animal genomes under artificial selection.

Based on the bilinear discretization mathematical model of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), an improved incremental deadbeat current prediction control algorithm is proposed. Aiming at the system instability caused by the forward Euler discretization method, this paper combines the deadbeat current prediction control and the improved bilinear discretization method to improve the system stability. Further, the proposed controller considers the two-beat delay of a digital system to make the mathematical model more accurate. Moreover, the proposed bilinear discretization predictive current controller is not affected by the permanent magnet flux of the motor. Then, the system stability conditions of the proposed controller are analyzed. The simulation and experimental results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Abstract This study achieved water-based superlubricity with the lubrication of H3PO4 solution in vacuum (highest vacuum degree

The female reproductive tract constitutes the ovary, fallopian tubes, uterus, and cervix, but it is challenging to engineer this systemin vitro. Here, the authors develop a microfluidic device (EVATAR) with reproductive tract and peripheral tissues to replicate hormone release of a 28-day menstrual cycle.

Agricultural soils are major sources of the greenhouse gas N2O, particularly under maize with high nitrogen (N) inputs and excessive irrigation. To determine how N and water management can mitigate N2O emissions from drip-irrigated maize fields, a field study was carried out in the North China Plain during the maize growing season. The objective of the study was to investigate the individual and combined effects of irrigation level and N input on N2O emissions and grain yields, as well as N and water use efficiency (WUE), under drip-fertigation management. The main treatments were two irrigation levels: 50 mm/event (sufficient irrigation, WH) and 25 mm/event (limited irrigation, WL), with four N application rates: 0 (N0), 90 (N1), 180 (N2), and 270 (N3) kg N ha−1. Pulses of N2O emissions were recorded every 2–3 d following each irrigation or fertigation (irrigation + fertilization) event. N input, irrigation, and their interactions all significantly influenced N2O emissions. A significant exponential relationship (P

Silicon (Si) enhances maize resistance to drought. While previous studies have mainly focused on the seedling stage, the mediation of drought stress by Si imposed at the vegetative and reproductive stages has been rarely investigated. A soil-column experiment was thus conducted under a rainproof shelter to quantify the effect s of Si application on the physiological and agronomic responses of maize to drought stress imposed at the 6-leaf (D-V6), 12-leaf (D-V12), and blister (D-R2) stages. The observed parameters included plant growth, photosynthesis, osmolytes, antioxidant activity, and grain yield. The results showed that drought stress strongly decreased the leaf area, leaf water content, photosynthetic rate, chlorophyll content, and antioxidant activity (superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT)) and markedly increased lipid peroxidation. D-V6, D-V12, and D-R2 decreased grain yields by 12.9%, 28.9%, and 44.8%, respectively, compared to the well-watered treatment (CK). However, Si application markedly increased leaf area, chlorophyll content, photosynthetic rate, osmolyte content, and enzymatic antioxidant activities (SOD, POD, and CAT), and decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide radical accumulation, ultimately improving maize yields by 12.4%, 69.8%, and 80.8%, respectively, compared to the non-Si treated plants under drought stress at the V6, V12, and R2 stages. Furthermore, maize yields had a significant positive correlation with chlorophyll content and SOD and POD activity during the three stages. Our findings suggest that Si-induced changes in chlorophyll content and antioxidant activity might constitute important mechanisms for mitigating drought stress. In conclusion, this study provides physico-biochemical evidence for the beneficial role of Si in alleviating drought-induced yield reduction in maize, particularly during the late vegetative or early reproductive stages. Thus, Si application constitutes an effective approach for improving maize yield in rain-fed agricultural systems.

Long-span prestressed double-layer composite torsional reticulated shells have beautiful shapes, which make them a solution widely applied in public buildings requiring long-span structures, such as airports and stadiums. However, once the progressive collapse occurs, this will cause serious issues. There are few studies on the damage assessment of long-span spatial structures under accidental loads. This paper proposes a new dynamic damage evaluation index that takes into account the displacement and the cumulative plastic energy dissipation to evaluate the damage of the long-span prestressed double-layer composite torsional reticulated shell. Sleeve structures were applied to the long-span space structures to study their control effect on structural damage. The equivalent load transient unloading method was used to analyze the dynamic time history of the structure. Results show that the structure suffered severe damage and progressive collapse failure after removing four nodes at different positions near the supports. In the position where the plastic hinges first appear and the position with the maximum displacement, the sleeve structures have a poor damage control effect on the structure. Arranging the two sleeve structures in the position of maximum stress, the damage of the structure can be controlled, thus reducing the severe damage and progressive collapse failure to basic intact damage.

Control moment gyroscopes (CMG) are crucial components in spacecrafts. Since the anomaly of bearing temperature of the CMG shows apparent correlation with nearly all critical fault modes, temperature prediction is of great importance for health management of CMGs. However, due to the complicity of thermal environment on orbit, the temperature signal of the CMG has strong intrinsic nonlinearity and chaotic characteristics. Therefore, it is crucial to study temperature prediction under the framework of chaos time series theory. There are also several other challenges including poor data quality, large individual differences and difficulty in processing streaming data. To overcome these issues, we propose a new method named Chaotic Ensemble of Online Recurrent Extreme Learning Machine (CE-ORELM) for temperature prediction of control moment gyroscopes. By means of the CE-ORELM model, this proposed method is capable of dynamic prediction of temperature. The performance of the method was tested by real temperature data acquired from actual CMGs. Experimental results show that this method has high prediction accuracy and strong adaptability to the on-orbital temperature data with sudden variations. These superiorities indicate that the proposed method can be used for temperature prediction of control moment gyroscopes.

Long-term snowfall change offers insight for understanding climate change, managing water resources, and assessing climate model performance, especially at regional scales where topography plays an important role in shaping regional climate and water availability. In this study, we examined the changes of annual snowfall using observations from 1961 to 2017 in central North America, a region with high contrast in topographic complexities. There is a general, yet distinct difference in the snowfall trends demarcated approximately along the 105° W meridian. To its east, which is dominated by plains, snowfall had increased overall, except in a limited area south of 42° N, where snowfall decreased slightly. To the west of 105° W, which is dominated by the Rocky Mountains, there was a wide spread of decreasing trend, with only two pockets of area at an elevation of >2000 m exhibiting increasing snowfall trends. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that, in addition to the average annual snowfall, snowfall trends significantly correlated with elevation in the mountain region and with average snow season temperature in the plains region, suggesting different mechanisms potentially shaping snowfall trends in the two regions.

Rapid and non-destructive diagnostic tools to accurately assess crop nitrogen nutrition index (NNI) are imperative for improving crop nitrogen (N) diagnosis and sustaining crop production. This study was aimed to develop the relationships among NNI, leaf N gradient, chlorophyll meter (CM) readings gradient, and positional differences chlorophyll meter index [PDCMI, the ratio of CM readings between different leaf layers (LLs) of crop canopy] and to validate the accuracy and stability of these relationships across the different LLs, years, sites, and cultivars. Six multi-N rates (0–320 kg ha−1) field experiments were conducted with four summer maize cultivars (Zhengdan958, Denghai605, Xundan20, and Denghai661) at two different sites located in China. Six summer maize plants per plot were harvested at each sampling stage to assess NNI, leaf N concentration and CM readings of different LLs during the vegetative growth period. The results showed that the leaf N gradient, CM readings gradient and PDCMI of different LLs decreased, while the NNI values increased with increasing N supply. The leaf N gradient and CM readings gradient increased gradually from top to bottom of the canopy and CM readings of the bottom LL were more sensitive to changes in plant N concentration. The significantly positive relationship between NNI and CM readings of different LLs (LL1 to LL3) was observed, yet these relationships varied across the years. In contrast, the relationships between NNI and PDCMI of different LLs (LL1 to LL3) were significantly negative. The strongest relationship between PDCMI and NNI which was stable across the cultivars and years was observed for PDCMI1−3 (NNI = −5.74 × PDCMI1−3+1.5, R2 = 0.76**). Additionally, the models developed in this study were validated with the data acquired from two independent experiments to assess their accuracy of prediction. The root mean square error value of 0.1 indicated that the most accurate and robust relationship was observed between PDCMI1–3 and NNI. The projected results would help to develop a simple, non-destructive and reliable approach to accurately assess the crop N status for precisely managing N application during the growth period of summer maize crop.

Tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles have attracted increasing attention due to their ability to perform vertical take-off and landing and their high-speed cruising abilities, thereby presenting broad application prospects. Considering portability and applications in tasks characterized by constrained or small scope areas, this article presents a compact tricopter configuration tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle with full modes of flight from the rotor mode to the fixed-wing mode and vice versa. The unique multiple modes make the tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle a multi-input multi-output, non-affine, multi-channel cross coupling, and nonlinear system. Considering these characteristics, a control allocation method is designed to make the controller adaptive to the full modes of flight. To reduce the cost, the accurate dynamic model of the tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle is not obtained, so a full-mode flight strategy is designed in view of this situation. An autonomous flight test was conducted, and the results indicate the satisfactory performance of the control allocation method and flight strategy.

Collecting accurate real-time soil moisture data in crop root zones is the foundation of automated precision irrigation systems. Soil moisture sensors (SMSs) have been used to monitor soil water content (SWC) in crop fields for a long time; however, there is no generally accepted guideline for determining optimal number and placement of soil moisture sensors in the soil profile. In order to study adequate positioning for the installation of soil moisture sensors in the soil profile, six years of field experiments were carried out in North China Plain (NCP). Soil water content was measured using the gravimetric method every 7 to 10 days during six growing seasons of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L), and root distribution was measured using a soil core method during the key periods of winter wheat growth. The results from the experimental data analysis show that SWC at different depths had a high linear correlation. In addition, the values of correlation coefficients decreased with increasing soil depth; the coefficient of variation (CV) of SWC was higher in the surface layers than in the deeper layers (depths were 0⁻40 cm, 0⁻60 cm, and 0⁻100 cm during the early, middle, and last stages of winter wheat, respectively); wheat roots were mainly distributed in the surface layer. According to an analysis of CV for SWC and root distribution, the depths of planned wetted layers were determined to be 0⁻40 cm, 0⁻60 cm, and 0⁻100 cm during the sowing to reviving stages (the early stage of winter wheat), returning green and jointing stages (the middle stage of winter wheat), and heading to maturity stage (the last stage of winter wheat), respectively. The correlation and R-cluster analyses of SWC at different layers in the soil profile showed that SMSs should be installed 10 and 30 cm below the soil surface during the winter wheat growing season. The linear regression model can be built using SWC at depths of 10 and 30 cm to predict total average SWC in the soil profile. The results of validation showed that the developed model provided reliable estimates of total average SWC in the planned wetted layer. In brief, this study suggests that suitable positioning of soil moisture sensors is at depths of 10 and 30 cm below the soil surface.