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Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a bile duct malignancy with a dismal prognosis. This study systematically investigated the role of the ribosomal protein S6 (RPS6) gene, which is dependent in CCA. We found that RPS6 upregulation in CCA tissues was correlated with a poor prognosis. Functional investigations have shown that alterations in RPS6 expression, both gain- and loss-of function could affect the proliferation of CCA cells. In xenograft tumor models, RPS6 overexpression enhances tumorigenicity, whereas RPS6 silencing reduces it. Integration analysis using RNA-seq and proteomics elucidated downstream signaling pathways of RPS6 depletion by affecting the cell cycle, especially DNA replication. Immunoprecipitation followed by mass spectrometry has identified numerous spliceosome complex proteins associated with RPS6. Transcriptomic profiling revealed that RPS6 affects numerous alternative splicing (AS) events, and combined with RNA immunoprecipitation sequencing, revealed that minichromosome maintenance complex component 7 (MCM7) binds to RPS6, which regulates its AS and increases oncogenic activity in CCA. Targeting RPS6 with vivo phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomer (V-PMO) significantly inhibited the growth of CCA cells, patient-derived organoids, and subcutaneous xenograft tumor. Taken together, the data demonstrate that RPS6 is an oncogenic regulator in CCA and that RPS6-V-PMO could be repositioned as a promising strategy for treating CCA.

AIM: To assess the association between the Dem, axial length/corneal radius ratio(AL/CR ratio), and the refractive status of children aged 3 to 14, compare the efficiency of Dem with AL/CR ratio in predicting myopia, and to explore a more effective method for quantitatively predicting the refractive state of children.METHODS: This cross-sectional study involved 519 children aged 3 to 14, including 519 eyes(data from the right eyes were used). All participants were out-patients at the ophthalmic clinic of Xi'an No.1 Hospital from March 2021 to December 2022. The axial length(AL), keratometry(K), Dem, and spherical equivalent refraction(SER)were recorded before ciliary paralysis, and myopia was defined when the SER ≤-0.50 D.RESULTS: There was a positive correlation between SER and Dem(r=0.88, P

Abstract The exploration of antibiotic‐independent phototherapy strategies for the treatment of bacterial biofilm infections has gained significant attention. However, efficient eradication of bacterial biofilms remains a challenge. Herein, a self‐regulated phototheranostic nanosystem with single wavelength‐triggered photothermal therapy (PTT)/photodynamic therapy (PDT) transformation and oxygen supply for multimodal synergistic therapy of bacterial biofilm infections is presented. This approach combines a eutectic mixture of natural phase‐change materials (PCMs) and an aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) phototheranostic agent TPA‐ICN to form colloidally stable nanopartcicles (i.e. AIE@PCM NPs). The reversible solid−liquid phase transition of PCMs facilitates the adaptive regulation of the aggregation states of TPA‐ICN, enabling a switch between the energy dissipation pathways for enhanced PDT in solid PCMs or enhanced PTT in liquid PCMs. Additionally, oxygen‐carrying thermoresponsive nanoparticles are also introduced to alleviate the hypoxic microenvironment of biofilms by releasing oxygen upon heating by AIE@PCM NPs with enhanced PTT. The nanosystem exhibits outstanding therapeutic efficacy against bacterial biofilms both in vitro and in vivo, with an antibacterial efficiency of 99.99%. This study utilizes a self‐regulated theranostic nanoplatform with adaptive PTT/PDT transformation via the phase transition of PCMs and heat‐triggered oxygen release, holding great promise in the safe and efficient treatment of bacterial biofilm infections.

The prognosis for Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is unfavorable, necessitating the development of new therapeutic approach such as magnetic hyperthermia therapy (MHT) which is induced by magnetic nano-particle (MNPs) drug to bridge the treatment gap. Given the deep location of CCA within the abdominal cavity and proximity to vital organs, accurately predict the individualized treatment effects and safety brought by the distribution of MNPs in tumor will be crucial for the advancement of MHT in CCA. The Mimics software was used in this study to conduct three-dimensional reconstruction of abdominal computed tomography (CT) and magnetic reso-nance imaging images from clinical patients, resulting in the generation of a realistic digital geometric model representing the human biliary tract and its adjacent structures. Subsequently, The COMSOL Multiphysics software was utilized for modeling CCA and calculating the heat transfer law resulting from the multi-regional distribution of MNPs in CCA. The temperature within the central region of irregular CCA measured approximately 46°C, and most areas within the tumor displayed temperatures surpassing 41°C. The temperature of the inner edge of CCA is only 39 ∼ 41℃, however, it can be ameliorated by adjusting the local drug concentration through simulation system. For CCA with diverse morphologies and anatomical locations, the multi-regional distribution patterns of intratumoral MNPs and a slight overlap of drug distribution areas synergistically enhance intratumoral temperature while ensuring treatment safety. The present study highlights the practicality and imperative of incorporating personalized intratumoral MNPs distribution strategy into clinical practice for MHT, which can be achieved through the development of an integrated simulation system which incorporates medical image data and numerical calculations.

The spray cooling and tempering technology has a series of advantages, such as improving the tempering quality and reducing energy consumption. In order to optimize the tempering technological parameters, it is necessary to accurately control the thermal history and temperature distribution of a hot glass surface during spray cooling. However, measuring the inner temperature of tempered glass proved challenging. The Euler-Lagrangian approach was utilized for simulating the process of spray cooling the glass surface. To validate the accuracy of model predictions, experimental studies were conducted on the tempering of glass by a single nozzle. The numerical outcomes exhibit strong correspondence with the experimental findings. Building upon the foundation, the study analyzed the heat transfer mechanisms in different states including film boiling, nucleate boiling, and forced convection. Subsequently, the effects of spray distance, spray loading fraction, spray pressure, and final cooling temperature on the heat transfer rate and temperature homogeneity were discussed. The results revealed that reducing the spray distance, increasing the spray loading fraction and spray pressure can improve the cooling rate and reduce energy consumption, but it aggravated the uneven distribution of temperature over the glass surface. Moderately increasing the final cooling temperature had little effect on the tempering quality of glass, but it significantly reduced the energy consumption for spray cooling. Within the experimental range, the optimal final cooling temperature was 573.15 K.

Abstract The initial transient phase of an emerging epidemic is of critical importance for data-driven model building, model-based prediction of the epidemic trend, and articulation of control/prevention strategies. Quantitative models for real-world epidemics need to be memory-dependent or non-Markovian, but this presents difficulties for data collection, parameter estimation, computation, and analyses. In contrast, such difficulties do not arise in the traditional Markovian models. To uncover the conditions under which Markovian and non-Markovian models are equivalent, we develop a comprehensive computational and analytic framework. We show that the transient-state equivalence holds when the average generation time matches the average removal time, resulting in minimal Markovian estimation errors in the basic reproduction number, epidemic forecasting, and evaluation of control strategy. The errors depend primarily on the generation-to-removal time ratio, while rarely on the specific values and distributions of these times. Overall, our study provides a general criterion for modeling memory-dependent processes using Markovian frameworks.

Abstract Background Paracetamol induces hepatotoxicity and subsequent liver injury, which may increase the risk of liver cancer, but epidemiological evidence remains unclear. We conducted this study to evaluate the association between paracetamol use and the risk of liver cancer. Methods This prospective study included 464,244 participants free of cancer diagnosis from the UK Biobank. Incident liver cancer was identified through linkage to cancer and death registries and the National Health Service Central Register using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 codes (C22). An overlap-weighted Cox proportional hazards model was utilized to calculate the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the risk of liver cancer associated with paracetamol use. The number needed to harm (NNH) was calculated at 10 years of follow-up. Results During a median of 12.6 years of follow-up, 627 cases of liver cancer were identified. Paracetamol users had a 28% higher risk of liver cancer than nonusers (HR 1.28, 95% CI 1.06–1.54). This association was robust in several sensitivity analyses and subgroup analyses, and the quantitative bias analysis indicated that the result remains sturdy to unmeasured confounding factors (E-value 1.88, lower 95% CI 1.31). The NNH was 1106.4 at the 10 years of follow-up. Conclusion The regular use of paracetamol was associated with a higher risk of liver cancer. Physicians should be cautious when prescribing paracetamol, and it is recommended to assess the potential risk of liver cancer to personalize the use of paracetamol.

Commented Article : LI, Li. The civilizational return of Eastern “Rites and Music” and Western “Ethics” in modern music education. Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp Journal of Philosophy, v. 47 n. 4, “Eastern thought”, e0240090, 2024. Available at: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/14640.

Abstract Clostridium thermocellum is a natively cellulolytic bacterium that is promising candidate for cellulosic biofuel production, and can produce ethanol at high yields (75–80% of theoretical) but the ethanol titers produced thus far are too low for commercial application. In several strains of C. thermocellum engineered for increased ethanol yield, ethanol titer seems to be limited by ethanol tolerance. Previous work to improve ethanol tolerance has focused on the WT organism. In this work, we focused on understanding ethanol tolerance in several engineered strains of C. thermocellum. We observed a tradeoff between ethanol tolerance and production. Adaptation for increased ethanol tolerance decreases ethanol production. Second, we observed a consistent genetic response to ethanol stress involving mutations at the AdhE locus. These mutations typically reduced NADH-linked ADH activity. About half of the ethanol tolerance phenotype could be attributed to the elimination of NADH-linked activity based on a targeted deletion of adhE. Finally, we observed that rich growth medium increases ethanol tolerance, but this effect is eliminated in an adhE deletion strain. Together, these suggest that ethanol inhibits growth and metabolism via a redox-imbalance mechanism. The improved understanding of mechanisms of ethanol tolerance described here lays a foundation for developing strains of C. thermocellum with improved ethanol production.

Cloud computing has become a widespread technology that delivers a broad range of services across various industries globally. One of the crucial features of cloud infrastructure is virtual machine (VM) migration, which plays a pivotal role in resource allocation flexibility and reducing energy consumption, but it also provides convenience for the fast propagation of malware. To tackle the challenge of curtailing the proliferation of malware in the cloud, this paper proposes an effective strategy based on optimal dynamic immunization using a controlled dynamical model. The objective of the research is to identify the most efficient way of dynamically immunizing the cloud to minimize the spread of malware. To achieve this, we define the control strategy and loss and give the corresponding optimal control problem. The optimal control analysis of the controlled dynamical model is examined theoretically and experimentally. Finally, the theoretical and experimental results both demonstrate that the optimal strategy can minimize the incidence of infections at a reasonable loss.

Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn.) is an abundant edible and medical resource, and the utilizable parts of lotus include leaves, roots, seeds, plumule, seed skins, flowers and seed pots, which contain many bioactive components including polysaccharides, and possess high nutritional value and many pharmacological activities. As an important component in different parts of lotus, polysaccharides have a variety of biological activities, such as antioxidatnt, anti-saccharification, hypoglycemic, immunoregulatory, antibacterial and anti-osteoporosis activities. At present, only scattered information is available on polysaccharides in different parts of lotus, so this paper reviews recent progress in research on the extraction, purification, structural features and biological activity of polysaccharides from different parts of lotus, aim at providing a reference for the comprehensive exploitation and utilization of polysaccharides in different parts of lotus to promote the application of lotus by-products.

Background: Recent studies have shown that bile acids are essential in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) pathology, and cholecystectomy has direct effects on bile acid metabolism. However, whether cholecystectomy increases the risk of IBS remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the association between cholecystectomy and IBS risk in the UK Biobank (UKB).Methods: This study is a prospective analysis of 413,472 participants who were free of IBS, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, or common benign digestive tract diseases. We identified incidents of IBS through self-reporting or links to primary healthcare and hospitalization data. We evaluated hazard ratios (HRs) adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, health behaviours, comorbidities, and medications.Results: During a median follow-up period of 12.7 years, we observed 15,503 new cases of IBS. Participants with a history of cholecystectomy had a 46% higher risk of IBS than those without (HR = 1.46, 95% CI: 1.32–1.60), and further subtype analysis showed that the risk of IBS with diarrhoea was significantly higher than the risk of IBS without diarrhoea (HR = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.30–2.25 vs. HR = 1.42, 95% CI: 1.28–1.58). The overall covariate-adjusted HRs for IBS were similar between the group with both cholecystectomy and gallstones (HR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.32–1.58) and the group with cholecystectomy without gallstones (HR = 1.50, 95% CI: 1.36–1.67) when the group without both cholecystectomy and gallstones was used as a reference. The overall covariate-adjusted HR was not significantly different in the group without cholecystectomy with gallstones (HR = 1.18, 95% CI: 0.95–1.47). The positive association of cholecystectomy with IBS risk did not change when stratifying the data based on age, sex, BMI, smoking, alcohol consumption, healthy diet, quality sleep, physical activity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, mental illness, NSAID intake, or acid inhibitor intake. Sensitivity analyses, including propensity score matching analysis and lagging the exposure for two or four years, indicated that the effects were robust.Conclusion: Cholecystectomy was associated with a higher risk of IBS, especially IBS with diarrhoea. Additional prospective randomized controlled and experimental studies are warranted to further validate the association and to explore the relevant biological mechanisms.

Abstract Background Diagnosis and treatment of diffuse malignant peritoneal mesothelioma (DMPM) are still challenging. The aim of the present study was to explore the correlation between CD74, CD10, Ki-67 and clinicopathological parameters, and identify independent prognostic factors of DMPM. Methods Seventy patients with pathologically proven DMPM were retrospectively reviewed. The expression of CD74, CD10 and Ki-67 in peritoneal tissues was detected by immunohistochemical analysis using standard avidin biotin complex (ABC) immunostaining technique. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to assess prognostic factors. The nomogram based on the Cox hazards regression model was established. C-index and calibration curve were performed to evaluate the accuracy of nomogram models. Results The median age of DMPM was 62.34 years, and the male-to-female ratio was 1: 1.80. CD74 expression was identified in 52 (74.29%) of 70 specimens, CD10 in 34 (48.57%) specimens, and higher Ki-67 in 33(47.14%) specimens. CD74 was negatively associated with asbestos exposure(r = -0.278), Ki-67(r = -0.251) and TNM stage(r = -0.313). All patients were effectively followed up in the survival analysis. Univariate analysis revealed that PCI, TNM stage, treatment, Ki-67, CD74 and ECOG PS were associated with DMPM prognosis. CD74 (HR = 0.65, 95%Cl:0.46–0.91, P = 0.014), Ki-67(HR = 2.09, 95%Cl:1.18–3.73, P = 0.012),TNM stage (HR = 1.89, 95%Cl:1.16–3.09, P = 0.011), ECOG PS(HR = 2.12, 95%Cl:1.06–4.25, P = 0.034), systemic chemotherapy (HR = 0.41, 95%Cl:0.21–0.82, P = 0.011) and intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HR = 0.34, 95%Cl:0.16–0.71, P = 0.004) were independent predictors by multivariate Cox analysis. The C‑index of the nomogram for predicting overall survival (OS) was 0.81. The OS calibration curve showed good agreement between nomogram-predicted and observed survival. Conclusions CD74, Ki-67, TNM stage, ECOG PS and treatment were independent factors affecting prognosis of DMPM. Reasonable chemotherapy treatment might improve the prognosis of patients. The proposed nomogram was a visual tool to effectively predict the OS of DMPM patients.

The quest for efficient catalysts based on abundant elements that can promote the selective CO2 hydrogenation to green methanol still continues. Most of the reported catalysts are based on Cu/ZnO supported in inorganic oxides, with not much progress with respect to the benchmark Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst. The use of carbon supports for Cu/ZnO particles is much less explored in spite of the favorable strong metal support interaction that these doped carbons can establish. This manuscript reports the preparation of a series of Cu-ZnO@(N)C samples consisting of Cu/ZnO particles embedded within a N-doped graphitic carbon with a wide range of Cu/Zn atomic ratio. The preparation procedure relies on the transformation of chitosan, a biomass waste, into N-doped graphitic carbon by pyrolysis, which establishes a strong interaction with Cu nanoparticles (NPs) formed simultaneously by Cu2+ salt reduction during the graphitization. Zn2+ ions are subsequently added to the Cu–graphene material by impregnation. All the Cu/ZnO@(N)C samples promote methanol formation in the CO2 hydrogenation at temperatures from 200 to 300 °C, with the temperature increasing CO2 conversion and decreasing methanol selectivity. The best performing Cu-ZnO@(N)C sample achieves at 300 °C a CO2 conversion of 23% and a methanol selectivity of 21% that is among the highest reported, particularly for a carbon-based support. DFT calculations indicate the role of pyridinic N doping atoms stabilizing the Cu/ZnO NPs and supporting the formate pathway as the most likely reaction mechanism.

BackgroundGut microbiome dysbiosis has been implicated in various gastrointestinal and extra-gastrointestinal diseases, but evidence on the efficacy and safety of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for therapeutic indications remains unclear.MethodsThe gutMDisorder database was used to summarize the associations between gut microbiome dysbiosis and diseases. We performed an umbrella review of published meta-analyses to determine the evidence synthesis on the efficacy and safety of FMT in treating various diseases. Our study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022301226).ResultsGut microbiome dysbiosis was associated with 117 gastrointestinal and extra-gastrointestinal. Colorectal cancer was associated with 92 dysbiosis. Dysbiosis involving Firmicutes (phylum) was associated with 34 diseases. We identified 62 published meta-analyses of FMT. FMT was found to be effective for 13 diseases, with a 95.56% cure rate (95% CI: 93.88–97.05%) for recurrent Chloridoids difficile infection (rCDI). Evidence was high quality for rCDI and moderate to high quality for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease but low to very low quality for other diseases.ConclusionGut microbiome dysbiosis may be implicated in numerous diseases. Substantial evidence suggests FMT improves clinical outcomes for certain indications, but evidence quality varies greatly depending on the specific indication, route of administration, frequency of instillation, fecal preparation, and donor type. This variability should inform clinical, policy, and implementation decisions regarding FMT.

Lift-off velocity, the wind speed at which a diaspore starts moving during secondary wind dispersal, representing diaspore mobile capacity, may greatly depend on vegetation where dispersal takes place. However, how vegetation structure influences lift-off velocity and which is the most important vegetation attribute remain unknown. The vegetation with various attributes (four coverages-0, 10 %, 20 % and 30 %, three life-form compositions-herb, shrub and herb + shrub, two vertical patterns-one and two layers, and two horizontal patterns-uniform and aggregated) were set up for the wind tunnel experiment. Diaspores of 30 species varied in wing loading, terminal velocity, mass, projected area, length, width, height, and shape index were selected to measure their lift-off velocity within various vegetation structures. Lift-off velocity significantly increased with the increasing vegetation coverage, in the case of any life-form composition, vertical pattern and horizontal pattern of vegetation. For the vertical pattern of vegetation, the lift-off velocity in one-layer vegetation was significantly higher than that in two-layer vegetation, but only for 10 % vegetation coverage. Both the life-form composition and the horizontal pattern of vegetation had no influences on lift-off velocity. The correlation between lift-off velocity and diaspore attributes (length, width, height, projected area, mass and wing loading) increased with vegetation coverage and the correlation in two-layer vegetation was larger than that in one-layer vegetation. Our results indicate that vegetation coverage is the key vegetation attribute determining lift-off velocity during secondary wind dispersal. Lift-off velocity is also influenced by diaspore traits, but their relationships tend to be regulated by vegetation attributes, especially the coverage and vertical pattern of vegetation. Our study demonstrates the important role of vegetation coverage in determining the second dispersal capacity, which is helpful to understand the dispersal strategies of plants in response to vegetation structure and succession.

Background: Heterogeneous clinical conditions were observed in individuals who had recovered from COVID-19 and some symptoms were found to persist for an extended period post-COVID. Given the non-specific nature of the symptoms, Chinese medicine (CM) is advantageous in providing holistic medical assessment for individuals experiencing persisting problems. Chinese medicine is a type of treatment that involves prescribing regimens based on CM Syndromes diagnosed by CM practitioners. However, inadequate research on CM elements behind the practice has faced scrutiny. Methods: This study analysed 1058 CM medical records from 150 post-COVID-19 individuals via a semi-text-mining approach. A logistic model with MCMCglmm was then utilised to analyse the associations between the indicated factors and identified conditions. Calculations were performed using R Studio and related libraries. Results: With the semi-text-mining approach, three common CM Syndromes (Qi and Yin Deficiency, Lung and Spleen Deficiency, Qi Deficiency of both Spleen and Lung) and nine clinical conditions (fatigue, poor sleep, dry mouth, shortness of breath, cough, headache, tiredness, sweating, coughing phlegm) were identified in the CM clinical records. Analysis via MCMCglmm revealed that the occurrence of persisting clinical conditions was significantly associated with female gender, existing chronic conditions (hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes mellitus), and the three persisting CM Syndromes. The current study triangulated the findings from our previous observational study, further showing that patients with certain post-COVID CM Syndromes had significantly increased log-odds of having persisting clinical conditions. Furthermore, this study elucidated that the presence of chronic conditions in the patients would also significantly increase the log-odds of having persistent post-COVID clinical conditions. Conclusion: This study provided insights on mining text-based CM clinical records to identify persistent post-COVID clinical conditions and the factors associated with their occurrence. Future studies could examine the integration of integrating exercise modules, such as health qigong Liuzijue, into multidisciplinary rehabilitation programmes.

Intensity modulation/direct detection (IM/DD) and coherent schemes are two kinds of promising solutions to achieve the evolution for B5G/6G fronthaul networks. IM/DD has more mature commercial deployment applications for short-reach applications with lower costs and simpler configurations compared with coherent solutions. In this article, we experimentally demonstrate a local area network-wavelength division multiplexing (LAN-WDM) IM/DD access system with a record bit rate of 2 Tb/s (250 Gbit/s × 8) probabilistic shaping eight-pulse amplitude modulation (PS-PAM-8) signal with joint equalization techniques to support the evolution of future B5G/6G mobile fronthaul networks. Considering the 20% Soft Decision Forward Error Correction (SD-FEC) threshold with the bit error rate (BER) of 2 × 10−2, we realize a record net bit rate of 1.6 Tb/s over 5 km fiber. This system can potentially support a 12-wavelengths transmission with the total line rate of 3 Tb/s (250 Gbit/s × 12). Moreover, we analyze the challenges of the evolution, usage scenarios, digital signal processing (DSP) implementation, transmission rate and distance, and the tolerance of dispersion with different wavelengths. The LAN-WDM can be considered as a feasible and potential candidate scheme to meet the evolution and deployment of B5G/6G Terabit/s fronthaul networks.

In fiber-wireless integration systems, it is valuable to investigate whether digital subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) signal is effective in improving nonlinear tolerance against photodiode (PD) saturation compared to single-carrier (SC) signal. For a fair comparison, the mitigation of linear impairments especially for IQ mixing effects become significant. In this article, we first analyze the impacts of transmitter IQ mixing effects for SC and digital SCM signals. Then, we employ the real-valued multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) post-equalizers for the PM (polarization multiplexing)-SC system and PM-SCM system so as to mitigate transmitter IQ mixing effects. Finally, we experimentally compare the nonlinear tolerance of SC, SCM with two subcarriers (SCM-2), and SCM-4 signals using QPSK, 8QAM, and 16QAM in a W-band fiber-wireless system against the pin-photodiode (PIN-PD) saturation considering noise-limited case, optimum case and non-linear case. Subcarriers for SC, SCM-2, and SCM-4 are 25GBaud, 12.5GBaud, and 6.25GBaud respectively, with a total symbol rate of 25GBaud. Maximum line rate is 200 Gb/s with the BER satisfying the 7% HD-FEC threshold when employing the PM-16QAM. The results show that SCM signal has better nonlinear tolerance against the PIN-PD saturation than SC signals when system works in the non-linear case especially when using high-order modulation formats.

Abstract Complex implicit expressions and many intermediate parameters are not conducive to the application of entropy generation optimization to the performance of thermal and energy systems from component and system perspectives. In this paper, we derived matrix heat transport equations of three primary heat exchanger networks according to the heat current method. Based on the matrix equations, we established the matrixed model of a typical heat supply system and obtained the corresponding matrix equation reflecting the power topology structure of the system. Moreover, we derived and reconstructed a single heat exchanger's entropy generation rate expression based on the standard thermal resistance, which was only related to inlet temperatures, structural parameters, and operating parameters. The total system entropy generation rate was then derived and minimized by the Lagrange multiplier method. The optimization results provided the optimal distribution of the mass flow rate of each fluid. Besides, the influence of the heat transfer rate and outer loop inlet temperature on the optimization results revealed that local equipment parameters and conditions could affect the system's minimum entropy generation. The total entropy generation rate decreases by 17.5% when the outer loop inlet temperature was increased from 274 to 280 K. In conclusion, the matrixed modeling and entropy generation analysis are feasible for thermal system modeling and optimization.

Nuclear heating has the advantages of clean and efficient, especially the all-in-one small modular reactor (SMR) of heating-power generation has the characteristic of decreasing power generation when increasing heating power, that is, the characteristic of thermoelectric reverse coupling, which is helpful to improve the economy of the system and promote the consumption of renewable energy. The multi-energy demand coupling response is an important measure to realize the efficient operation of the integrated energy system (IES). Based on the integrated demand response (IDR), a day-ahead scheduling model of the SMR-IES considering the demand coupling response characteristics is proposed. First of all, based on the advantages of SMR heating and power generation integration, the SMR-IES operating architecture with coupling in both sides of energy supply and demand is proposed. Then, on the basis of energy hub model and power load price elastic response model, the IDR model considering the coupling response characteristics of heat-electric-cold demand is established, which takes into account the mutual influence and restriction of both sides of energy supply and demand, while organically connecting the supply side and demand side. Finally, with the goal of reducing the operating cost of the system, a day-ahead scheduling model is established, which realizes the coordination and optimization of the supply and demand side by adjusting the price of energy. Simulation on the MATLAB platform, and the optimization results of different energy supply scenarios are compared. It is found that based on the SMR-IES scheduling model considering demand coupling response the daily optimal operation cost is reduced by 38.4%, and the renewable energy efficiency is increased by 63.1%. Considering the demand coupling response, the coupling substitution of electricity-heat load can be realized, the electricity-heat load can be adjusted while ensuring that user needs remain unchanged, and the comprehensive energy efficiency of the system can be further improved.

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are the most used acid-inhibitory drugs, with a wide range of applications in the treatment of various digestive diseases. However, recently, there has been a growing number of digestive complications linked to PPIs, and several studies have indicated that the intestinal flora play an important role in these complications. Therefore, developing a greater understanding of the role of the gut microbiota in PPI-related digestive diseases is essential. Here, we summarize the current research on the correlation between PPI-related digestive disorders and intestinal flora and establish the altered strains and possible pathogenic mechanisms of the different diseases. We aimed to provide a theoretical basis and reference for the future treatment and prevention of PPI-related digestive complications based on the regulation of the intestinal microbiota.

Introduction: The incidence of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) has increased worldwide in recent years. Given the poor prognosis associated with the current management approach of CCA, new therapeutic agents are warranted to improve the prognosis of this patient population.Methods: In this study, we extracted five cardiac glycosides (CGs) from natural plants: digoxin, lanatoside A, lanatoside C, lanatoside B, and gitoxin. Follow-up experiments were performed to assess the effect of these five extracts on cholangiocarcinoma cells and compounds with the best efficacy were selected. Lanatoside C (Lan C) was selected as the most potent natural extract for subsequent experiments. We explored the potential mechanism underlying the anticancer activity of Lan C on cholangiocarcinoma cells by flow cytometry, western blot, immunofluorescence, transcriptomics sequencing, network pharmacology and in vivo experiments.Results: We found that Lan C time-dependently inhibited the growth and induced apoptosis of HuCCT-1 and TFK-1 cholangiocarcinoma cells. Besides Lan C increased the reactive oxygen species (ROS) content in cholangiocarcinoma cells, decreased the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and resulted in apoptosis. Besides, Lan C downregulated the protein expression of STAT3, leading to decreased expression of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xl, increased expression of Bax, activation of caspase-3, and initiation of apoptosis. N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) pretreatment reversed the effect of Lan C. In vivo, we found that Lan C inhibited the growth of cholangiocarcinoma xenografts without toxic effects on normal cells. Tumor immunohistochemistry showed that nude mice transplanted with human cholangiocarcinoma cells treated with Lan C exhibited decreased STAT3 expression and increased caspase-9 and caspase-3 expression in tumors, consistent with the in vitro results.Conclusion: In summary, our results substantiates that cardiac glycosides have strong anti-CCA effects. Interestingly the biological activity of Lan C provides a new anticancer candidate for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma.

Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to establish a school safety culture through research on safety management as perceived by middle school physical education teachers. Research Method This study was conducted through in-depth interviews using a purposive sampling method from August 1 to September 30, 2024. Results: First, mandatory implementation of prevention education and safety education manuals and programs to increase prevention awareness. RAM is required. Second, regular facility and teaching management inspections are necessary and safety accidents can be prevented. Third, awareness of prevention and follow-up measures must improve a safe educational environment through institutional improvements in safety liability. Fourth, a safety training manual should be developed and unified and systematic training should be conducted. Conclusion Application to actual classroom environment. There is a need to develop a unified school safety education manual and systematic program.

ObjectiveTo explore the clinical safety and efficacy of single and multiple applications of lobaplatin-based hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) for patients with T4 gastric cancer and to evaluate the impact of HIPEC on peritoneal metastasis.Materials and methodsWe retrospectively reviewed prospectively collected data from T4 gastric cancer patients who underwent radical gastric resection plus HIPEC between March 2018 and August 2020 from the National Cancer Center and Huangxing Cancer Hospital. Patients who underwent radical surgery and HIPEC were divided into two groups: the single-HIPEC group (radical resection + a single application of intraoperative HIPEC with lobaplatin 50 mg/m2 at 43.0 ± 0.5°C for 60 min), and a multi-HIPEC group (two more HIPEC applications were performed after radical surgery).ResultsA total of 78 patients were enrolled in this two-center study; among them, 40 patients were in the single-HIPEC group, and 38 patients were in the multi-HIPEC group. The baseline characteristics were well balanced between the two groups. There was no significant difference in the postoperative complication rates between the two groups (P > 0.05). Mild renal dysfunction, mild liver dysfunction, low platelet levels and low white blood cell levels were recorded in both groups, without significant differences between the two groups (P > 0.05). After a mean follow-up of 36.8 months, 3 (7.5%) patients in the single-HIPEC group and 2 (5.2%) patients in the multi-HIPEC group experienced peritoneal recurrence (P > 0.05). Both groups had comparable 3-year overall survival (OS) (51.3% vs. 54.5%, P = 0.558) and 3-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates (44.1% vs. 45.7%, P = 0.975). Multivariate analysis showed that an age > 60 years and low preoperative albumin levels were independent risk factors for postoperative complications.ConclusionSingle and multiple applications of HIPEC in patients with T4 gastric cancer were safe and feasible. Both groups had similar postoperative complication rates, 3-year OS rates and 3-year DFS rates. Special attention should be given to HIPEC for patients aged > 60 years and patients with low preoperative albumin levels.

The quantization technique with a low-bit resolution can significantly reduce the cost and power consumption of analog-to-digital converter (ADC). It will play an important role in energy conservation and cost reduction for the incoming B5G millimeter-wave (MMW) communication systems. In this paper, we propose and demonstrated experimentally a low-bit Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based non-uniform adaptive vector quantization (AVQ) scheme for the low-cost intensity modulated envelope detection photonics-assisted 28 GHz MMW communication system for the first time. The principles of GMM-based one-dimensional adaptive scalar quantization (ASQ) and multi-dimensional AVQ are first introduced, and then are used to realize the low-bit non-uniform adaptive quantization for reducing the ADC bit resolution of MMW receiver. Furthermore, the performance of traditional uniform quantization, the present K-means and proposed GMM-based non-uniform ASQ/AVQ schemes are evaluated and compared in detail. Utilizing the proposed GMM-based AVQ scheme, the ADC quantization resolution in our MMW receiver can be reduced from 5 bits of the traditional uniform quantization to as low as 2 bits, without noticeable performance penalty. Moreover, as compared with the K-means-based quantization scheme, the MMW receiver enabled by GMM-based ASQ/AVQ scheme can save about half of the quantization time under similar performance. This is mainly because the clustering based on probability converges faster than the Euclidean distance, which significantly reduces the number of iterations required. Therefore, the GMM-based AVQ scheme is a promising solution to realize high performance ADCs with low-bit resolution for future MMW-enabled optical fiber wireless access networks.

With the increasing penetration of renewable energy in the power grid, which makes power plant equipment is always in changing operating conditions. The correlation between the main and auxiliary equipment of the unit is easy to lead a potential fault, therefore, the safety and reliability of the auxiliary equipment of thermal power units have become a more challenging issue in the case of large-scale renewable energy. Adaptive condition monitoring of the auxiliary equipment can reduce maintenance costs and improve reliability in the thermal power units. Most existing studies perform poorly at extracting features from distributed control systems data and make less use of time series data. A novel adaptive condition monitoring framework and early fault warning method based on long short-term memory and stack denoising auto-encoder network has been proposed for auxiliary equipment of power plant unit. The proposed framework has two main parts, which contain condition monitoring and adaptive early fault warning. The Mahalanobis distance of a reconstruction error is defined as the monitoring indicator to reflect the condition of the equipment. The Chebyshev inequality determines an adaptive threshold for early anomaly detection that applies to changeable working conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed method was verified by the actual case of the coal mill. The adaptive threshold method can obtain the advance time of 42s and 108s, respectively.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolates remain a serious threat to global health despite a decrease in MRSA infections since 2005. MRSA isolates exhibit great diversity worldwide, and their lineages show geographic variation. In this study, we used whole genome sequencing (WGS) to analyze antibiotic resistance genes and virulence genes, spa, staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec, sequence types (STs), and core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) of MRSA isolates from patients and environmental surface in hospitals in China to determine their prevalence and molecular traits. The highest number of infections by MRSA isolates was observed in patients aged ≥60 years (69.8%, P < 0.05). We identified a total of 19 STs from 162 MRSA isolates from patients. A significant increase was observed in the incidence of ST764-t002-II MRSA infection, which is replacing ST5-t002-II MRSA as the predominant ST. Similarly, isolates from environmental surface were predominantly ST764-t002-II (47%). Notably, most ST764 isolates (97.7%) carried seb, but not arginine catabolic mobile element (ACME), which differed from ST764 isolates in Japan and Thailand. The potential danger of spreading requires rigorous surveillance of emerging ST764 MRSA isolates. We also found higher resistance to seven antimicrobials [OXA, cefoxitin (FOX), ERY, CFZ, ciprofloxacin (CIP), levofloxacin (LEV), and moxifloxacin (MXF)]. Resistance to gentamicin (38.3%), tetracycline (55.9%), and minocycline (41.5%) were also common. Phenotypic resistance to antimicrobials was associated with resistance genes to its content, and cgMLST clustering suggested a strong link between these strains. Overall, our findings revealed the prevalence and molecular characteristics of MRSA isolates in Shanghai, China, providing a theoretical reference for preventing and controlling clonal transmission of MRSA isolates in hospitals in China.

The performance of existing rice-paddy weeding machines is not optimal. In this study, the influence of the installation angle of the weeding-wheel blade on cutting resistance and soil-slippage ability was analyzed. The optimal blade angle of the weeding wheel (i.e., the angle at which the resistance to the weeding wheel is minimal and the disturbance speed of the soil maximal) was shown to be< 20°; numerical simulation showed the actual optimal value to be 0°. Different weeding depths (30, 40, and 50 mm), rotation speed of weeding wheel (120, 180, and 240 r/min), and weeder forward speeds (0.3, 0.6, and 0.9 m/s) were used as test factors, and the rates of seedling injury and weeding were used as performance-evaluation criteria to optimize the machine in a secondary orthogonal-rotation combination test. Field experiments showed that the weeding wheel can exhibit optimal working performance under the operating conditions of weeding depth of 39 mm, rotation speed of 175 r/min, and forward speed of 0.6 m/s. The seedling injury and weeding rates were 4.4% and 88.2%, respectively, which were consistent with the numerically predicted results and met the agronomic requirements. This study provides a technical reference for the improvement of paddy-field weeding components.

We have experimentally implemented a photonics-aided large-capacity fiber-mm-wave wireless communication system employing a simple dual-polarized single-input single-output (SISO) wireless based on polarization multiplexing at the W-band. To compare the performance of different algorithms, 18G-baud, and 35G-baud 16-level quadrature-amplitude-modulation (16QAM), probabilistically shaped 16QAM (PS-16QAM), 64QAM and PS-64QAM signal using different carrier phase recovery (CPR) algorithms are transmitted in the system. Moreover, we compare the Viterbi–Viterbi (VV), improved new algorithm based on VV (NVV), blind phase search (BPS), and two-stage BPS algorithms’ computational complexity to better compare different algorithms. Using the experiment result, we can demonstrate that the BPS algorithm is about half a magnitude better than the NVV algorithm for PS-QAM signals, while the NVV algorithm has the lowest computational complexity. Additionally, we also achieve error-free wireless transmission at a net data rate of 324.1 Gb/s with the bit error ratio (BER) below the forward-error correction (FEC) threshold of 1 × 10−2 assuming soft-decision forward-error correction (SD-FEC) when using the BPS algorithm.

The industrial internet of things (IIoT) is a key pillar of the intelligent society, integrating traditional industry with modern information technology to improve production efficiency and quality. However, the IIoT also faces serious challenges from advanced persistent threats (APTs), a stealthy and persistent method of attack that can cause enormous losses and damages. In this paper, we give the definition and development of APTs. Furthermore, we examine the types of APT attacks that each layer of the four-layer IIoT reference architecture may face and review existing defense techniques. Next, we use several models to model and analyze APT activities in IIoT to identify their inherent characteristics and patterns. Finally, based on a thorough discussion of IIoT security issues, we propose some open research topics and directions.

ObjectiveTo investigate whether otolith dysfunction is related to hearing impairment in vertigo patients with normal semicircular canal function, and to clarify the types of hearing impairment that may be related to otolith organ damage.MethodsThe demographic data, pure tone threshold audiometry (PTA) results (air-conduction), data of bithermal and video-head impulse test (vHIT), and vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) results (reaction threshold, P1–N1 amplitude) of patients with vertigo in outpatient clinic from April 2017 to January 2020 were collected. The clinical records of 51 vertigo patients with normal semicircular canal function were included in this study. Low-frequency, speech-frequency, high-frequency, full-frequency PTA were defined as the average of PTA in different frequency bands, respectively (low: 0.125, 0.25, 0.5 kHz; speech: 0.5, 1, 2 kHz, high: 4, 8 kHz, full 0.125–8 kHz). The correlations between hearing impairment in different frequency bands and otolith function impairment were analyzed.ResultsThe mean thresholds of 51 patients (102 ears) in low-PTA, speech-PTA, high-PTA, full-PTA were 20.95 ± 6.01, 21.92 ± 6.90, 40.12 ± 17.47, 26.97 ± 8.53 dB nHL, respectively. Among 102 ears, 87 ears (85.3%) could elicit c-VEMP waveforms and 65 ears (63.7%) had o-VEMP waveforms. The mean threshold and P1–N1 amplitude of c-VEMP were 83.10 ± 6.96 dB nHL and 176.79 ± 103.10 uV, while those of o-VEMP were 87.92 ± 5.99 dB nHL and 21.45 ± 32.22 uV. The mean threshold in high-PTA was significantly linearly correlated with c-VEMP threshold (P = 0.01) and P1–N1 amplitude (P = 0.028). There were not significant linear correlations between the mean threshold in each frequency band of PTA and o-VEMP threshold (low-PTA: P = 0.266, speech-PTA: P = 0.33, high-PTA: P = 0.311) or P1–N1 amplitude (low-PTA: P = 0.414, speech-PTA: P = 0.069, high-PTA: P = 0.08).ConclusionsThere is a positive linear correlation between saccule dysfunction and high-frequency hearing impairment in vertigo patients with normal semi-circular canal function. High frequency hearing loss can be expected in patients who have saccular damage. It suggests that high frequency hearing loss in PTA may act as a screening index that otolith organ function should be comprehensively evaluated.

Transmission by pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic viral carriers makes intervention and containment of the COVID-19 extremely challenging. Here, the authors construct an epidemiological model that focuses on transmission around the symptom onset, exploring specific transmission control measures.

To increase the flexibility of power generation, the supercritical once-through boiler combined heat and power (CHP) plant should improve its coordinated control system (CCS). The difficulty of CCS for supercritical once-through boiler unit is to determine the water-fuel ratio in the dynamic process. First, a CHP unit model is established and simplified into a three-input three-output object under pure condensing working conditions. Second, dynamic relative matrix gain method and simulation is used to analysis several once-through boiler coordinated control schemes commonly used in engineering in which the compensation link is designed on the basis of water-fuel ratio. Simulation results show that, the water following CCS scheme has better intermediate point temperature performance and worse throttle pressure performance than the fuel following CCS scheme. To improve pressure performance, the closed-loop characteristics of pressure response to fuel and feed water flow are analyzed and compared through wavelet analysis. Finally, a method for determining the inertia time constant in the dynamic compensation link by comparing the wavelet coefficients is proposed. Wavelet analysis show that the imbalance in the speed of energy changes to fuel and feed water flow is the essential cause of large fluctuations in intermediate point temperature and throttle pressure before turbine of the supercritical once-through boiler unit. Simulation results show that using the proposed dynamic compensation in water following CCS can effectively reduce fluctuations of the intermediate point temperature and fluctuations of throttle pressure before turbine when power load command changes.

Here, the authors develop a genome evolution model to investigate the origin of functional redundancy in the human microbiome by analyzing its genomic content network and illustrate potential ecological and evolutionary processes that may contribute to its resilience.

Hibiseu manihot L. (Jinhuakui, JHK), also known as a garden landscape plant, is widely cultivated as a landscape plant having pharmacological effects due to its high flavonoids content. Although flavonoids were the main active pharmaceutical ingredients in JHK, little information was obtained about the content, composition, and accumulation pattern of flavonoids in different tissues. Most studies only identified a few kinds of flavonoids in JHK limited by separation and identification problems. Therefore, combined metabolome and transcriptome analysis was performed to explore the accumulation patterns and biosynthesis mechanisms of flavonoids in JHK. In this study, we identified 160 flavonoids in 15 samples of JHK (flower, leaf, root, stem, and seeds) by using LC-MS/MS. Consistent with the total flavonoid content determination, these flavonoids were significantly accumulated in flowers, followed by leaves, stems, roots, and seeds. Among them, certain flavonoids, with high content, were also identified for the first time in JHK, such as tricetin, catechin, hesperidin, ncyanidin-3-O-sambubioside, astragalin, procyanidin B2/B3/C1, apigenin-5-O-glucoside, etc. Different tissues underwent significantly reprogramming of their transcriptomes and metabolites changes in JHK, particularly in the flavonoid, flavone, and flavonol biosynthesis pathways. We conducted a correlation analysis between RNA-seq and LC-MS/MS to identify the key genes and related flavonoids compounds, rebuild the gene-metabolites regulatory subnetworks, and then identified 15 key genes highly related to flavonoids accumulation in JHK. These key genes might play a fine regulatory role in flavonoids biosynthesis by affecting the gene expression level in different organs of JHK. Our results could be helpful for the improvement of the market/industrial utilization value of different parts of JHK, to pave the way for the regulatory mechanism research of flavonoids biosynthesis, and provide insight for studying the production quality improvement of JHK.

In recent years, the class imbalance problem that aims to correctly classify imbalanced data sets and improve the classification performance of minority instances has received attention. Such problem can be roughly described as one of the class(es) termed as minority class(es) contains much smaller instances than the others, also referred as majority class(es). To address this problem, a novel classification method called focused online random forest based on synthetic minority oversampling technique (FORF-SMOTE) is proposed in this paper and simply expressed as FORF-S, which constructs two online random forests respectively trained by original training dataset and new generated dataset, then further jointly constitute the model. Instead of oversampling the minority instances in data level, the algorithm in this paper is motivated by making the sampling strategies integrated into algorithm level to create classifiers, which can better identify the minority class. Moreover, the method is also compared with other state-of-the-art methods and the results have demonstrated that the proposed algorithm takes advantages of the aforementioned methods.

Coal mills have a significant influence on the reliability, efficiency, and safe operation of a coal-fired power plant. Coal blockage is one of the main reasons for coal mill malfunction. It is highly essential to accurately detect the critical blockage in coal mills to ensure a safe and stable operation of the unit. Taking advantage of unsupervised learning methods and historical process data from distributed control systems (DCS), a stacked denoising autoencoder (SDAE) network-based approach for monitoring critical blockage in a coal mill is proposed in this work. The SDAE model with optimized parameters is applied to reconstruct the operating data during normal operating conditions. The intrinsic relationship between all input variables was captured by training a multilayer network model. The monitoring indicator was obtained from the reconstruction errors, and the threshold for monitoring indicators was obtained using kernel density estimation (KDE) during normal operation. The proposed network is independent of fault data, requires a reduced on-line calculation, and demonstrates a better real-time performance compared to conventional methods. The abnormal variables analysis may provide a theoretical evidence for critical blockage. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated using operating data collected from an actual coal-fired power plant in China. The results demonstrated that the proposed method can effectively detect critical blockage in a coal mill and issue a timely warning, which allows operators to detect potential faults.

To increase the flexibility of power generation, the coal-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plants should make full use of their own energy storage (ES). Available ES exists mainly in boiler steam-water systems, in units' condensed water systems (CW), and in district heating networks (DHN). The goal of the paper is to analysis the ES quantitatively. And ES is characterized by ES coefficient, the maximum ES capacity and ES respond speed for power load. ES coefficient, the key parameter of ES capacity, represents the change in ES when unit process variable changes. For pressure, flow, and temperature variables, three kinds of mechanism methods (volume increment method, equivalent enthalpy drop method, and specific enthalpy increment method) are proposed to calculate ES coefficients. Then, the maximum ES capacity can be obtained by the product of ES coefficient and the limit value of the variable. Finally, ES respond speed for power load can be drawn from simulation. Calculation results and simulations show that ES in CW has small capacity 1.2 GJ but fast speed; ES in boiler has larger capacity 2.6 GJ and slower respond speed; ES in DHN is 374 GJ, which is two orders of magnitude larger than the previous two, and the response is relatively fast. Therefore, recommendations to increase power load flexibility are using ES in boiler and DHN to reduce fuel fluctuation when power load change frequently, using ES in CW to reduce load responding time, and using ES in DHN to expand load regulation range.

ABSTRACT Aiming at the low mechanization of paddy field weeding and lack of dedicated agricultural machinery for paddy field weeding in China, a self-propelled system of paddy field weeding machine was designed. The overall structure and working principle of self-propelled system were illustrated and analyzed. The interaction mechanism of wheel-soil during weeding was analyzed. The wheel-soil interaction model was established, then, wheel traction and surface flatness were selected as the evaluation indexes for discrete element simulation experiment. The steering performance, stability, and over ridge ability of self-propelled system were analyzed, and field experiment was carried out. The simulation experiment results show that the wheel traction is approximately 600 N and the surface flatness is less than 30 mm. The field experiment results show that the minimum turning radius of the prototype is 2,050 mm in paddy, overturning limit angle of the prototype is 36°, and maximum height over the ridge is 400 mm. The speed range of the weeding machine on the road and weeding operation was 0~16.20 km/h and the 0~5.40 km/h respectively. The weeder can meet the speed demands of weeding operation. The study results can provide reference for research and development of paddy field operation machinery.

ObjectivesTo evaluate the in-hospital and later outcomes of thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) for type B intramural hematoma (TBIMH) combined with an aberrant subclavian artery (aSCA).MethodsIn the period from January 2014 to December 2020, 12 patients diagnosed with TBIMH combined with aSCA and treated by TEVAR were enrolled in this retrospective cohort study, including 11 patients with the aberrant right subclavian artery (ARSA) and 1 with an aberrant left subclavian artery (ALSA). A handmade fenestrated stent-graft or chimney stent or hybrid repair was performed when the proximal landing zone was not enough.ResultsThe mean age of all the patients was 59.2 ± 7.6 years, and 66.7% of patients were men. There were 4 patients with Kommerell's diverticulum (KD). The procedures in all 12 patients were technically successful. There was one case each of postoperative delirium, renal impairment, and type IV endoleak after TEVAR. During follow-up, 1 patient died of acute pancreatitis 7 months after TEVAR. The overall survival at 1, 3, and 5 years for the patients was 90.9, 90.9, and 90.9%, respectively. KD was excluded in 2 patients, and the handmade fenestrated stent-graft was applied in the other 2 patients to preserve the blood flow of the aSCA. No neurological complications developed and no progression of KD was observed during the follow-up.ConclusionThoracic endovascular aortic repair for patients with aSCA and TBIMH is promising. When KD was combined, we could exclude KD or preserve the blood flow of aSCA with regular follow-up for the diverticulum according to the size of the KD.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the P2Y2 receptor (P2Y2R) signaling pathway on neuronal regeneration and angiogenesis during spinal cord injury (SCI). The rats were randomly divided into 3 groups, including the sham+dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), SCI+DMSO, and SCI+P2Y2R groups. The SCI animal models were constructed. A locomotor rating scale was used for behavioral assessments. The apoptosis of spinal cord tissues was detected by TUNEL staining. The expression levels of P2Y2R, GFAP, nestin, Tuj1, and CD34 were detected by immunofluorescence staining, and the expression levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The locomotor score in the model group was significantly lower than the sham group. The expression of P2Y2R was increased after SCI. The expression levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 were increased remarkably in the SCI model group compared with the sham group. The P2Y2R inhibitor relieved neuronal inflammation after SCI. Compared with the sham group, the apoptotic rate of spinal cord tissue cells in the model group was significantly increased. The P2Y2R inhibitor reduced the apoptosis of the spinal cord tissue. The expressions of CD34, Tuj1, and nestin in the model group were decreased, while the expressions of GFAP and P2Y2R were increased. The P2Y2R inhibitor reversed their expression levels. The P2Y2R inhibitor could alleviate SCI by relieving the neuronal inflammation, inhibiting the spinal cord tissue apoptosis, and promoting neuronal differentiation and vascular proliferation after SCI. P2Y2R may serve as a target for the treatment of SCI.

Rhizome fragmentation and sand burial are common phenomena in rhizomatous clonal plants. These traits serve as an adaptive strategy for survival in stressful environments. Thus far, some studies have been carried out on the effects of rhizome fragmentation and sand burial, but how the interaction between rhizome fragmentation and sand burial affects the growth and reproduction of rhizomatous clonal plants is unclear. We investigated the effect of the burial depth and rhizome fragment size on the survival and growth of the rhizomatous herb Phragmites communis using 288 clonal fragments (6 burial depths × 8 clonal fragment sizes × 6 replicates) in a field rhizome severing experiment. The ramet survival of the rhizomatous species significantly increased with the sand burial depth and clonal fragment size (p < 0.01), and the effects of the clonal fragment size on ramet survival depended on the sand burial depth. Sand burial enhanced both the vertical and horizontal biomass (p < 0.05), while the clonal fragment size affected the vertical biomass rather than the horizontal biomass. Sand burial facilitated the vertical growth of ramets (p < 0.05) while the number of newly produced ramets firstly increased and then decreased with the increasing clonal fragment size, and the maximal value appeared in four clonal fragments under a heavy sand burial depth. There is an interaction between the burial depth and rhizome fragment size in the growth of rhizome herbaceous plants. The population growth increases in the increase of sand burial depth, and reaches the maximum under severe sand burial and moderate rhizome fragmentation.

Abstract Background Biofuel production from plant cell walls offers the potential for sustainable and economically attractive alternatives to petroleum-based products. In particular, Clostridium thermocellum is a promising host for consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) because of its strong native ability to ferment cellulose. Results We tested 12 different enzyme combinations to identify an n-butanol pathway with high titer and thermostability in C. thermocellum. The best producing strain contained the thiolase–hydroxybutyryl-CoA dehydrogenase–crotonase (Thl-Hbd-Crt) module from Thermoanaerobacter thermosaccharolyticum, the trans-enoyl-CoA reductase (Ter) enzyme from Spirochaeta thermophila and the butyraldehyde dehydrogenase and alcohol dehydrogenase (Bad-Bdh) module from Thermoanaerobacter sp. X514 and was able to produce 88 mg/L n-butanol. The key enzymes from this combination were further optimized by protein engineering. The Thl enzyme was engineered by introducing homologous mutations previously identified in Clostridium acetobutylicum. The Hbd and Ter enzymes were engineered for changes in cofactor specificity using the CSR-SALAD algorithm to guide the selection of mutations. The cofactor engineering of Hbd had the unexpected side effect of also increasing activity by 50-fold. Conclusions Here we report engineering C. thermocellum to produce n-butanol. Our initial pathway designs resulted in low levels (88 mg/L) of n-butanol production. By engineering the protein sequence of key enzymes in the pathway, we increased the n-butanol titer by 2.2-fold. We further increased n-butanol production by adding ethanol to the growth media. By combining all these improvements, the engineered strain was able to produce 357 mg/L of n-butanol from cellulose within 120 h.

Small object detection is a major challenge in the field of object detection. With the development of deep learning, many methods based on deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) have greatly improved the speed of detection while ensuring accuracy. However, due to the contradiction between the spatial details and semantic information of DCNNs, previous deep learning methods often meet problems when detecting small objects. The challenge can be more serious in complex scenes involving similar background objects and/or occlusion, such as in remote sensing imagery. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end DCNN called the multi-component fusion network (MCFN) to improve the accuracy of small object detection in such cases. First, we propose a dual pyramid fusion network, which densely concatenates spatial information and semantic information to extract small object features via encoding and decoding operations. Then we use a relative region proposal network to adequately extract the features of small objects samples and parts of objects. Finally, to achieve robustness against background disturbance, we add contextual information to the proposal regions before final detection. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the accuracy of object detection in remote sensing images compared with other state-of-the-art methods, especially in complex scenes with the conditions of occlusion.

In recent years, some composite insulators operating in coastal foggy areas have shown different levels of degradation phenomena. This paper presents several performances and properties of silicone rubber under the salt-fog environment with AC voltage. Analysis conducted after salt-fog treatment by techniques, such as static contact angle, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), dielectric parameter, and flashover voltage show a significant degradation of samples. The absorption peak of the hydrophobic groups (Si-(CH3)2 and Si-CH3) decreased, the surface of the material became rough, and the dielectric and electrical properties were also deteriorated. Due to the thermal effects and impact of high-energy particles, the molecular chains on the surface of silicone rubber were broken, and the smooth surface structure was destroyed, resulting in the formation of hydrophilic chemical bonds and precipitation of inorganic substances. The intrusion of moisture further reduces the dielectric parameters and the electrical strength of the material. In addition, the samples in the salt-fog environment with a greater conductivity are more degraded, indicating that the salt-fog has an aggravating effect on the aging of the silicone rubber. Thus, it is recommended to pay attention to the monitoring and examining the work of composite insulators operating in a foggy and high humidity environment.

The kinetics and dynamic evolution of material structures need a comprehensive understanding of the potential energy landscape at current sample state. The Activation–Relaxation Technique (ART) is an efficient way to probe the potential energy landscape by sampling a large amount of events (a single event involves initial, saddle and final state) from which a statistical distribution of activation energy barrier can be extracted. However, there has been a lack of a user-friendly toolkit to automate the parallelization of running of ART simulations and post-processing of data from ART simulations to extract useful physics information and insights. The ART_data_analyzer Python package has been developed to serve this purpose and fill in this gap for the broad community of scientific researchers interested in the kinetics and dynamic transitions of material structures. As a demo, we utilized this software package to demonstrate the user-friendly workflow of studying ZrCuAl metallic glass sample prepared by molecular dynamics. Keywords: Activation and relaxation techniques, Kinetics, Automation and parallelization, Machine learning