Search

Abstract Background Accumulating evidences indicate regional grey matter (GM) morphology alterations in pediatric growth hormone deficiency (GHD); however, large-scale morphological brain networks (MBNs) undergo these patients remains unclear. Objective To investigate the topological organization of individual-level MBNs in pediatric GHD. Methods Sixty-one GHD and 42 typically developing controls (TDs) were enrolled. Inter-regional morphological similarity of GM was taken to construct individual-level MBNs. Between-group differences of topological parameters and network-based statistics analysis were compared. Finally, association relationship between network properties and clinical variables was analyzed. Results Compared to TDs, GHD indicated a disturbance in the normal small-world organization, reflected by increased Lp, γ, λ, σ and decreased Cp, Eglob (all P FDR < 0.017). Regarding nodal properties, GHD exhibited increased nodal profiles at cerebellum 4-5, central executive network-related left inferior frontal gyrus, limbic regions-related right posterior cingulate gyrus, left hippocampus, and bilateral pallidum, thalamus (all P FDR < 0.05). Meanwhile, GHD exhibited decreased nodal profiles at sensorimotor network -related bilateral paracentral lobule, default-mode network-related left superior frontal gyrus, visual network -related right lingual gyrus, auditory network-related right superior temporal gyrus and bilateral amygdala, right cerebellum 3, bilateral cerebellum 10, vermis 1-2, 3, 4-5, 6 (all P FDR < 0.05). Furthermore, serum markers and behavior scores in GHD group were correlated with altered nodal profiles (P ≤ 0.046, uncorrected). Conclusion GHD undergo an extensive reorganization in large-scale individual-level MBNs, probably due to abnormal cortico-striatal-thalamo-cerebellum loops, cortico-limbic-cerebellum, dorsal visual-sensorimotor-striatal, and auditory-cerebellum circuitry. This study highlights the crucial role of abnormal morphological connectivity underlying GHD, which might result in their relatively slower development in motor, cognitive, and linguistic functional within behavior problem performance.

Abstract Electrochromic (EC) devices represent an emerging energy-saving technology, exhibiting the capability to dynamically modulate light and heat transmittance. Despite their promising potential, the commercialization of EC devices faces substantial impediments such as high cost, intricate fabrication process, and low optical contrast inherent in conventional EC materials relying on the ion insertion/extraction mechanism. In this study, we introduce an innovative “electrode-free” electrochromic (EC) device, termed the EECD, which lacks an EC-layer on the electrodes during device assembling and in the bleached state. This device features a simplified fabrication process and delivers superior optical modulation. It achieves a high optical contrast ranging from 68-85% across the visible spectrum and boasts a rapid response time, reaching 90% coloring in just 17 seconds. In addition, EECD exhibits stable cycling for over 10,000 cycles without noticeable degradation and maintains functionality across a broad temperature range (0 °C to 50 °C). Furthermore, the fabricated large-area devices (40 cm × 40 cm) demonstrate excellent tinting uniformity, suggesting excellent scalability of this approach. Our study establishes a paradigmatic breakthrough for EC smart windows.

Heavy rainfall is the main factor triggering geological disasters. In the northern region of China, most of the researches focus on the geologic disasters caused by short-term heavy rainfall, and the researches on the characteristics of geologic disasters under regional extreme precipitation conditions are still insufficient. Based on the sample analysis of geological disasters triggered by the “23•7” heavy rainfall, the regular characteristics of geological disasters in the Hebei section of the Taihang Mountains were studied. The results show that: (1) geologic hazards show the trend of multiple and group occurrence, and the number of occurrences reaches a new high in history, and the types of avalanches, landslides, and mudslides are the main ones, which stimulate new geologic hazards to increase significantly; (2) the spatial and temporal scales of occurrence of geologic hazards and the area of heavy rainfall are highly coincident with each other, and the south and north sections of the Taihang Mountains show a differentiated distribution; (3) mudslides cause the most damage, and slope-type mudslides are obviously more frequent, and the loose material-covered landslides are more frequent and easier to occur. cover type landslides are more frequent and prone to occur. The results of the study can provide a reference for the prevention of geologic disasters under extreme precipitation conditions.

Abstract Background Flavonoids are one of the bioactive ingredients of Lonicera macranthoides (L. macranthoides), however, their biosynthesis in the flower is still unclear. In this study, combined transcriptomic and targeted metabolomic analyses were performed to clarify the flavonoids biosynthesis during flowering of L. macranthoides. Results In the three sample groups, GB_vs_WB, GB_vs_WF and GB_vs_GF, there were 25, 22 and 18 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in flavonoids biosynthetic pathway respectively. A total of 339 flavonoids were detected and quantified at four developmental stages of flower in L. macranthoides. In the three sample groups, 113, 155 and 163 differentially accumulated flavonoids (DAFs) were detected respectively. Among the DAFs, most apigenin derivatives in flavones and most kaempferol derivatives in flavonols were up-regulated. Correlation analysis between DEGs and DAFs showed that the down-regulated expressions of the CHS, DFR, C4H, F3’H, CCoAOMT_32 and the up-regulated expressions of the two HCTs resulted in down-regulated levels of dihydroquercetin, epigallocatechin and up-regulated level of kaempferol-3-O-(6’’-O-acetyl)-glucoside, cosmosiin and apigenin-4’-O-glucoside. The down-regulated expressions of F3H and FLS decreased the contents of 7 metabolites, including naringenin chalcone, proanthocyanidin B2, B3, B4, C1, limocitrin-3,7-di-O-glucoside and limocitrin-3-O-sophoroside. Conclusion The findings are helpful for genetic improvement of varieties in L.macranthoides.

Abstract Background The purpose of this study was to analyze myopic regression after corneal refractive surgery (CRS) in civilian pilots and to explore the factors that may cause long-term myopic regression. Methods We included civilian pilots who had undergone CRS to correct their myopia and who had at least 5 years of follow-up. We collected retrospective data and completed eye examinations and a questionnaire to assess their eye habits. Results A total of 236 eyes were evaluated in this study. 211 eyes had Intrastromal ablations (167 eyes had laser in situ keratomileusis, LASIK, 44 eyes had small incision lenticule extraction, SMILE) and 25 eyes had subepithelial ablations (15 eyes had laser epithelial keratomileusis, LASEK and 10 eyes had photorefractive keratectomy, PRK). The mean preoperative spherical equivalent (SE) was − 2.92 ± 1.11 D (range from − 1.00 to -5.00 D). A total of 56 eyes (23.6%) suffered from myopic regression after CRS. Comparisons of individual and eye characteristics between the regression and non-regression groups revealed statistically significant differences in age, cumulative flight time, postoperative SE (at 6 months and current), uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA), accommodative amplitude (AA), positive relative accommodation (PRA), postoperative period, types of CRS and eye habits. Generalized propensity score weighting (GPSW) was used to balance the distribution of covariates among different age levels, types of CRS, cumulative flying time, postoperative period and continuous near-work time. The results of GPS weighted logistic regression demonstrated that the associations between age and myopic regression, types of CRS and myopic regression, continuous near-work time and myopic regression were significant. Cumulative flying time and myopic regression, postoperative period and myopic regression were no significant. Specifically, the odds ratio (OR) for age was 1.151 (P = 0.022), and the OR for type of CRS was 2.769 (P 45 min and poor accommodative function may be related factors in this specific population.

Abstract Background To investigate the feasibility of Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) in assessing renal interstitial fibrosis induced by hyperuricemia. Methods A hyperuricemia rat model was established, and the rats were randomly split into the hyperuricemia (HUA), allopurinol (AP), and AP + empagliflozin (AP + EM) groups (n = 19 per group). Also, the normal rats were selected as controls (CON, n = 19). DKI was performed before treatment (baseline) and on days 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 days after treatment. The DKI indicators, including mean kurtosis (MK), fractional anisotropy (FA), and mean diffusivity (MD) of the cortex (CO), outer stripe of the outer medulla (OS), and inner stripe of the outer medulla (IS) were acquired. Additionally, hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, Masson trichrome staining, and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) immunostaining were used to reveal renal histopathological changes at baseline, 1, 5, and 9 days after treatment. Results The HUA, AP, and AP + EM group MKOS and MKIS values gradually increased during this study. The HUA group exhibited the highest MK value in outer medulla. Except for the CON group, all the groups showed a decreasing trend in the FA and MD values of outer medulla. The HUA group exhibited the lowest FA and MD values. The MKOS and MKIS values were positively correlated with Masson’s trichrome staining results (r = 0.687, P

Understanding soil moisture dynamics is crucial for crop growth. The digital mapping of field soil moisture distribution provides valuable information for agricultural water management. The optical satellite data provides fine scale soil moisture information for a region. However, these data are greatly limited due to cloud contamination and revisit period. Despite the reported beneficial effects of spatiotemporal fusion methods, the accurate estimates of high-resolution soil moisture through spatiotemporal fusion data are still unclear, particularly when using Sentinel-2/3 fusion images. This study introduces a new soil moisture estimation framework integrating spatio-temporal spectral information from Sentinel-2/3 fusion images and machine learning algorithm,and thus provide spatiotemporally continuous soil moisture estimation. The framework includes four fusion methods (ESTARRFM, Fit-FC, FSDAF and STFMF) and four machine learning models (PLSR, SVM, RF and GBRT). The feasibility of the framework was validated in the Hetao Irrigation Area of Inner Mongolia, China. The results showed that the Sentinel-2/3 fused image generated by Fit-FC was visually the closest to the true image, followed by ESTARFM, FSDAF, and STFMF. The spatiotemporal fusion-machine learning estimation framework provided reliable estimation for multi-layer (0 ∼ 20, 20 ∼ 40 and 40 ∼ 60 cm) soil water in the irrigation area. The dense time series of soil water generated by the framework facilitated the detection of irrigation events in the irrigated farmland. Our findings highlighted the effectiveness of Sentinel-2/3 fused images in providing high-resolution continuous daily monitoring of farmland soil water on a large scale. These high spatial–temporal resolution time series are valuable for monitoring crop growth and water resource management, contributing to further expanding the application of satellite remote sensing in precision agriculture.

Food waste jeopardizes food security and causes economic and resource losses. Household food waste is the most significant source of global food waste and urgently needs to be reduced. Based on the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), our study estimates the daily food waste data of 6,418 sample observations across China and the dietary preference scores of their household heads. Using a count regression model, our study explores the relationship between dietary preference and household food waste in Chinese households, and further explores the moderating function of household refrigerator use. The study has found that: (1) improving dietary preference score can significantly reduce household food waste ratio, and robustness tests support this finding. (2) There is a positive moderating effect of refrigerator use in the process of how dietary preference influence food waste. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact of dietary preference on household food waste varies by gender and age of the household head, household size, economic level, urban–rural type, and north–south region. Our study provides evidence that improving dietary preference can reduce household food waste in China, which has certain implications for waste reduction in other developing countries.

In evaluating the impacts of drought and flooding disasters on crop yields, accurately calculating meteorological yield (i.e., detrended yield) is an important procedure. The present work aimed to compare various yield-detrending methods in terms of characterizing the regression relationships between meteorological yield and the intensities of drought and flooding. Taking the middle-and-lower reach of the Yangtze River (MLRYR) as the study region, the intensities of drought and flooding during the growing seasons of four study crops (cotton, oilseed rape, wheat, and maize) were quantified using the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index. Nine popular yield-detrending methods and the first-difference method were employed to determine meteorological yields. The results indicated that the examined methods consistently identified the cases with very significant yield-reducing impacts of drought and flooding. The first-difference method identified 58 significant regression relationships, outperforming the yield-detrending methods (identifying 39–44 significant regression relationships). The 20-yr moving average and the linear fitting methods performed best at the provincial level, while the cubic smoothing spline and the quadratic polynomial fitting methods performed best at the district level. Based on these best-performing methods, the average method was proposed and exhibited wider applicability and better performance than the individual methods. In terms of meteorological yield losses, cotton was the most affected crop (35% of all districts experienced severe cotton yield loss) and Anhui was the most affected region (with an average crop yield loss of 14.06%). The yield-reducing impact of flooding was significant in 41 districts; in comparison, the impact of drought was significant only in 7 districts. Additionally, oilseed rape was the crop most affected by drought and flooding. These results can provide guidance for assessing agricultural drought and flooding disasters under climate change.

Flooding is a worldwide destructive disaster that severely restricts agricultural production. Meteorological indices are common tools for regionally assessing the impact of flooding on crop yields, but their performances are rarely compared. In this work, six convenient meteorological indices, namely, precipitation (P), standardized precipitation anomaly (PA), China Z index (CZI), standardized precipitation index (SPI), standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SPEI), and standardized antecedent precipitation and evapotranspiration index (SAPEI), were employed to establish correlations between flooding intensity and crop meteorological yield (FL-Ym correlation). Four major crops in the middle-lower reach of the Yangtze River (cotton, oilseed rape, wheat, and maize) were selected as the study crops. The results indicated that the flooding intensities quantified by the SPI, SPEI, and CZI had strong interconnections, whereas those quantified by the P and SAPEI were less related to the others. In the cases with stronger negative FL-Ym correlations, different indices were more likely to yield consistent identifications. In terms of the districts witnessing significant FL-Ym correlations, in only 26%, 41%, 44%, and 75% of them (respectively corresponding to cotton, wheat, maize, and oilseed rape), the correlations were consistently identified as significant by the majority of the indices, demonstrating the nonnegligible influence of index selection. The relative performances of the examined indices varied with the employed calculation periods (whole growth period and single critical stage), whereas the SPEI was generally the best performer. The SAPEI performed best in assessing the flooding impact during crop critical growth stages, in sharp contrast with its mediocre performance over the whole crop growth period. According to the results of multiple indices, flooding during the middle stages of the study crops exerted the greatest negative impact. Additionally, oilseed rape and Anhui Province were identified as the crop and the region most affected by flooding. This work can provide support for flooding disaster assessment and agricultural water management.

ObjectiveTo assess the alteration of individual brain morphological and functional network topological properties and their clinical significance in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD).Materials and methodsEighteen patients with NMOSD and twenty-two healthy controls (HCs) were included. The clinical assessment of NMOSD patients involved evaluations of disability status, cognitive function, and fatigue impact. For each participant, brain images, including high-resolution T1-weighted images for individual morphological brain networks (MBNs) and resting-state functional MR images for functional brain networks (FBNs) were obtained. Topological properties were calculated and compared for both MBNs and FBNs. Then, partial correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationships between the altered network properties and clinical variables. Finally, the altered network topological properties were used to classify NMOSD patients from HCs and to analyses time- to-progression of the patients.ResultsThe average Expanded Disability Status Scale score of NMOSD patients was 1.05 (range from 0 to 2), indicating mild disability. Compared to HCs, NMOSD patients exhibited a higher normalized characteristic path length (λ) in their MBNs (P = 0.0118, FDR corrected) but showed no significant differences in the global properties of FBNs (p: 0.405-0.488). Network-based statistical analysis revealed that MBNs had more significantly altered connections (P< 0.01, NBS corrected) than FBNs. Altered nodal properties of MBNs were correlated with disease duration or fatigue scores (P< 0.05/6 with Bonferroni correction). Using the altered nodal properties of MBNs, the accuracy of classification of NMOSD patients versus HCs was 96.4%, with a sensitivity of 93.3% and a specificity of 100%. This accuracy was better than that achieved using the altered nodal properties of FBNs. Nodal properties of MBN significantly predicted Expanded Disability Status Scale worsening in patients with NMOSD.ConclusionThe results indicated that patients with mild disability NMOSD exhibited compensatory increases in local network properties to maintain overall stability. Furthermore, the alterations in the morphological network nodal properties of NMOSD patients not only had better relevance for clinical assessments compared with functional network nodal properties, but also exhibited predictive values of EDSS worsening.

Abstract Geriatric assessment can aid in optimizing treatment strategies and supportive interventions for older patients with diffuse large B‐cell lymphoma (DLBCL). Fondazione Italiana Linformi has recently introduced novel geriatric assessment tools, simplified Geriatric Assessment (sGA) and Elderly Prognostic Index (EPI), aimed at tailoring the treatment and predicting the outcomes for older patients with DLBCL. The objectives of this study are the validation and possible modification of the sGA and EPI in China. In the study, both sGA and EPI demonstrated the predictive capabilities for overall survival (OS) and early mortality (both p

Objective To summarize the clinical characteristic of stroke in the plateau area with altitude of 4000 m above, and to screen the risk factors of hemorrhagic stroke. Methods The clinical data of 103 stroke patients (including 71 hemorrhagic stroke and 32 ischemic stroke) admitted to Ngari Prefecture People's Hospital of Tibet Autonomous Region from January 2017 to December 2018 were retrospectively analyzed, and the clinical characteristic of hemorrhagic stroke and ischemic stroke were compared. Univariate and multivariate Logistic regression analyses were used to screen the risk factors of hemorrhagic stroke. Results The age of hemorrhagic stroke patients was lower than that of ischemic stroke patients [(57.48 ± 10.81) years vs. (64.03 ± 10.96) years; t = 2.836, P = 0.006], and the systolic blood pressure at admission [(171.92 ± 28.95) mm Hg vs. (141.81 ± 23.24) mm Hg; t = 5.174, P = 0.000], diastolic blood pressure [(107.58 ± 18.76) mm Hg vs. (93.44 ± 14.94) mm Hg; t = 3.757, P = 0.000], hemoglobin [(189.54 ± 28.12) g/L vs. (165.35 ± 25.42) g/L; t = 4.111, P = 0.000] and total cholesterol [(4.60 ± 0.88) mmol/L vs. (4.04 ± 0.82) mmol/L; t = 3.118, P = 0.002] were higher than those of ischemic stroke patients. Logistic regression analysis showed that systolic blood pressure on admission (OR = 1.048, 95%CI: 1.024-1.073; P = 0.000) and hemoglobin (OR = 1.043, 95%CI: 1.015-1.072; P = 0.002) elevation were risk factors of hemorrhagic stroke. Conclusions Hemorrhagic stroke is the main type of stroke in the plateau area with altitude of 4000 m above. Patients with high systolic blood pressure on admission and hemoglobin are more likely to have hemorrhagic stroke.

Abstract Background Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) are common after general anesthesia and surgery. This study aims to compare the effects of total intravenous opioid-free anesthesia (OFA) with conventional opioid-based anesthesia (OBA) on PONV in patients following treatments for wounds of lower extremities. Methods This randomized, double-blind, crossover trial will include a total of 72 adult patients scheduled for at least two separate surgical treatments of lower extremity wounds under general anesthesia. Patients will be randomized to 1 of 2 anesthesia sequences of OFA and OBA. Patients in sequence 1 will receive OFA in the first treatment procedure and OBA in the second procedure, while patients in sequence 2 will receive the two anesthesia regimens in the reverse order. The washout period is at least 5 days. OFA will be delivered with intravenous esketamine, lidocaine, dexmedetomidine, and propofol. OBA will be delivered with intravenous sufentanil and propofol. The primary endpoint is the incidence of PONV within the first 48 h postoperatively. The secondary endpoints are the severity of PONV, antiemetic rescue therapy, postoperative pain scores, the worst pain, need for rescue analgesia, postoperative sedation, hypotension, bradycardia, hypertension, tachycardia, hypoxemia, psychotomimetic or dissociative effects, time to extubation, and length of postanesthesia care unit stay. Patients who complete two surgical procedures with designated anesthesia regimens will be included in the final analyses. Discussion This crossover trial will determine whether total intravenous OFA reduces PONV in patients following treatments for lower extremity wounds. The results of this trial will also represent an important step to understand the benefits and possible risks of OFA in surgical patients. Trial registration Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2200061511).

The environmental impacts of excessive phosphorus emissions (PE) have been widely discussed in recent years. This study aims to calculate and evaluate the phosphorus footprint (PF) of food thrown away in Chinese universities. Based on a nationwide survey involving 9192 university students from 29 provinces and 29 universities in China, the result reveals that the PF generated by food waste in Chinese university canteens was 3.209 Kt in 2018. Furthermore, it is found that meal satisfaction, gender, regional economic level, dietary culture, and years of education all have significant impacts on lost food PF. Our findings emphasize the importance of reducing food waste in university canteens, which plays a crucial role in ensuring food security and environmental protection.

Abstract Background We mainly evaluated whether preserving the inferior mesenteric artery (IMA) sheath to dissecting IMA root lymph nodes (also called No.253 lymph nodes) would benefit patients in terms of comparable lymph-node yield removed during operation and postoperative complications in laparoscopic radical resection of rectal cancer. Methods This is a prospective study included 141 rectal cancer patients who received laparoscopic radical resection during September 2018 to December 2020. All patients were randomly assigned to the preserved group (n = 71) and the peeled group (n = 70). The baseline characteristics, pathological features, intraoperative and postoperative data outcomes and complications were analyzed by independent samples t test, chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test between the 2 groups. Results The baseline characteristic and pathological features had no statistical difference between the 2 groups. The preserved group had a shorter operative time (P = 0.002), a shorter lymph node dissection time (P 0.05) in regard to the total number of lymph nodes cleared, positive lymph nodes, bleeding, anastomotic leakage, pneumonia, wound infection, abscess, ileus, urinary retention, urinary tract infection and chyle leakage. Conclusion Preserving of the IMA sheath in laparoscopic radical surgery for rectal cancer will reduce the total operation time and the length of hospitalization. This surgical method could lead to lower complication rate and faster recovery. Trial registration The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of The First Affiliated Hospital of Wannan Medical College and registered by the China Clinical Trials Registry (ChiCTR2200060830, Date of Registration:2022-06-12 -retrospective registration) http://www.chictr.org.cn/index.aspx .

Abstract Bound states in the continuum (BICs), which are spatially localized states with energies lying in the continuum of radiating modes, are discovered both in single- and few-body systems with suitably engineered spatial potentials and particle interactions. Here, we reveal a type of BICs that appear in anyonic systems. It is found that a pair of non-interacting anyons can perfectly concentrate on the boundary of a one-dimensional homogeneous lattice when the statistical angle is beyond a threshold. Such a bound state is embedded into the continuum of two-anyon scattering states, and is called as anyonic BICs. In contrast to conventional BICs, our proposed anyonic BICs purely stem from the statistics-induced correlations of two anyons, and do not need to engineer defect potentials or particle interactions. Furthermore, by mapping eigenstates of two anyons to modes of designed circuit networks, the anyonic BICs are experimentally simulated by measuring spatial impedance distributions and associated frequency responses. Our results enrich the understanding of anyons and BICs, and can inspire future studies on exploring correlated BICs with other mechanisms.

Abstract Aqueous Zn metal batteries have been regarded as promising candidates as an alternative to Li‐ion batteries in large‐scale energy storage systems due to their low‐cost, safe and environmentally benign advantages. However, because of the introduction of solvent water, several problems, for example dendrites, parasite reactions, hydrogen evolution, and so on, are brought into aqueous Zn metal batteries. Regrettably, when trying to solve these problems, most efforts have taken the form of adding a large amount of non‐aqueous components, which are usually harmful to the environment and not conducive to greener and safer aqueous batteries. In this Concept, we will introduce several electrolyte systems and mainly focus on how to build a water‐abundant electrolyte with fewer non‐aqueous components. This work will review the literature and offer instructive guidance for environmentally benign Zn metal batteries.

Terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET) is a key process in the water, energy, and carbon cycles. ET products are becoming more widely accessible with the development of remotely sensed inversions and availability of land surface assimilation information. However, the response of these products to extreme weather is not yet clear and challenging to evaluate. This study evaluated and compared the consistency and uncertainty of nine evaporation products (including GLEAM3.6b, reliability ensemble averaging (REA), CLSM, ERA5-Land (ERA5), MOD16A2, PML-V2 (PML), NOAH, FLDAS, and Synthesized (Syn)) for the period 2003–2015. Eddy covariance (EC) flux observations and the three-cornered hat (TCH) method were used to validate and assess the uncertainty of these products at both the point-scale and grid-scale under normal climatic conditions. More importantly, we conducted uncertainty assessments of ET products at daily and monthly scales under extreme climatic conditions (including high temperature (Temp), high vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and drought), referencing 50 EC measurements over the conterminous United States (COUNS). The results showed that the accuracy of different ET products varied with cover type. Compared to other products, GLEAM3.6b, REA, and Syn showed superior results for most land cover types. Specifically, GLEAM3.6b showed higher performance for the grasslands; REA showed improved performance in mixed forests, open shrubs, and wetlands, and Syn fared better in forests and croplands. The point-scale indicated that the lowest root mean square deviations (RMSD) come from Syn grid products (mean 16.13 mm/month), followed by GLEAM3.6b (mean 18.53 mm/month) and REA (mean 19.42 mm/month). The highest RMSD (mean 49.49 mm/month) originated from ERA5, while the lowest R was found in MOD16A2. The uncertainty ranking calculated using the TCH method is similar to the findings of the point-scale evaluation based on EC measurements, with Syn recording the lowest uncertainty of 5.13 mm/month, after GLEAM3.6b (5.72 mm/month), followed by REA (6.24 mm/month), and ERA5 (12.26 mm/month) with the largest uncertainty. When extreme weather conditions were encountered, the uncertainty of the nine ET products showed an increasing trend, and their consistency varied. Under high-temperature and high-VPD conditions, the consistency decreased, while during drought, the consistency showed a slight increase. Among the ET products, GLEAM3.6b performed best under high-temperature and high-VPD conditions, closely followed by REA. However, ERA5 exhibited the largest error in its estimations. On the other hand, when drought conditions occurred, GLEAM3.6b, REA, and Syn showed better performance, while CLSM, NOAH, and FLDAS ranked second, ERA5 had the largest uncertainty, and MOD16A2 and PML exhibited the worst consistency. The findings of this study offer a foundation for selecting appropriate ET products for hydrologic analysis and agricultural water resource management in the CONUS and give developers suggestions for lowering the uncertainty of ET products in the face of extreme climatic conditions.

Context-dependency of mammalian transcriptional elements has hindered the quantitative investigation of multigene expression stoichiometry and its biological functions. Here the authors present a host-orthogonal transcriptional system that drives tunable gene expression in mammalian cells, enabling predictive fine-tuning of multi-gene expression stoichiometry and the production optimization of virus-like particles from mammalian cells.

Introduction: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading global psychiatric disease. MDD is highly comorbid with gastrointestinal abnormalities, such as gut motility dysfunction. An effective strategy to manage depression and its accompanying gastrointestinal symptoms is warranted. Objectives: Three probiotic strains (Bifidobacterium breve CCFM1025, Bifidobacterium longum CCFM687, and Pediococcus acidilactici CCFM6432) had previously been validated in mice to possess antidepressant-like potential. This study investigated the potential psychotropic effects of a combined three-strain probiotic intervention for human MDD patients. The mechanism of action was further investigated in the stress-induced depression mice model. Methods: MDD patients were given a freeze-dried, mixed probiotic formula for four weeks. The patients’ psychometric and gastrointestinal conditions were evaluated using clinical rating scales before and after treatment. Their gut microbiome was also analysed using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. The mechanisms underlying the beneficial probiotic effects were determined using a chronic stress-induced depressive mouse model. Results: Multi-probiotics significantly reduced depression scores, and to a greater extent than the placebo (based on the Hamilton Depression Rating, Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating, and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scales). Multi-probiotics also significantly improved the patients’ gastrointestinal functions (based on self-evaluation using the Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale). Serotonergic system modification was demonstrated as the key mechanism behind the probiotics’ benefits for the brain and the gut. Conclusion: Our findings suggest a novel and promising treatment to manage MDD and accompanying gut motility problems, and provide options for treating other gut-brain axis-related disorders.

Among cancers, gastric cancer (GC) ranks third globally in morbidity and mortality, particularly in East Asia. Natriuretic peptide receptor A (NPRA), a receptor for guanylate cyclase, plays important roles in regulating water and sodium balance. Recent studies have suggested that NPRA is involved in tumorigenesis, but its role in GC development remains unclear. Herein, we showed that the expression level of NPRA was positively correlated with gastric tumor size and clinical stage. Patients with high NPRA expression had a lower five-year survival rate than those with low expression, and NPRA was identified as an independent predictor of GC prognosis. NPRA knockdown suppressed GC cell proliferation, migration and invasion. NPRA overexpression enhanced cell malignant behavior. Immunohistochemistry of collected tumor samples showed that tumors with high NPRA expression had higher peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (PPARα) levels. In vivo and in vitro studies showed that NPRA promotes fatty acid oxidation and tumor cell metastasis. Co-IP showed that NPRA binds to PPARα and prevents PPARα degradation. PPARα upregulation under NPRA protection activates arnitine palmitoyl transferase 1B (CPT1B) to promote fatty acid oxidation. In this study, new mechanisms by which NPRA promotes the development of GC and new regulatory mechanisms of PPARα were identified.

Abstract Objective This study aimed to explore the correlation between T1 and T2 relaxation times of synthetic MRI (SyMRI) and gestational age (GA) in each hemisphere of preterm and term newborns at the initial 28 days of birth. Methods Seventy preterm and full‐term infants were prospectively included in this study. All subjects completed 3.0 T routine MRI and SyMRI (MAGiC) one‐stop scanning within 28 days of birth (aged 34–42 W at examination). The SyMRI postprocessing software (v8.0.4) was used to measure the T1 and T2 relaxation values of each brain region. The linear regression equations of quantitative relaxation values with GA were established to compare the variation speed in each brain region. Results A significant linear and negative correlation was found between relaxation times and GA in the neonate cerebral cortex and subcortical gray and white matter regions (All p

Non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) is a diverse family of biosynthetic enzymes for the assembly of bioactive peptides. Despite advances in microbial sequencing, the lack of a consistent standard for annotating NRPS domains and modules has made data-driven discoveries challenging. To address this, we introduced a standardized architecture for NRPS, by using known conserved motifs to partition typical domains. This motif-and-intermotif standardization allowed for systematic evaluations of sequence properties from a large number of NRPS pathways, resulting in the most comprehensive cross-kingdom C domain subtype classifications to date, as well as the discovery and experimental validation of novel conserved motifs with functional significance. Furthermore, our coevolution analysis revealed important barriers associated with re-engineering NRPSs and uncovered the entanglement between phylogeny and substrate specificity in NRPS sequences. Our findings provide a comprehensive and statistically insightful analysis of NRPS sequences, opening avenues for future data-driven discoveries.

Abstract DNA has been pursued as a novel biomaterial for digital data storage. While large‐scale data storage and random access have been achieved in DNA oligonucleotide pools, repeated data accessing requires constant data replenishment, and these implementations are confined in professional facilities. Here, a mobile data storage system in the genome of the extremophile Halomonas bluephagenesis, which enables dual‐mode storage, dynamic data maintenance, rapid readout, and robust recovery. The system relies on two key components: A versatile genetic toolbox for the integration of 10–100 kb scale synthetic DNA into H. bluephagenesis genome and an efficient error correction coding scheme targeting noisy nanopore sequencing reads. The storage and repeated retrieval of 5 KB data under non‐laboratory conditions are demonstrated. The work highlights the potential of DNA data storage in domestic and field scenarios, and expands its application domain from archival data to frequently accessed data.

Waterlogging disasters severely restrict crop production. The middle and lower Yangtze River region (MLYRR) is an important grain-producing region in China but suffers from severe waterlogging disasters. In this study, an agriculture-specific index called the accumulative humidity index was introduced to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of waterlogging during different wheat and maize growth stages in the MLYRR from 1960 to 2020. Additionally, the relationships between waterlogging intensities and crop yield fluctuations were revealed. The results showed that over the past 60 years, the intensity of wheat and maize waterlogging in the central and eastern MLYRR have increased; crop waterlogging was more intense in the 1990s–2010s than during the 1960s–1980s, and waterlogging intensity peaked in the 1990s. For both crops, waterlogging was more intense during the early growth stages, but its yield-reducing impacts were more significant during middle and late growth stages. The southern MLYRR (especially southern Anhui) was the region where both crops were most prone to waterlogging, but yields in this region were not severely affected by waterlogging. Compared with wheat, maize was more prone to waterlogging, and its yield was more significantly reduced by waterlogging. In conclusion, this study provides guidance for agricultural waterlogging risk reduction in the MLYRR.

Real-time and accurate detection of ships plays a vital role in ensuring navigation safety and ship supervision. Aiming at the problems of large parameters, large computation quantity, poor real-time performance, and high requirements for memory and computing power of the current ship detection model, this paper proposes a ship target detection algorithm MC-YOLOv5s based on YOLOv5s. First, the MobileNetV3-Small lightweight network is used to replace the original feature extraction backbone network of YOLOv5s to improve the detection speed of the algorithm. And then, a more efficient CNeB is designed based on the ConvNeXt-Block module of the ConvNeXt network to replace the original feature fusion module of YOLOv5s, which improves the spatial interaction ability of feature information and further reduces the complexity of the model. The experimental results obtained from the training and verification of the MC-YOLOv5s algorithm show that, compared with the original YOLOv5s algorithm, MC-YOLOv5s reduces the number of parameters by 6.98 MB and increases the mAP by about 3.4%. Even compared with other lightweight detection models, the improved model proposed in this paper still has better detection performance. The MC-YOLOv5s has been verified in the ship visual inspection and has great application potential. The code and models are publicly available at https://github.com/sakura994479727/datas.

Anti-PD-L1 therapy exhibits durable efficacy, but only in a small fraction of cancer patients. The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) is a crucial obstacle that impedes cancer immunotherapy. Here, we found that anti-PD-L1 therapy coupled with CD4+ T cell depletion induced colorectal tumor regression and vascular normalization, while monotherapy only retarded tumor growth without affecting the tumor vasculature. Moreover, simultaneous PD-L1 blockade and CD4+ T cell depletion eradicated intratumoral PD-L1+ lymphoid and myeloid cell populations, while additively elevating the proportions of CD44+CD69+CD8+, central memory CD44+CD62L+CD8+, and effector memory CD44+CD62L-CD8+ T cells, suggesting a reduction in immunosuppressive cell populations and the activation of CD8+ T cells in the TME. Moreover, anti-PD-L1 therapy reduced the proportions of intratumoral PD-L1+ immune cells and suppressed tumor growth in a CD8+ T cell dependent manner. Together, these results suggest that anti-PD-L1 therapy induces tumor vascular normalization and colorectal tumor regression via CD8+ T cells, which is antagonized by CD4+ T cells. Our findings unveil the positive correlation of tumor regression and vascular normalization in colorectal tumor models upon anti-PD-L1 therapy, providing a potential new strategy to improve its efficacy.

How to improve the efficiency of liquid-phase shear exfoliation (LPSE) for mass production of large-size graphene nanosheets still remains an ongoing challenge. In this work, we have developed a LPSE method using a rotor-stator mixer. It is quite simple and efficient by exfoliation of expanded graphite (EG) in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) with the assistance of organic salts including sodium citrate, potassium citrate and sodium tartrate. The LPSE of EG in NMP can provide improved yields, up to 6 times as high as values from exfoliation of natural flake graphite (NFG). The additive of organic salts in NMP can make a further improvement in graphene yields, 1.5 times higher than that obtained only in NMP. Remarkably, the yields of the as-exfoliated graphene are as high as 10% under optimal conditions, and up to 50% after multiple-cycle exfoliation. Organic salts in LPSE act as analogue grinding aids enhancing the applied shear forces and thus contributing to the improved efficiency of LPSE, but they do not intercalate into the interplanar spaces of graphite. This facile LPSE method should have excellent potential in the large scale production of graphene nanosheets for numerous applications.

In recent years, there has been widespread concern regarding the carbon footprint (CF) of food waste due to the key impact of CF on climate change, particularly as China’s food waste is rising with its economic development. China has the largest scale of higher education in the world, and the amount of food waste in university canteens is considerable and cannot be ignored. This study attempts to assess the carbon footprint (CF) of food waste at Chinese universities for the first time based on a national survey. It is estimated that 1.55 million tons of food were wasted in Chinese university canteens in 2018, based on 9,192 samples covering 29 provinces in China. The associated CF was 2.51 Mt CO2eq. The top two food categories contributing to the total CF were meat and grains, accounting for 46.28% and 36.52%, respectively. Furthermore, the location of the university was significantly associated with the CF of plate waste. It also indicated that household income, meal satisfaction, sex, education, meal days, and food-saving campaigns were important factors influencing the CF of food waste. This study highlights areas that can help reduce the environmental impact of plate waste. It also provides targeted measures to reduce the associated CF of food waste in Chinese universities.

Research on noncoding ribonucleic acids (ncRNAs) is mostly and broadly focused on microRNAs (miRNAs), cyclic RNAs (circRNAs), and long ncRNAs (lncRNAs), which have been confirmed to play important roles in tumor cell proliferation, invasion, and migration. Specifically, recent studies have shown that ncRNAs contribute to tumorigenesis and tumor development by mediating changes in enzymes related to lipid metabolism. The purpose of this review is to discuss the characterized ncRNAs involved in the lipid metabolism of tumors to highlight ncRNA-mediated lipid metabolism-related enzyme expression in malignant tumors and its importance to tumor development. In this review, we describe the types of ncRNA and the mechanism of tumor lipid metabolism and analyze the important role of ncRNA in tumor lipid metabolism and its future prospects from the perspectives of ncRNA biological function and lipid metabolic enzyme classification. However, several critical issues still need to be resolved. Because ncRNAs can affect tumor processes by regulating lipid metabolism enzymes, in the future, we can study the unique role of ncRNAs from four aspects: disease prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment. Therefore, in the future, the development of ncRNA-targeted therapy will become a hot direction and shoulder a major task in the medical field.

Abstract Background To investigate the renal dysfunction in patients with hyperuricemia by employing a multiparametric MRI protocol, consisting of quantitative water molecule diffusion, microstructure, microscopic perfusion, and oxygenation measurements in kidneys. Materials and methods A total of 48 patients with hyperuricemia (HU) and 22 age-matched healthy control subjects (HC) were enrolled in the study. For each participant, three different functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sequences were acquired and analyzed, including intravoxel incoherent motion imaging (IVIM), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and blood-oxygen-level-dependent MRI (BOLD). Thereafter, an independent two-sample t-test was applied to discover the significant differences of MRI indices between the hyperuricemia (HU) and HC groups, and the specific potential biomarkers between two subgroups of HU group (asymptomatic hyperuricemia group (AH) and gouty arthritis group (GA)). Further, multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to classify the AH from the GA group using the MRI indices with significant between-group differences. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was calculated to assess the performance of each MR index for differentiation between the AH and GA groups. Results Ten parametric values of the HU group were significantly lower than those of the HC group among the 14 fMRI parameters (P

Abstract Background The current study investigated the performance of intravoxel incoherent motion diffusion (IVIM) technology in monitoring early renal injury in streptozotocin rats. Methods Forty-eight Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were divided into a control group and a diabetic mellitus (DM) group. Six rats in each group were randomly selected for MR scans at four different time points (0, 4, 8, and 12 weeks). The IVIM-derived parameters (D, D*, f and ADC values) of the renal cortex (CO), outer and inner stripe of the outer medulla (OS, IS), and internal medulla (IM) were acquired. Changes in each IVIM-derived parameter over time were analyzed, and differences between the two groups at each point were assessed. The associations between the IVIM parameters and IV collagen expression, urine volume (UV), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and serum creatinine (Scr) were investigated. Results The D and D* values of CO and the ADC values of CO, OS, IS and IM displayed significantly different trends between the two groups over time (P

Multiple myeloma (MM) remains a common hematologic malignancy with a 10-year survival rate below 50%, which is largely due to disease relapse and resistance. The lack of a simple and practical approach to establish myeloma patient-derived xenograft (PDX) hampers translational myeloma research. Here, we successfully developed myeloma PDXs by subcutaneous inoculation of primary mononuclear cells from MM patients following series tumor tissue transplantations. Newly established myeloma PDXs retained essential cellular features of MM and recapitulated their original drug sensitivities as seen in the clinic. Notably, anlotinib therapy significantly suppressed the growth of myeloma PDXs even in bortezomib-resistant model. Anlotinib treatments polarized tumor-associated macrophages from an M2- to an M1-like phenotype, decreased tumor vascular function, and accelerated cell apoptosis in myeloma PDXs. Our preclinical work not only unveiled the potency of anlotinib to overcome bortezomib resistance, but also provided a more practical way to establish MM PDX to facilitate myeloma research.

PurposeTo investigate the safety and efficacy of a reverse puncture device (RPD) and specimen eversion of the rectum for resection in total laparoscopic proctectomy.MethodsIn a prospective study from August 2019 to March 2021, 40 patients underwent a procedure with an RPD and specimen eversion of the rectum for total laparoscopic low rectal cancer resection, that is natural orifice specimen extraction surgery (NOSES), were included in the NOSES group. Forty patients in the control group underwent conventional laparoscopic radical resection for low rectal cancer and were included in the LAP group. Intraoperative- and postoperative-related indicators, recovery and inflammatory factors, quality of life (QOL) and mental health were compared.ResultsAll operations were successfully completed. Compared with the LAP group, the NOSES group showed better short-term outcomes, such as time to eating, postoperative pain, and especially postoperative incision-related complications. At the same time, postoperative inflammatory factor levels, psychological trauma, life-related anxiety and depression scores, and QOL were better in the NOSES group than in the LAP group.ConclusionsThe application of an RPD and specimen eversion of the rectum for total laparoscopic low rectal cancer resection is a technically feasible and safe approach with a short-term curative effect.

This study aims to assess the accuracy of the reference evapotranspiration (ET0) estimated by CLDAS, ERA5 reanalysis products, and the quality of reanalysis weather variables required to calculate PM-ET0. For this purpose, the applicability of surface meteorological elements from the ERA5 reanalysis datasets provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the second-generation China Meteorological Administration Land Data Assimilation System (CLDASV2.0) datasets are evaluated in China by comparison with local observations from 689 stations reported by the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA). Statistics including percent bias (PBias), coefficient of determination (R2), root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) are used to check the accuracy. The results show the highest correlation between reanalysis temperature and observations, with a mean R2 of 0.96, 0.90 for the CLDAS maximum and minimum air temperatures, and 0.87, 0.84 for ERA5. For the reanalysis of solar radiation (Rs) and relative humidity (RH), an overestimation trend is shown for Rs and an underestimation trend is shown for RH. For reanalysis of wind speed, a relatively low accuracy is shown. The accuracy of ET0 estimated by the two reanalysis products is acceptable in China, but the spatial and temporal consistency between the CLDAS estimates and site observations is higher, with a mean RMSE R2 of 0.91, 0.82 for CLDAS and 1.42, 0.70 for ERA5, respectively. Moreover, CLDAS reanalysis products are more effective in describing the boundary details of the study area.

The scarcity of freshwater resources is a global concern that is exacerbated by an increasing global population and climate change induced by global warming. To address this issue, the largest water-consuming sector has taken a series of measures termed as drip irrigation schemes. The primary purposes of drip irrigation are to reduce water scarcity near the root zone, reduce evaporation, and decrease water use. The application scope of drip irrigation is getting wider and wider, with the number of papers related to drip irrigation increasing year by year from 1990 to 2022. This study reviews crops planted in China that had been irrigated by drip irrigation equipment. The effects of drip irrigation technology on crop growth, physiology, quality, yield, and water use efficiency are summarized. This paper also provides an overview of drip irrigation technology on crop root development and nitrogen uptake. Through a global meta-analysis, it is found that in the case of water shortage, drip irrigation can save water and ensure crop yield compared to flooding irrigation, border irrigation, furrow irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, and micro-sprinkler irrigation. When the drip irrigation amount is more (100–120%), drip irrigation significantly increases crop yields by 28.92%, 14.55%, 8.03%, 2.32%, and 5.17% relative to flooding irrigation, border irrigation, furrow irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, and micro-sprinkler irrigation, respectively. When water resources are sufficient, increasing the amount of drip irrigation also improves crop yield. Moreover, the researchers found that drip irrigation can reduce fertilizer leaching and soil salinity. However, more studies should be conducted in the future to enrich the research on drip irrigation. In conclusion, drip irrigation technology is effective in improving crop growth, water use efficiency, and reducing water scarcity while decreasing fertilizer leaching and soil salinity, making it an ideal solution to the issue of freshwater resource scarcity globally.

Recent studies have revealed that circRNAs can affect tumor DNA damage and repair, apoptosis, proliferation, and invasion and influence the transport of intratumor substances by acting as miRNA sponges and transcriptional regulators and binding to proteins in a variety of ways. However, research on the role of circRNAs in cancer radiotherapy and chemoresistance is still in its early stages. Chemotherapy is a common approach to oncology treatment, but the development of tumor resistance limits the overall clinical efficacy of chemotherapy for cancer patients. The current study suggests that circRNAs have a facilitative or inhibitory effect on the development of resistance to conventional chemotherapy in a variety of tumors, suggesting that circRNAs may serve as a new direction for the study of antitumor drug resistance. In this review, we will briefly discuss the biological features of circRNAs and summarize the recent progression of the involvement of circRNAs in the development and pathogenesis of cancer chemoresistance.

As the critical ecological engineers, biological soil crusts (biocrusts) are considered to play essential roles in improving substrate conditions during ecological rehabilitation processes. Physical disturbance, however, often leads to the degradation of biocrusts, and it remains unclear how the physical disturbance affects biocrust microorganisms and their related metabolism. In this study, the photosynthetic biomass (indicated by chlorophyll a), nutrients, enzyme activities, and bacterial communities of biocrusts were investigated in a gold mine tailing of Central China to evaluate the impact of physical disturbance on biocrusts during the rehabilitation process of gold mine tailings. The results show that physical disturbance significantly reduced the photosynthetic biomass, nutrient contents (organic carbon, ammonium nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, and total phosphorus), and enzyme activities (β-glucosidase, sucrase, nitrogenase, neutral phosphatase, and urease) of biocrusts in the mine tailings. Furthermore, 16S rDNA sequencing showed that physical disturbance strongly changed the composition, structure, and interactions of the bacterial community, leading to a shift from a cyanobacteria dominated community to a heterotrophic bacteria (proteobacteria, actinobacteria, and acidobacteria) dominated community and a more complex bacterial network (higher complexity, nodes, and edges). Altogether, our results show that the biocrusts dominated by cyanobacteria could also develop in the tailings of humid region, and the dominants (e.g., Microcoleus) were the same as those from dryland biocrusts; nevertheless, physical disturbance significantly reduced cyanobacterial relative abundance in biocrusts. Based on our findings, we propose the future work on cyanobacterial inoculation (e.g., Microcoleus), which is expected to promote substrate metabolism and accumulation, ultimately accelerating the development of biocrusts and the subsequent ecological restoration of tailings.

In the process of orthodontic treatment, the balance between the modeling of alveolar bone and the mechanical stress exerted by the appliance is key to the effective movement of orthodontic teeth. Alveolar bone modeling involves many regulatory factors, and microRNAs (miRNAs), as posttranscriptional regulatory factors, play an important role in the occurrence of bone modeling. As an important member of the miRNA family, miRNA-21 promotes the differentiation of periodontal ligament stem cells into osteoblasts and plays an important role in maintaining bone balance and preventing bone resorption as a regulator of osteoclast formation and a promoter of osteoclast differentiation. A literature review showed that miRNA-21 can regulate osteoclast function and promote bone resorption through programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4), phosphate and tension homology deleted on chromosome ten (PTEN), receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL) and osteoprotegerin (OPG). MiRNA-21 is highly sensitive to external mechanical stress in the process of orthodontic tooth movement. After orthodontic force is applied, miRNA-21 can promote osteoclast formation and accelerate orthodontic movement; through targeted regulation of periodontal ligament associated protein-1 (PLAP-1), it can regulate periodontal ligament remodeling in the late stage of tooth movement and improve the potential of tooth movement. In addition, miRNA-21 mediates orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) and alveolar bone remodeling in the periodontal inflammatory microenvironment. miRNA-21 can upregulate the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) in periodontal ligament stem cells in a hypoxic environment. It can promote the expression of osteogenic markers, such as osteopontin (OPN), osteocalcin (OCN), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and runt-related transcription factor 2 (Runx2), and promote osteogenic differentiation during orthodontic tooth movement.

Irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBS-D) is chronic intestinal dysfunction with diarrhea and other complicated clinical symptoms, and it has a great impact on the daily life and mental state of patients. Some studies have reported that ingestion of probiotics can significantly alleviate a variety of intestinal diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate the IBS-D-alleviating effects of a probiotic strain, Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) CCFM8610, with multiple health-promoting effects. The study was a 12-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, pilot clinical trial. Seventy-five patients were randomly assigned to receive the placebo, oligosaccharides, or L. plantarum CCFM8610 (1 × 1010 colony-forming units (CFU) per day), with a 2-week run-in period, an 8-week intervention period, and a 2-week follow-up observation period. The patients’ clinical symptoms and quality of life were examined by the IBS symptom severity scale (IBS-SSS) and the IBS quality of life scale (IBS-QOL). Changes in gut microbiota composition and diversity were measured at the end of the intervention period. The oral administration of L. plantarum CCFM8610 significantly decreased the IBS-SSS and IBS-QOL scores, reduced IBS-D symptom severity, recovered gut microbiota diversity, decreased the relative abundance of bloating-related genus Methanobrevibacter, and increased the relative abundance of butyric acid-producing genera, including Anaerostipes, Anaerotruncus, Bifidobacterium, Butyricimonas, and Odoribacter. These findings suggest that ingestion of L. plantarum CCFM8610 can significantly alleviate clinical symptoms and gut microbiota dysbiosis in IBS-D patients. The IBS-D-alleviating effect of L. plantarum CCFM8610 may be related to the increase in the relative abundance of butyric acid-producing genera in the intestine.

Ratio sensing is a fundamental biological function observed in signal transduction and decision making. In the synthetic biology context, ratio sensing presents one of the elementary functions for cellular multi-signal computation. To investigate the mechanism of the ratio-sensing behavior, we explored the topological characteristics of biological ratio-sensing networks. With exhaustive enumeration of three-node enzymatic and transcriptional regulatory networks, we found that robust ratio sensing was highly dependent on network structure rather than network complexity. Specifically, a set of seven minimal core topological structures and four motifs were deduced to be capable of robust ratio sensing. Further investigations on the evolutionary space of robust ratio-sensing networks revealed highly clustered domains surrounding the core motifs which suggested their evolutionary plausibility. Our study revealed the network topological design principles of ratio-sensing behavior and provided a design scheme for constructing regulatory circuits with ratio-sensing behavior in synthetic biology.

Objective: In this paper, we propose a Sine chaos mapping-based improved sparrow search algorithm (SSA) to optimize the BP neural network for trajectory prediction of inland river vessels because of the problems of poor accuracy and easy trapping in local optimum in BP neural networks. Method: First, a standard BP model is constructed based on the AIS data of ships in the Yangtze River section. A Sine-BP model is built using Sine chaos mapping to assign neural network weights and thresholds. Finally, a Sine-SSA-BP model is built using the sparrow search algorithm (SSA) to solve the optimal solutions of the neural network weights and thresholds. Result: The Sine-SSA-BP model effectively improves the initialized population of uniform distribution, and reduces the problem that population intelligence algorithms tend to be premature. Conclusions: The test results show that the Sine-SSA-BP neural network has higher prediction accuracy and better stability than conventional LSTM and SVM, especially in the prediction of corners, which is in good agreement with the real ship navigation trajectory.

Abstract Background Previous studies have indicated that quantitative MRI (qMR) is beneficial for diagnosis of breast cancer. As a novel qMR technology, synthetic MRI (syMRI) may be advantageous by offering simultaneous generation of T1 and T2 mapping in one scan within a few minutes and without concern to the deposition of the gadolinium contrast agent in cell nucleus. In this study, the potential of quantitative mapping derived from Synthetic MRI (SyMRI) to diagnose breast cancer was investigated. Methods From April 2018 to May 2019, a total of 87 patients with suspicious breast lesions underwent both conventional and SyMRI before treatment. The quantitative metrics derived from SyMRI, including T1 and T2 values, were measured in breast lesions. The diagnostic performance of SyMRI was evaluated with unpaired Student’s t-tests, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis. The AUCs of quantitative values were compared using Delong test. Results Among 77 patients who met the inclusion criteria, 48 were diagnosed with histopathological confirmed breast cancers, and the rest had benign lesions. The breast cancers showed significantly higher T1 (1611.61 ± 215.88 ms) values and lower T2 (80.93 ± 7.51 ms) values than benign lesions. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) values were 0.931 (95% CI: 0.874–0.989) and 0.883 (95% CI: 0.810–0.956) for T1 and T2 maps, respectively, in diagnostic discrimination between breast cancers and benign lesions. A slightly increased AUC of 0.978 (95% CI: 0.915–0.993) was achieved by combining those two relaxation-based quantitative metrics. Conclusion In conclusion, our preliminary study showed that the quantitative T1 and T2 values obtained by SyMRI could distinguish effectively between benign and malignant breast lesions, and T1 relaxation time showed the highest diagnostic efficiency. Furthermore, combining the two quantitative relaxation metrics further improved their diagnostic performance.

BackgroundEarly identification of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients with high risk of failure to induction chemotherapy (IC) would facilitate prompt individualized treatment decisions and thus reduce toxicity and improve overall survival rate. This study aims to investigate the value of amide proton transfer (APT) imaging in predicting short-term response of NPC to IC and its potential correlation with well-established prognosis-related clinical characteristics.Methods and MaterialsA total of 80 pathologically confirmed NPC patients receiving pre-treatment APT imaging at 3T were retrospectively enrolled. Using asymmetry analysis, APT maps were calculated with mean (APTmean), 90th percentile (APT90) of APT signals in manually segmented NPC measured. APT values were compared among groups with different histopathological subtypes, clinical stages (namely, T, M, N, and overall stages), EBV-related indices (EBV-DNA), or responses to induction chemotherapy, using Mann–Whitney U test or Kruskal–Wallis H test.ResultsNPC showed significantly higher APTmean than normal nasopharyngeal tissues (1.81 ± 0.62% vs.1.32 ± 0.56%, P 0.05). Similarly, baseline APT-related parameters did not differ significantly among different treatment response groups after IC, no matter if evaluated with RECIST criteria or sum volumetric regression ratio (SVRR) (all P >0.05).ConclusionNPC showed significantly stronger APT effect than normal nasopharyngeal tissue, facilitating NPC lesion detection and early identification. However, stationary baseline APT values exhibited no significant correlation with histologic subtypes, clinical stages and EBV-related indices, and showed limited value to predict short-term treatment response to IC.

Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI, versatile for detecting endogenous mobile proteins and tissue pH, has proved valuable in tumor imaging. However, CEST MRI scans are often performed under non-equilibrium conditions, which confound tissue characterization. This study proposed a quasi-steady-state (QUASS) CEST MRI algorithm to standardize fast and accurate tumor imaging at 3 T. The CEST signal evolution was modeled by longitudinal relaxation rate during relaxation delay (Td) and spinlock relaxation during RF saturation time (Ts), from which the QUASS CEST effect is derived. Numerical simulation and human MR imaging experiments (7 healthy volunteers and 19 tumor patients) were conducted at 3 T to compare the CEST measurements obtained under two representative experimental conditions. In addition, amide proton transfer (APT), combined magnetization transfer (MT) and nuclear overhauser enhancement (NOE) effects, and direct water saturation were isolated using a 3-pool Lorentzian fitting in white matter and gray matter of healthy volunteers and for patients in the contralateral normal-appearing white matter and tumor regions. Finally, the student's t-test was performed between conventional and QUASS CEST measurements. The routine APT and combined MT & NOE measures significantly varied with Ts and Td (P .05), indicating the accuracy and robustness of QUASS CEST MRI for tumor imaging. To summarize, the QUASS CEST reconstruction algorithm enables fast and accurate tumor CEST imaging at 3 T, promising to expedite and standardize clinical CEST MRI.