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Abstract Aim The objective of this study was to investigate the level of soluble suppression of tumorigenicity-2 (sST2) in patients with acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) following primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), and to provide a new biomarker for clinical management and prognosis assessment. Method This was a prospective study. 148 STEMI patients following primary PCI were enrolled and divided into 2 groups by the median value of sST2 and afterwards followed up for 30 days to access the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACEs), which were defined as cardiovascular death, heart failure and recurrent MI. Results sST2 ranged from 20.57 to 98.96 ng/mL. High sST2 group had higher MACEs rate compared to low sST2 group (28.8% vs. 8.0%, P = 0.001). sST2 was positively correlated with age (r = 0.181, P = 0.027), SYNTAX score (r = 0.257, P = 0.002), high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) (r = 0.225, P = 0.006), B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) (r = 0.225, P = 0.006) and negatively with left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF) (r = -0.197, P = 0.016). After adjustment for clinical variables, sST2 level (OR 3.680, P = 0.015) and LVEF (OR 0.880, P

In the present study, we set out to examine the effect of background noise on bilingual language comprehension between a person’s first language (L1) and second language (L2). Language control systems seem to systematically engage in bilingual language production, as evidenced by the presence of switch costs with slower responses to switch trials than repeat trials. However, this systematic engagement does not uniformly apply to comprehension, as the involvement of language control in bilingual comprehension may vary depending on external contexts. In two experiments, we investigated how background noise influenced language switching in comprehension for unbalanced Chinese–English bilinguals. Overall, when comprehending words from two languages, participants experienced significant language switch costs across all conditions, but smaller switch costs were observed in the noise condition than in the quiet condition. However, the symmetrical patterns of switch costs were not modulated by background noise. This is the first study that supports the flexibility of bilingual language comprehension depending on the presence of background noise, expanding the adaptive control hypothesis.

The ongoing interplay among plants, insects, and bacteria underscores the intricate balance of defense mechanisms in ecosystems. Regurgitant bacteria directly/indirectly impact plant immune responses, but the underlying mechanism is unclear. Here, we focus on the interaction between regurgitant bacteria, diamondback moth (DBM), and plant. Six culturable bacteria were isolated from DBM gut regurgitant, including three Enterobacter strains (RB1-3), Micrococcus sp. (RB4), Staphylococcus haemolyticus (RB5), and Bacillus cereus (RB6). These RB strains suppressed genes related to jasmonic acid and glucosinolate signaling pathways but had little effect on salicylic acid signaling pathway genes in Arabidopsis thaliana wounds. RB1 and RB5 inhibited DBM development on A. thaliana but not on an artificial diet. RB1 and RB5 significantly suppressed GOX genes and proteins in DBMs. However, the Pxgox2 insect mutant strain inoculated with RB1 or RB5 did not significantly affect DBM feeding on A. thaliana compared to the wild type. Six RB have been functionally identified, with RB1 and RB5 negatively regulating GOX-mediated host adaptability. The deliberate addition of RB1 and RB5 can negatively affect DBM herbivory and fitness. Our study provides a molecular basis for the further application of RB for insect pest management by modulating insect–plant interactions.

The combination of onboard estimation and data-driven methods is widely applied for sea state parameter prediction. However, conventional data-driven approaches often exhibit limited adaptability to this task, resulting in suboptimal prediction performance. To enhance prediction accuracy, this study introduces Cross-Attention mechanisms to optimize the task of real-time sea state parameters prediction for maritime operations, innovatively develops a Residual Cross-Attention mechanism, and integrates it into representative networks for sea state parameter prediction. Three benchmark networks were selected, each evaluated under three configurations, without attention, with Cross-Attention, and with Residual Cross-Attention, resulting in a total of nine experimental scenarios for error assessment. The results demonstrate that both Cross-Attention and Residual Cross-Attention reduce prediction error to varying degrees and improve model robustness.

Abstract This study explores the factors influencing athletes’ compensation satisfaction and their configuration effects. A mixed research approach that combines regression analysis and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was applied to process the survey data of 352 athletes from six provinces. The regression analysis results demonstrate that economic compensation, the compensation system, the external environment, and compensation fairness all have a significant positive effect on athletes’ compensation satisfaction. Accordingly, the fsQCA approach was applied to explore the combined effects of the factors influencing athletes’ compensation satisfaction, which verifies the conclusions drawn from regression analysis and provides improvement paths for increasing athletes’ compensation satisfaction.

Abstract Aim The purpose of this study was to comprehend the need for incorporating death education within the curriculum of undergraduate nursing students and to assess the factors that impact the desire for such education. Design We enlisted undergraduate nursing students from several nursing colleges located in the central and west region of China. Undergraduate students who fulfilled the eligibility criteria between January and February 2021 were chosen to participate. Data were collected via an online platform called Questionnaire Star. The survey encompassed a general information questionnaire and a scale for assessing the need for education on the topic of death. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 20.0 software, while multivariate stepwise regression was employed for more complex analysis. Statistical significance was indicated when the p‐value was below 0.05, and high statistical significance was noted when the p‐value fell below 0.01. Methods We designed a descriptive quantitative approach to investigate the need for death education and its associated factors. The research involved 907 undergraduate nursing students from the central and west region of China. The data collection was done through the Questionnaire Star platform. Results Following the collection of completed surveys, individuals displaying contradictory responses were omitted. Out of 911 surveys disseminated, 907 were successfully collected, resulting in a recovery rate of 99.6%. Among the participants, 769 identified as female, constituting 84.8% of the total, while 138 identified as male, making up 15.2%. The survey findings indicated that factors such as residency, parental educational history and exposure to hospice care education significantly impacted the need for death education among undergraduate nurses (p

Carvacrol (CAR), a naturally occurring phenolic monoterpene compound, has recently received attention for its potential use in food preservation. However, whether it is effective in controlling brown blotch disease caused by Pseudomonas tolaasii in edible mushrooms is unknown. The results of this study showed that CAR effectively inhibits and kills P. tolaasii in vitro by disrupting cell membrane integrity and causing the leakage of cellular components. Intracellular proteins and the DNA of P. tolaasii may not be the targets of CAR. CAR fumigation at a concentration as low as 20 μmol L−1 CAR effectively inhibited P. tolaasii-caused brown blotch disease in Agaricus bisporus, accompanied by a decrease in polyphenol oxidase activation, melanin production, and malondialdehyde accumulation. CAR treatment also significantly increased the activities of β-1,4-N-acetyl-glucosaminnidase, three antioxidant enzymes, and phenylpropanoid pathway-related enzymes, as well as promoting the accumulation of phenolic, flavonoid, and lignin substances in mushrooms, thereby inducing the resistance of mushrooms to the disease. These results demonstrate the potential application of carvacrol to control bacterial disease in A. bisporus mushrooms.

Patulin (PAT) is one of the mycotoxins commonly found in agricultural products and fruits, and has obvious toxic effects on animals and humans. PAT has been found to cause myocardial toxicity and oxidative damage, but the mechanism of myocardial toxicity remained to be elucidated. We investigated the toxic effects and potential mechanisms of PAT on human cardiomyocytes and explored the effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) on them. The study showed that treatment with PAT for 24 h decreased cell viability and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and increased ROS and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels. Moreover, in addition to detecting increased γ-H2AX expression and observing nuclear damage, the comet assay also showed increased DNA tail distance in the PAT-treated group, followed by an increase in phosphorylation of the p53 protein and p21 protein expression, and a decrease in CDK1 and Cyclin B1 protein expression, and G2/M phase arrest. In addition, PAT induced endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) and induced apoptosis, as evidenced by Ca2+ increase, ER enlargement and swelling, and upregulation of ERS-related genes and proteins expression, and increased expression of three apoptotic pathway proteins under ERS, including CHOP, JNK, and caspase-12. Meanwhile, N-acetylcysteine (NAC, a ROS scavenger) reversed the negative effects of PAT treatment on cells. These results clarify that excessive ROS production by PAT-treated AC16 cells not only causes DNA damage, leading to cell cycle arrest, but also causes ERS, which triggers apoptotic pathways to cause apoptosis.

This study examines the association between the use of a package of contemporary and a package of traditional management accounting practices with organisational outcomes (organisational performance and competitive advantage), and the moderating role of Miles and Snow’s (1978) strategic typologies on these relationships. Based on the responses from 505 US based financial managers, the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) results indicate that the extent of use of both contemporary and traditional management accounting practices is positively associated with organisational performance and competitive advantage. Furthermore, the findings indicate that with the exception of the reactor typology, Miles and Snow’s (1978) strategy typologies (i.e., defender, prospector, and analyser) moderate the association between the use of management accounting practices with the organisational outcomes. In particular, the findings indicate that the defender (prospector) strategy positively (negatively) moderates the association between the use of a package of traditional (contemporary) management accounting practices with organisational performance. In addition, the results indicate that the defender (analyser) strategy positively (negatively) moderates the association between the use of a package of contemporary management accounting practices with competitive advantage, while the defender (analyser) strategy negatively (positively) moderates the association between the use of a package of traditional management accounting practices with competitive advantage.

The study of oceanic internal waves remains a critical area of research within oceanography. With the rapid advancements in oceanic remote sensing and deep learning, it is now possible to extract valuable insights from vast datasets. In this context, by building datasets using deep learning models, we propose a novel stripe segmentation algorithm for oceanic internal waves, leveraging synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images based on the SegFormer architecture. Initially, a hierarchical transformer encoder transforms the image into multilevel feature maps. Subsequently, information from various layers is aggregated through a multilayer perceptron (MLP) decoder, effectively merging local and global contexts. Finally, a layer of MLP is utilized to facilitate the segmentation of oceanic internal waves. Comparative experimental results demonstrated that SegFormer outperformed other models, including U-Net, Fast-SCNN (Fast Segmentation Convolutional Neural Network), ORCNet (Ocular Region Context Network), and PSPNet (Pyramid Scene Parsing Network), efficiently and accurately segmenting marine internal wave stripes in SAR images. In addition, we discuss the results of oceanic internal wave detection under varying settings, further underscoring the effectiveness of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-calorie diet and lack of exercise are the most important risk factors contributing to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) initiation and progression. The precise molecular mechanisms of mitochondrial function alteration during MASLD development remain to be fully elucidated. In this study, a total of 60 male C57BL/6J mice were maintained on a normal or amylin liver NASH (AMLN) diet for 6 or 10 weeks. Some of the mice were then subjected to voluntary wheel running, while the other mice were fed a normal or AMLN diet until 14 and 18 weeks. The results showed that hepatic lipid deposition and the PERK-eIF2α-ATF4 pathway were significantly increased with prolonged duration of AMLN diet. However, expression of mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) genes and mitokine FGF21 secretion were significantly enhanced in the 14-week AMLN diet mice, but were markedly reduced with the excessive lipid deposition induced by longer AMLN diet. Additionally, the exercise intervention acts as a regulator to optimize UPRmt signal transduction and to enhance mitochondrial homeostasis by improving mitochondrial function, reversing the UPRmt activation pattern, and increasing FGF21 secretion, which plays a pivotal role in delaying the occurrence and development of MASLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]