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In this paper, Index Modulation (IM) aided Generalized Space-Time Block Coding (GSTBC) is proposed, which intrinsically exploits the benefits of IM concept, diversity gain and spatial multiplexing gain. Specifically, the information bits are partitioned into U groups, with each being modulated by IM symbols (i.e. Spatial Modulation (SM), Quadrature SM (QSM),etc). Next, the structure of GSTBC is invoked for each K IM symbol, and a total of μ ​= ​U/K GSTBC codes are transmitted via T time slots. A Block Expectation Propagation (B-EP) detector is designed for the proposed IM-GSTBC structure. Moreover, the theoretical Average Bit Error Probability (ABEP) is derived for our IM-GSTBC system, which is confirmed by the simulation results and helpful for performance evaluation. Simulation results show that our proposed IM-GSTBC system is capable of striking an efficient trade-off between spatial multiplexing gain, spatial diversity gain as well as implementation cost imposed for both small-scale and large-scale MIMO antenna configurations.

Abstract. Background:. Gastric cancer (GC), a malignant tumor with poor prognosis, is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide; consequently, identifying novel therapeutic targets is crucial for its corresponding treatment. NUF2, a component of the NDC80 kinetochore complex, promotes cancer progression in multiple malignancies. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the potential of NUF2 as a therapeutic target to inhibit GC progression. Methods:. Clinical samples were obtained from patients who underwent radical resection of GC at Lanzhou University Second Hospital from 2016 to 2021. Cell count assays, colony formation assays, and cell-derived xenotransplantation (CDX) models were used to determine the effects of NUF2 on GC progression. Flow cytometry was used to detect the effect of NUF2 or quercetin on cell cycle progression and apoptosis. A live-cell time-lapse imaging assay was performed to determine the effect of NUF2 on the regulation of mitotic progression. Transcriptomics was used to investigate the NUF2-associated molecular mechanisms. Virtual docking and microscale thermophoresis were used to identify NUF2 inhibitors. Finally, CDX, organoid, and patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models were used to examine the efficacy of the NUF2 inhibitor in GC. Results:. NUF2 expression was significantly increased in GC and was negatively correlated with prognosis. The deletion of NUF2 suppressed GC progression both in vivo and in vitro. NUF2 significantly regulated the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, promoted G2/M phase transition, and inhibited apoptosis in GC cells. Additionally, quercetin was identified as a selective NUF2 inhibitor with low toxicity that significantly suppressed tumor growth in GC cells, organoids, CDX, and PDX models. Conclusions:. Collectively, NUF2-mediated G2/M phase transition and apoptosis inhibition promoted GC progression; additionally, NUF2 inhibitors exhibited potent anti-GC activity. This study provides a new strategy for targeting NUF2 to suppress GC progression in clinical settings.

In this paper, efficient signal detectors are designed for Orthogonal Time Frequency Space (OTFS) modulation with Index Modulation (IM) systems. Firstly, the Minimum Mean Squared Error (MMSE) based linear equalizer and its corresponding soft-aided decision are studied for OTFS-IM. To further improve the performance, a Vector-by-Vector-aided Message Passing (VV-MP) detector and its associated soft-decision are proposed, where each IM symbol is considered an entire vector utilized for message calculation and passing. Simulation results are shown that the OTFS-IM system relying on the proposed detectors is capable of providing considerable Bit Error Rate (BER) performance gains over the OTFS and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) with IM systems.

To investigate the effects of different microwave drying conditions on the texture and nutritional quality of candied strawberries in a vacuum environment. This study investigated the effects of three different vacuum microwave treatment conditions (2.5 w/g-1.5 h, 3.5 w/g-1 h, 4.5 w/g-0.5 h) on moisture migration characteristics, texture, microstructure, color, anthocyanins, and phenolics of candied strawberries, which were evaluated by hot air drying. The results showed that the time required for vacuum microwave drying to dry candied strawberries to 20%±2% moisture content was significantly lower than that of hot air, and the higher the microwave power, the shorter the drying time. In addition, the water in the candied strawberries obtained after drying mainly appeared in two states, namely, bound water and water not easy to flow. The relaxation time T2 of strawberry candied strawberries obtained by vacuum microwave drying increased with the increase of microwave power, which indicated that the degree of freedom of water increased. Cross-sectional microscopic observation found that vacuum microwave drying caused cell wall rupture, and the higher the microwave power, the closer the site of fissure formation to the medullary core, and the bigger the fissure, and the smaller the porosity, whereas the cellular integrity and the porosity of the samples dried by the hot air were higher than that of microwave drying. In addition, the hardness, viscosity, and a* value of vacuum microwave-dried dried strawberry preserves were lower than those of hot air-dried samples, but the L* value, total sugar, anthocyanin, and phenolic content were higher. In conclusion, vacuum microwave drying had higher drying efficiency and could better retain the nutrients such as anthocyanins in candied strawberries.

Water bamboo shoots (Zizania latifolia) is prone to quality deterioration during cold storage after harvest, which causes the decline of commodity value. Chlorophyll synthesis and lignin deposition are the major reasons for quality degradation. This paper studied the influence of exogenous melatonin (MT) on the cold storage quality of water bamboo shoots. MT treatment could delay the increase in skin browning, hardness and weight loss rate, inhibit chlorophyll synthesis and color change of water bamboo shoots, while maintain the content of total phenols and flavonoids, and inhibit lignin deposition by inhibiting the activity and gene expression of phenylpropanoid metabolism related enzymes as PAL, C4H, 4CL, CAD, and POD. The results indicate that exogenous MT treatment can effectively inhibit the quality degradation of cold stored water bamboo shoots.

In this paper, we consider a novel vector-valued rational interpolation algorithm and its application. Compared to the classic vector-valued rational interpolation algorithm, the proposed algorithm relaxes the constraint that the denominators of components of the interpolation function must be identical. Furthermore, this algorithm can be applied to construct the vector-valued interpolation function component-wise, with the help of the common divisors among the denominators of components. Through experimental comparisons with the classic vector-valued rational interpolation algorithm, it is found that the proposed algorithm exhibits low construction cost, low degree of the interpolation function, and high approximation accuracy.

Background Adenocarcinoma, the most prevalent histological subtype of non-small cell lung cancer, is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of bone metastasis compared to other subtypes. The presence of bone metastasis has a profound adverse impact on patient prognosis. However, to date, there is a lack of accurate bone metastasis prediction models. As a result, this study aims to employ machine learning algorithms for predicting the risk of bone metastasis in patients. Method We collected a dataset comprising 19,454 cases of solitary, primary lung adenocarcinoma with pulmonary nodules measuring less than 3 cm. These cases were diagnosed between 2010 and 2015 and were sourced from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Utilizing clinical feature indicators, we developed predictive models using seven machine learning algorithms, namely extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), logistic regression (LR), light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost), Gaussian Naive Bayes (GNB), multilayer perceptron (MLP) and support vector machine (SVM). Results The results demonstrated that XGBoost exhibited superior performance among the four algorithms (training set: AUC: 0.913; test set: AUC: 0.853). Furthermore, for convenient application, we created an online scoring system accessible at the following URL: https://www.xsmartanalysis.com/model/predict/?mid=731symbol=7Fr16wX56AR9Mk233917, which is based on the highest performing model. Conclusion XGBoost proves to be an effective algorithm for predicting the occurrence of bone metastasis in patients with solitary, primary lung adenocarcinoma featuring pulmonary nodules below 3 cm in size. Moreover, its robust clinical applicability enhances its potential utility.

This study aimed to determine the effects of different doses of Acremonium terricola culture (ATC) on lactation performance, immune function, antioxidant capacity, and intestinal flora of sows. Forty-five Landrace sows (3–6 parity) were randomly assigned to the following three treatments from 85 days of gestation to 21 days after farrowing: a control diet (CON, basal diet), a low-dose Acremonium terricola culture diet (0.2% ATC, basal diet + 0.2% ATC), and a high-dose Acremonium terricola culture diet (0.4% ATC, basal diet + 0.4% ATC). Compared with the CON group, the supplementation of 0.2% ATC increased the average daily milk yield of sows by 4.98%, increased milk fat, total solids, and freezing point depression on day 1 postpartum (p < 0.05), increased serum concentration of Triiodothyronine, Thyroxin, and Estradiol on day 21 postpartum (p < 0.05). Compared with the CON group, the supplementation of 0.4% ATC increased the average daily milk yield of sows by 9.38% (p < 0.05). Furthermore, the supplementation of 0.2% ATC increased serum concentration of IgG, IgM, and IFN-γ, CD4 on day 1 postpartum (p < 0.05) and increased serum concentration of immunoglobulin A ( IgA), immunoglobulin G (IgG), immunoglobulin M ( IgM), complement 3 (C3), cluster of differentiation 4 (CD4), cluster of differentiation 8 (CD8), interferon-γ (IFN-γ) on day 21 postpartum (p < 0.05), while the supplementation of 0.4% ATC reduced serum concentration of IL-2 on day 21 postpartum (p < 0.05). Moreover, the supplementation of 0.4% ATC significantly increased serum concentration of catalase (CAT) (p < 0.05). Additionally, the supplementation of ATC affected the relative abundance of the intestinal flora at different taxonomic levels in sows and increased the abundance of beneficial bacteria such as in the norank_f__Eubacterium_coprostanoligenes group, Eubacterium_coprostanoligenes group, and Lachnospiraceae_XPB1014 group of sows, while reducing the abundance of harmful bacteria such as Phascolarctobacterium and Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1. These data revealed that the supplementation of ATC during late gestation and lactation can improve lactation performance, immune function, antioxidant capacity, and the gut microbiota. Compared with supplementation of 0.4% ATC, 0.2% ATC enhances the levels of thyroid-related hormones, specific antibodies, and cytokines in serum, promotes the diversity of beneficial gut microbiota, beneficial bacteria in the intestine, reduces the population of harmful bacteria, and thereby bolsters the immunity of sows. Hence, 0.2% ATC is deemed a more optimal concentration.

Live fish transportation is crucial for managing aquaculture but can pose health risks to fish due to stressors encountered during transportation. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is an inhibitory neurotransmitter that plays a crucial role in the central nervous system and is considered to exhibit anti-stress effects. This study aims to investigate the effects of GABA on the transport water quality, plasma biochemical indices, energy metabolism, and antioxidant capacity of tawny puffer (Takifugu flavidus) under transport stress. Tawny puffer were pretreated by immersing in aquariums containing GABA (final concentrations at 0, 5, 50, and 150 mg/L) seawater for 3 days; then, simulated transport was conducted using oxygen-filled polyethylene bags containing the same concentration of GABA seawater as the pretreatment period. Water samples, plasma, and liver were collected after 0, 6, and 12 h of transport. The results revealed that with the prolongation of transportation time, the control group’s water quality deteriorated, stress-related plasma biochemical indices increased, glycolytic substrate contents decreased, glycolytic enzyme activities and product contents increased, and aerobic metabolic enzyme activities exhibited initial increases followed by declines, ATPase activities decreased, antioxidant enzyme activities decreased, and the lipid peroxidation marker contents increased. It is noteworthy that GABA treatment could avoid water quality deterioration during transportation, inhibit an elevation in stress-related biochemical indicators, regulate energy metabolism, and reduce oxidative damage in tawny puffer, especially at 50 and 150 mg/L concentrations. In summary, GABA treatment can effectively alleviate the transport stress of tawny puffer.

In order to discover the moisture distribution and migration during the drying process of strawberries at constant or gradient temperatures and the effect on the quality of dried strawberries, the strawberries which had experienced osmotic dehydration were dried under constant temperatures (60 °C-12 h, flip it over when dry to 6 h) and gradient temperature (65 °C-2 h, 60 °C-2 h, 55 °C-2 h, flip it over, 65 °C-2 h，60 °C-2 h，55 °C-2 h) during hot air drying. Low-field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) was used and the physicochemical (texture, VC, total phenols) and sensory qualities (flavor, texture, taste, color) of the preserved strawberries obtained by the two drying programs were compared. The results showed that the water content of the dry base of strawberries at both programs decreased with time extending gradually, but the rate of gradient temperature was higher than that of constant temperature drying. From the T2 inversion spectra and peak areas of LF-NMR, it illustrated that the free water was the main form of water in the osmotically dehydrated strawberries, and there were also a small amount of bound water and immobile water. With the drying procedure proceeded, the T2 peak of the strawberry gradually decreases, which indicates a decrease in the mobility of the water. However, the total relaxation peak area of constant temperature drying and gradient drying was reduced to 31.3% and 26.4% of the original at the end of the drying programs, which showed that the gradient drying had higher drying efficiency. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that the water in strawberries was firstly enriched to the broken tip of the fruit and dispersed, then in the medium of the drying process, the peel took the main position for the water evaporation, and finally some water left in the pith. From the imaging results, the main difference between the two drying programs was that there was an obvious homogeneous wetness phenomenon in the strawberries after 6 h drying i.e. the water was redistributed evenly in the fruit at that time, while this process did not appeared in the gradient drying. In addition, the VC and total phenolic contents of dried strawberries were significantly higher (P

This study’s aim was to detect NR5A2 expression and explore association between single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the NR5A2 gene with reproductive traits in Jiaxing Black (JXB) sows. The expression analysis showed that the expression level of pig NR5A2 mRNA in the ovary and liver was significantly higher (p T, g.84609G > A, g.136759G > C, g.138802T > C, g.138864A > G) met Hardy Weinberg equilibrium conditions. The total number of piglets born (TBA) and number of still born piglets (NSB) of sows with GG genotype at the g.136759G > C loci were higher than the CC genotype (P G loci, individuals with the AA genotype had significantly higher TBA than those of sows with the AG genotype (P G and g.136759G > C loci had significant effects on the NR5A2 mRNA expression level in the ovary. The above results indicated that SNPs within NR5A2 exons of the NR5A2 gene have a certain effect on the reproductive traits of JXB pigs.

Over the last several decades, China has continuously introduced Duroc boars and used them as breeding boars. Although this crossbreeding method has increased pork production, it has affected pork quality. Nowadays, one of the primary goals of industrial breeding and production systems is to enhance the quality of meat. This research analyzed the molecular mechanisms that control the quality of pork and may be used as a guide for future efforts to enhance meat quality. The genetic mechanisms of cross-breeding for meat quality improvement were investigated by combining transcriptome and metabolome analysis, using Chinese native Jiaxing black (JXB) pigs and crossbred Duroc × Duroc × Berkshire × JXB (DDBJ) pigs. In the longissimus Dorsi muscle, the content of inosine monophosphate, polyunsaturated fatty acid, and amino acids were considerably higher in JXB pigs in contrast with that of DDBJ pigs, whereas DDBJ pigs have remarkably greater levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids than JXB pigs. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differential metabolites were identified using transcriptomic and metabolomic KEGG enrichment analyses. Differential metabolites mainly include amino acids, fatty acids, and phospholipids. In addition, several DEGs that may explain differences in meat quality between the two pig types were found, including genes associated with the metabolism of lipids (e.g., DGKA, LIPG, and LPINI), fatty acid (e.g., ELOVL5, ELOVL4, and ACAT2), and amino acid (e.g., SLC7A2, SLC7A4). Combined with the DEGS-enriched signaling pathways, the regulatory mechanisms related to amino acids, fatty acids, and phospholipids were mapped. The abundant metabolic pathways and DEGs may provide insight into the specific molecular mechanism that regulates meat quality. Optimizing the composition of fatty acids, phospholipids, amino acids, and other compounds in pork is conducive to improving meat quality. Overall, these findings will provide useful information and further groundwork for enhancing the meat quality that may be achieved via hybrid breeding.

Peach (Prunus persica Batsch ‘Yuhualu’) fruit are sensitive to chilling injury (CI). Proline, polyamine (PA), and nitric oxide (NO) are important small regulators of various metabolic pathways under chilling stress that mitigate CI. Ethylene is known to promote senescence and CI, while 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) is an antagonist that inhibits the effects of ethylene. However, how 1-MCP and ethylene affect proline, PA, and NO levels under chilling stress remains unclear. To address these questions, 1-MCP (1 µL · L−1) and ethylene (1 µL · L−1) treatments were applied to peach fruit. Fruit were stored at 4 °C for 28 d, then moved to 25 °C for 3 d immediately after cold storage. Peach fruit exhibited CI symptoms after 7 d of cold storage with enhanced electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde contents. The 1-MCP treatment significantly (P

The changes in the texture and flavor of lotus root were determined before and after boiling, steaming and frying. Compared to fresh lotus root, all three kinds of cooking decreased the hardness and springiness, and frying significantly enhanced the gumminess, chewiness and cohesiveness. The flavor components, such as flavor amino acids, nucleotides and their taste character in lotus roots, were determined by liquid chromatography and electronic tongue. The amino acids and nucleotide contents of fresh lotus root were 20.9 and 0.07 μg/kg, respectively. The content of flavor substances in lotus roots decreased obviously, and the texture characteristics decreased after boiling and steaming. After deep-frying for 2 min, the free amino acids and nucleotide contents of lotus root were 32.09 and 0.85 μg/kg, respectively, which were the highest in all cooking methods. The contents of volatile flavor components and their smell character in lotus roots were determined by GC-MS and electronic nose. There were 58 kinds of flavor compounds identified in fresh lotus root, mainly alcohols, esters and olefins. The total amount of volatile flavor compounds decreased, and new compounds, such as benzene derivatives, were produced in lotus roots after boiling and steaming. After deep-frying, the content of volatile flavor compounds in lotus root increased significantly, especially the aldehyde volatile flavor compounds. The production of pyran, pyrazine and pyridine volatile flavor compounds made the lotus root flavor unique and delicious. The taste and smell character of lotus roots before and after cooking were effectively separated by an electronic tongue, nose and PCA analysis; the results suggested the boiled lotus root exhibited the most natural and characteristic taste and smell among the four groups.

In this paper, we propose a differential multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme based on the novel concept of chaos-based time-varying unitary matrices to demonstrate—for the first time in the literature—the ability of differential encoding in achieving practical physical layer security even without the need for using channel estimation. In the proposed scheme, an erroneous secret key, which is extracted from the wireless nature, is used to initialize a chaos sequence that is responsible for generating artificially time-varying unitary matrices capable of obfuscating the transmitted data symbols from illegitimate eavesdroppers. Contrary to conventional studies, the key agreement ratio in this study is assumed to be imperfect, which is often true and very realistic in high-mobility scenarios. Following this, we conceive a new calibration algorithm for reconciling the chaotic sequence generated at the legitimate parties, thus making this calibration algorithm a unique, novel solution to the key sharing problem of conventional chaos-based communication techniques, which has been overlooked over the past few decades. It is found out that differential encoding obviates additional complexity and insecurity in dealing with channel estimation, whereas an eavesdropper must tackle the complicated differentially encoded patterns, which have an exponentially increasing complexity order. In addition, the obtained simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can outperform conventional chaos-based MIMO schemes that assume perfect channel knowledge.

Non-orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) has been envisioned as one of the key enabling techniques to fulfill the requirements of future wireless networks. The primary benefit of NOMA is higher spectrum efficiency compared to Orthogonal Multiple Access (OMA). This paper presents an error rate comparison of two distinct NOMA schemes, i.e., power domain NOMA (PD-NOMA) and Sparse Code Multiple Access (SCMA). In a typical PD-NOMA system, successive interference cancellation (SIC) is utilized at the receiver, which however may lead to error propagation. In comparison, message passing decoding is employed in SCMA. To attain the best error rate performance of PD-NOMA, we optimize the power allocation with the aid of pairwise error probability and then carry out the decoding using generalized sphere decoder (GSD). Our extensive simulation results show that SCMA system with “ $5\times 10$ ” setting (i.e., ten users communicate over five subcarriers, each active over two subcarriers) achieves better uncoded BER and coded BER performance than both typical “ $1\times 2$ ” and “ $2\times 4$ ” PD-NOMA systems in uplink Rayleigh fading channel. Finally, the impacts of channel estimation error on SCMA, SIC and GSD based PD-NOMA and the complexity of multiuser detection schemes are also discussed.

Abstract Background Drought stress is the most harmful one among other abiotic stresses with negative impacts on crop growth and development. Drought-hardening is a feasible and widely used method in tobacco seedlings cultivation. It has gained extensive interests due to its role in improving drought tolerance. This research aimed to investigate the role of drought-hardening and to unravel the multiple mechanisms underlying tobacco drought tolerance and adaptation. Results This study was designed in which various drought-hardening treatments (CK (no drought-hardening), T1 (drought-hardening for 24 h), T2 (drought-hardening for 48 h), and T3 (drought-hardening for 72 h)) were applied to two tobacco varieties namely HongHuaDaJinYuan (H) and Yun Yan-100 (Y). The findings presented a complete framework of drought-hardening effect at physiological, biochemical, and gene expression levels of the two tobacco varieties under drought stress. The results showed that T2 and T3 significantly reduced the growth of the two varieties under drought stress. Similarly, among the various drought-hardening treatments, T3 improved both the enzymatic (POD, CAT, APX) and non-enzymatic (AsA) defense systems along with the elevated levels of proline and soluble sugar to mitigate the negative effects of oxidative damage and bringing osmoregulation in tobacco plants. Finally, the various drought-hardening treatments (T1, T2, and T3) showed differential regulation of genes expressed in the two varieties, while, particularly T3 drought-hardening treatment-induced drought tolerance via the expression of various stress-responsive genes by triggering the biosynthesis pathways of proline (P5CS1), polyamines (ADC2), ABA-dependent (SnRK2, AREB1), and independent pathways (DREB2B), and antioxidant defense-related genes (CAT, APX1, GR2) in response to drought stress. Conclusions Drought-hardening made significant contributions to drought tolerance and adaptation in two tobacco variety seedlings by reducing its growth and, on the other hand, by activating various defense mechanisms at biochemical and molecular levels. The findings of the study pointed out that drought-hardening is a fruitful strategy for conferring drought tolerance and adaptations in tobacco. It will be served as a useful method in the future to understand the drought tolerance and adaptation mechanisms of other plant species. Graphical abstract Drought-hardening improved drought tolerance and adaptation of the two tobacco varieties. T1 indicates drought-hardening for 24 h, T2 indicates drought-hardening for 48 h, T3 indicates drought-hardening for 72 h

High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) can enhance the physicochemical properties of soluble dietary fiber (SDF) from fruit and vegetable residues including hydration properties, emulsibility, and rheological properties, while the pretreatment methods such as solid-water suspension status are ignored all along. Here, three groups of lotus root residue (LRR) for HHP treatment (400 MPa, 15 min) were prepared: the fresh lotus root residue (FLRR), FLRR mixed with water (FLRR + W), and dried FLRR suspended in water at the same solid/water level with FLRR + W (DLRR + W). As a control, non-HHP-treated FLRR was tested. Results showed that FLRR + W obtained the highest SDF yield and presented a honeycomb structure which was not observed in other LRR samples. In addition, properties of SDF extract from FLRR + W changed most significantly, including not only the enhancement of SDF yield, the improvement of hydration properties, and the reduction of molecular weight but also the increase of thermal and rheological stability. Principal component analysis (PCA) profile illustrated that the difference of LRR-water system contributed 27.6% to the SDF physicochemical changes, and SDF from DLRR + W distinguished it from the other samples with mannose, ribose, and glucuronic acid, indicating that the drying procedure also played a role in the HHP treatment focusing on the sugar constitution. Therefore, the solid-water suspension status is a noteworthy issue before HHP treatment aiming at SDF modification.

Intestinal colonization is beneficial to the role of probiotics, and prebiotics can promote the adhesion and colonization of probiotics in the intestine. This study optimized the combination of complex prebiotics that could improve the growth ability and adhesion ability of Limosilactobacillus fermentum (L. fermentum) DALI02 to Caco-2 cells in vitro and determined the effect of its colonization quantity and colonization time in the immunocompromised rat model. The results showed that all five prebiotics (fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS), galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), inulin, stachyose, and xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS)) significantly promoted the growth and adhesion of L. fermentum DALI02. It was found that 0.5% (w/w) inulin had the best growth promotion effect, and 0.5% FOS had the strongest adhesion promotion (the adhesion rate was increase by 1.75 times). In addition, 0.05% FOS, 0.20% GOS, 0.30% inulin, 0.20% stachyose, and 0.30% XOS could significantly improve the adhesion rate of L. fermentum DALI02 from 1.72% to 3.98%. After 1 w of intervention, the quantity of colonization in the fermented broth with prebiotics group was significantly higher than that in the fermented broth group. The intervention time was extended from 1 d to 4 w, and the amount of colonization of L. fermentum DALI02 in the fermented broth with prebiotics group increased significantly from 4.32 lgcopies/g to 5.12 lgcopies/g. After the intervention, the serum levels of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and D-lactic acid in rats were significantly reduced, and the most significant was in the fermented broth with prebiotics group, with LPS and D-lactic acid levels of 74.11 pg/mL and 40.33 μmol/L, respectively. Complex prebiotics can promote the growth and adhesion of L. fermentum DALI02 and significantly increase the quantity of colonization and residence time of the strain in the intestine, which helps the restoration of intestinal barrier function and other probiotic effects.

Roads are closely related to people’s lives, and road network extraction has become one of the most important remote sensing tasks. This study aimed to propose a road extraction network with an embedded attention mechanism to solve the problem of automatic extraction of road networks from a large number of remote sensing images. Channel attention mechanism and spatial attention mechanism were introduced to enhance the use of spectral information and spatial information based on the U-Net framework. Moreover, residual densely connected blocks were introduced to enhance feature reuse and information flow transfer, and a residual dilated convolution module was introduced to extract road network information at different scales. The experimental results showed that the method proposed in this study outperformed the compared algorithms in overall accuracy. This method had fewer false detections, and the extracted roads were closer to ground truth. Ablation experiments showed that the proposed modules could effectively improve road extraction accuracy.

Prefix-based multicarrier transmission is in wide application in current wireless communications, at the expense of extra redundancy and reduced spectral efficiency. In this contribution, we propose a novel hybrid prefix (HP) structure, which can offer higher spectral efficiency for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based future wireless communications, such as 5G and beyond systems. Compared with the conventional prefix aided OFDM scheme, the proposed HP-OFDM scheme is capable of reducing the average length of the prefix with the aid of a proposed low-complexity detector for efficient signal restoration. We also quantify the signal to interference plus noise and the achievable rate of the proposed HP-OFDM scheme through a theoretical analysis. Furthermore, the bit-error rate (BER) of the proposed HP-OFDM is also theoretically derived. Our scheme results demonstrate that HP-OFDM is capable of reducing the prefix overhead by 50% compared with prefix-aided OFDM, while achieving a BER comparable to that of prefix-aided OFDM.

Generalized spatial modulation (GSM), where both the transmit antenna combination (TAC) index and the amplitude phase modulation (APM) symbols convey information, is a novel low-complexity and high efficiency multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique. In conventional GSM (C-GSM), the legitimate TACs are selected randomly to transmit the APM symbols. However, the number of the TACs must be a power of two, hence the excess TACs are discarded, resulting in wasting some resource. To address these issues, in this paper, an optimal TAC set-aided enhanced GSM (E-GSM) scheme is proposed, where the optimal TAC set is selected with the aid of the channel state information (CSI) by maximizing the minimum Euclidean distance. Furthermore, a hybrid mapping GSM (HM-GSM) scheme operating without CSI knowledge is investigated, where the TAC selection and bit-to-TAC mapping are both taken into consideration for optimizing the average Hamming distance. Finally, an enhanced high throughput GSM (E-HT-GSM) scheme is developed, which makes full use of all the TACs. This scheme is capable of achieving an extra one bit transmission rate per time slot. Moreover, the rotated phase is employed and optimized for the reused TACs. Our simulation results show that the proposed E-GSM system and HM-GSM system are capable of outperforming the C-GSM system. Furthermore, the E-HT-GSM system is capable of obtaining one extra bit transmission rate per time slot compared with the C-GSM system.