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ABSTRACT: Globally, China is one of the primary citrus producers. This study provided a theoretical reference for sustainable production in the citrus industry in China by measuring citrus production efficiency under non-point source pollution and analyzing inter-provincial variability. In this study, non-radio logical and non-angled data envelopment analysis models were used in seven provinces during 2006-2018 based on non-desired outputs. The temporal and spatial characteristics were analyzed to determine the factors that cause efficiency losses. Results indicated that the citrus production efficiency had a general w-type trend with high inter-provincial variability, where the highest and lowest production efficiencies occurred in Hubei Province and Guangdong Province, respectively. In the past four years, a redundancy in labor and fertilizer inputs was also observed in Guangdong and Fujian, respectively. The shrinkable proportion of each factor input in the seven provinces was zero. An increase in citrus yield per hectare was recorded, in which the highest was in Guangdong. In each province, high emissions of total nitrogen and phosphorus generally caused the decrease in citrus production efficiency.

Study region: Tabu Basin is located on a typical-deserted steppe in Inner Mongolia, China and plays a significant role in maintaining ecological stability of northern China.Study focus: Among rivers worldwide, 51–60 % cease to flow for at least one day annually, especially in arid and semiarid areas. Understanding interactions between intermittent rivers (IRs) and groundwater (GW) is crucial for protecting water resources and sustaining ecological balance. A comprehensive framework was developed to analyze these interactions.New hydrological insights for the region: Unlike previous studies, this study considered seasonal differences in hydrochemical and isotopic compositions of IR and GW, as well as the intensive influence of evaporation. Multitemporal datasets were employed to analyze the IR–GW interaction across spatial, temporal, and profiling scales. Hydrochemical evidence and isotopic analysis indicated the input of meltwater with depleted isotopic signatures to GW and GW recharge to IR. The isotopic compositions followed the order of rainfall < GW

Objective Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a disease that occurs frequently in young and middle‐aged people. Because of its high disability rate, it affects the ability to work, so the early treatment of this disease is particularly important. This retrospective study aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of hip arthroscopy combined with multiple small‐diameter fan‐shaped low‐speed drilling decompression (MSFLD) in treating early‐mid stage ONFH (ARCO II‐IIIA) compared to MSFLD, with at least 10‐year follow‐up. Methods A total of 234 patients who underwent hip arthroscopy and MSFLD for ONFH from 1998 to 2012 were analyzed retrospectively. This study enrolled patients between 18 and 60 years old with ARCO stage II‐III A, diagnosed clinically and through imaging, in accordance with the 2021 guidelines for the treatment of ONFH. Clinical data, including demographics, operation mode, BMI, pre‐ and postoperative Harris score, and femoral head survival rate, were collected. Patients were divided into hip arthroscopy + MSFLD and MSFLD groups based on the operation mode. The t‐test was used to compare the postoperative efficacy, Harris scores, and survival rates of the femoral head between the two groups. Results Among the 234 patients, 160 cases were followed up, including 92 cases in the hip arthroscopy + MSFLD group and 68 cases in MSFLD group, the follow‐up rate was 68.38%, and the follow‐up time was (10–22)14.11 ± 3.06 years. The Harris score (80.65 ± 6.29) in the hip arthroscopy + MSFLD group was significantly higher than that in the MSFLD group (p = 0.00), and the survival rate of femoral head (5‐year survival rate was 84.78%, 10‐year survival rate was 23.91%) was also higher than that in the MSFLD group (5‐year survival rate was 63.24%, 10‐year survival rate was 8.82%). The 5‐year and 10‐year survival rates of patients with ARCO II were 82.11% and 28.42%, which were better than 54% and 33% for ARCO III A. The femur head survival rate of alcoholic ONFH (5‐year survival rate 61.54%, 10‐year survival rate 9.23%) was significantly higher than that of other types of ONFH. Conclusion Clinical follow‐up of at least 10 years suggests that hip arthroscopy combined with MSFLD is an effective treatment for early‐mid stage ONFH, with good clinical effect and high survival rate of femoral head.

In this paper, we propose a bidirectional gate driver on array (GOA) circuit design based on indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) to support time-division driving method (TDDM) for in-cell touch displays. The proposed circuit allows the touch panel to pause the display for touch sensing operations to achieve a touch reporting rate as twice as the frame rate of a display. A dual low-level maintaining unit design is used to suppress influence of the threshold voltage shift of TFTs through alternately turning on the devices. Owing to recovery of threshold voltage shift under negative bias, this design can maintain stable performance during long time operation. A narrow border 6.5” in-cell LCD panel of 90 Hz display with a 180 Hz touch reporting rate is finally demonstrated.

Hip arthroscopy has become a predominant treatment for hip disorders such as femoroacetabular impingement syndrome and labral injury, and appropriate distraction for the hip joint is necessary for successful surgery. The traditional distraction method uses a perineal post but may cause complications such as perineum injury and nerve damage. For this reason, some surgeons have proposed postless distraction techniques, but they usually require additional equipment purchase and cost, which is not conducive to application. Therefore, we developed a post-free distraction technique without additional equipment. This method uses only surgical draw sheets, safety straps, a hip fracture table, and a hip distractor that are routinely provided in the operating room, and postless hip distraction can be achieved by using the Trendelenburg position, which is reliable, simple, and reproducible to be used in hip arthroscopy.

Purpose: As an important reference index for the early diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), CYFRA21-1 still lacks the detection of low equipment cost, wide linear range and high sensitivity. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a vibration spectrum technology based on the surface plasma of precious metal nanoparticles, which has been effectively applied to the detection of tumor markers. The combination of SERS technology and sensors has great potential in the ultrasensitive detection of tumor markers. The purpose of this study was to develop a sensitive method using SERS to quantitatively detect CYFRA21-1 for early diagnosis of NSCLC. Methods: A double-antibody sandwich immunoassay based on SERS was designed and tested to implement the ultrasensitive detection of CYFRA21-1 in the serum of NSCLC patients. Results: Gold @Ag nanorods (Au @Ag NRs) with higher Raman signals were prepared and used as probes, while magnetic graphene oxide was used as a magnetic substrate. The immunized probe, immune substrate and CYFRA21-1 standard substance in the buffer system formed a double-antibody sandwich structure. The standard curve displayed a liner range from 1pg mL−1 to 10 ng mL−1, and the detection limit (LOD) is 0.8943pg mL−1. The Raman intensity exhibited a wide linear relationship with the logarithm of CYFRA21-1 concentration. Conclusion: Our study successfully established a double-antibody sandwich immunoassay based on SERS. This method demonstrated high specificity and sensitivity for detecting CYFRA21-1 protein content in serum. It has the potential to be applied for early detection of lung cancer biomarkers.

Background: Hearing loss (HL) is globally prevalent among older adults and a common disability cause. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a complex disorder characterized by high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels. Few studies have examined the association between MetS and HL in women. This study investigated the association between HL and metabolic disease among low-income population women in China. Methods: This population-based cross-sectional study was conducted between September and November 2013. All participants completed questionnaires, physical examinations, laboratory examinations, and hearing tests. HL was measured using pure-tone audiometry, and audiologists determined the final diagnoses. Results: A total of 1448 women were enrolled, including 781 (53.9 %) with demonstrated HL and 804 (55.5 %) with MetS. Elevated blood pressure (BP) and fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels were independent risk factors for pure-tone averages (PTAs) in the high pure tone audiometry (high-PTA) group, after adjusting for education level, smoking and drinking status, body mass index group, and low high-density lipopolysaccharide cholesterol levels (all, P

Abstract Angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) played a critical role in regulating renin‐angiotensin‐aldosterone system (RAAS). In this research, 68Ga‐cyc‐DX600 was synthesized as PET tracer of ACE2 imaging. ACE2 positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) was preliminary administered on twelve healthy volunteers, and the images were normalized and registered to establish the standard model of ACE2 PET. In diseased conditions, 68Ga‐cyc‐DX600 PET and 18F‐FDG PET were compared for COVID‐19 (one in acute phase and three in post‐COVID), anemia (n = 1) and malignancies (n = 2) to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency. 68Ga‐cyc‐DX600 PET was of a definite ACE2 dependence. For the tracer uptake of ACE2 PET/MR of female and male, differences existed in salivary glands, upper respiratory tract and kidneys, meanwhile, age, and body mass index (BMI) were also the confounding factors. RAAS‐related tissue and organs were of the relatively higher tracer uptake, such as SUVmean of cardiac chamber (3.786 ± 1.495), liver (5.342 ± 2.267), spleen (4.465 ± 2.508), and kidney (4.906 ± 1.619 for female and 8.431 ± 5.179 for male). For COVID‐19, ACE2 PET revealed ACE2 fluctuations, particularly in the susceptible organs, including liver, spleen and testis. In the case of anemia, the activated local RAS in the bone marrow was of diffuse high tracer uptake. ACE2 PET of malignancies added supplementary information to FDG PET. 68Ga‐cyc‐DX600‐based ACE2 PET models were established for visually monitoring of whole‐body ACE2 expression. The feasibility of ACE2 PET in supervising disease was primarily proved in COVID‐19, anemia and malignancies as providing a comprehensive view on the disease process and functional recovery.

BackgroundAir pollution and severe weather conditions can adversely affect cardiovascular disease emergencies. Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether air pollutants and low ambient temperature can trigger the occurrence of acute aortic dissection (AAD) in cold regions.MethodsWe applied a retrospective analysis to assess the short-term effects of air pollution and ambient temperature on the occurrence of AAD in Harbin, China. A total of 564 AAD patients were enrolled from a major hospital in Harbin between January 1, 2017, and February 5, 2021. Weather condition data and air pollutant concentrations, including fine particulate matter smaller than 10 μm (PM10) and 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and ozone (O3), were collected every day. Conditional logistic regressions and correlation analysis were applied to analyze the relationship of environmental and atmospheric parameters with AAD occurrence at lags of 0 to 7 days. Specifically, we appraised the air quality index, CO, NO2, SO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5, temperature, dew point temperature, atmospheric pressure, and cloud amount.ResultsA total of 1,496 days at risk were assessed, of which 564 patients developed AAD. Specifically, AAD did not occur on 1,043 (69.72%) days, while 1 or more cases occurred on 453 (30.28%) days. Several pollution and weather predictors for AAD were confirmed by multilevel modeling. The air quality index (p = 0.0012), cloud amount (p = 0.0001), and concentrations of PM2.5 (p = 0.0004), PM10 (p = 0.0013), NO2 (p = 0.0007) and O3 (p = 0.0001) predicted AAD as early as 7 days before the incident (lag of 7 days) in the study period. However, only concentrations of the air pollutants NO2 (p = 0.0468) and O3 (p = 0.011) predicted the occurrence of AAD after the COVID-19 outbreak. Similar predictive effects were observed for temperature, dew point temperature, and atmospheric pressure (all p

In the original publication [...]

A gate driver in array (GIA) design based on the amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistor (TFT) is developed for narrow border displays. In the design, each TFT in the gate driver circuits is divided into a certain number of smaller size devices, which can be placed in different subpixels. Therefore, the pixel aperture ratio loss is minimized, and uniform placement of the gate driver circuits over the pixel array area is able to be achieved. The proposed step-like repeating block structure further reduces the occupied area of the signal interconnects. A 12.4-inch fringe field switching (FFS) liquid crystal display (LCD) panel of ultra-narrow border (0.5 mm) is demonstrated with reliable operation based on this GIA design, proving its potential for practical applications.

Research on bearing fault diagnosis generally uses a single signal processing method to extract features to a certain extent and then empirically judges the fault type at this stage. However, this approach has a poor fault feature extraction effect when the noise interference signal is large and subjective human errors. The diagnosis effect is determined by external interference and has no practical value. This paper proposes a rolling bearing fault diagnosis method based on singular spectrum analysis and a wide convolution kernel neural network, which can effectively extract the fault features of the rolling bearing crack fault signal with a strong noise interference and realize the efficient diagnosis of this kind of fault. Gaussian white noise is added to the standard bearing fault signal to construct the vibration signal with noise interference. Then, the noisy one-dimensional time series signal is preprocessed, including the data division into the training and test sets and the different kinds of numbering processing. Singular spectrum analysis is performed on the preprocessed data. Then, the denoised training set is used as input in a deep convolution neural network with a wide convolution kernel for feature extraction and model training. The trained diagnosis model is used for the fault prediction of the next test set, and the relevant diagnosis results are output. The test results show that this method can ensure the overall accuracy of more than 90% under the background of high noise, and the diagnosis rate of the model under various working conditions is stably maintained at more than 93%, without the collapse of diagnosis stability under the sudden change of noise. The advantages of model diagnosis efficiency and structural improvement fit are prominent.

Antibiotics resistance is one of the most significant public health threats globally. Strategies that strengthen host defenses to control pathogen infection has become a hot research field. Macrophages are part of early host defense mechanisms, and are activated via host pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), such as Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), which then facilitates phagocytosis and elimination of invading pathogens. However, few activators of PRRs have been approved for clinical use because of their toxic effects. This study aimed to investigate whether Strongylocentrotus nudus eggs polysaccharide (SEP), a non-toxic extract from seafood, contributes to host defense against bacterial infection. Results showed that SEP promoted bacterial clearance by enhancing phagocytosis by macrophages during E. coli infection in vitro, but was inhibited by TLR4 specific inhibitor TAK-242, STAT3 inhibitor Stattic or blockade of CD64. In addition, SEP protected mice from E. coli induced mortality, reduced pulmonary inflammation and inhibited dissemination of bacteria to organs, while TAK-242 retarded the protection of SEP. Overall, SEP strengthened innate host defense and improved the outcome in bacterial infection, suggesting that SEP could be used as a potential immunomodulator in host-directed therapies.

In this paper, the output feedback adaptive multi-dimensional Taylor network (MTN) tracking control for a class of nonlinear systems with unmeasurable states is investigated. Firstly, a nonlinear state observer is designed to estimate the unmeasurable states, and then an adaptive MTN-based output-feedback control approach is developed via backstepping technique. Secondly, in view of the simple structure of MTN, the controller based on MTN has the advantages of simple structure and fast calculation speed. Thirdly, in order to avoid the “differential explosion” problem inherited from the backstepping design, dynamic surface control (DSC) technique is introduced in the process of controller design. The results demonstrate that this scheme guarantees the stability and tracking performance of the closed-loop system. Finally, simulation examples are given to reveal the viability of the proposed method.

To further understand the toxic effects of bisphenol Z (BPZ) and bisphenol C (BPC) on aquatic organisms, zebrafish (Danio rerio) were exposed to 0.02 mg/L BPZ and BPC mixed solution in the laboratory for 28 days. The impacts of BPZ and BPC on the activity of the antioxidant enzymes, expression of antioxidant genes, and estrogen receptor genes in zebrafish under different pH conditions were studied. The changes of glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px), reduced glutathione (GSH), total superoxide dismutase (T-SOD), catalase (POD), and malondialdehyde (MDA) in the zebrafish were detected by spectrophotometry. The mRNA relative expression levels of CAT, GSH, SOD, ERa, and ERb1 in the experimental group were determined by fluorescence quantitative PCR. The results showed that SOD activity and MDA content were inhibited under different pH conditions, and the activities of GSH, GSH-Px, and POD were induced. The activities of POD and GSH induced in the neutral environment were stronger than those in an acidic and alkaline environment. The mRNA relative expression levels of SOD and GSH were consistent with the activities of SOD and GSH. The mRNA relative expression levels of CAT were induced more strongly in the neutral environment than in acidic and alkaline conditions, the mRNA relative expression levels of ERa were induced most weakly in a neutral environment, and the mRNA relative expression levels of ERb1 were inhibited the most in a neutral environment.

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a novel and promising network architecture, which decouples the controlling function from the forwarding plane. SDN provides the flexibility to program the network through centralized control. However, security issues of SDN should arouse our attention. In this paper, we mainly discuss a specific vulnerability of the centralized control mechanism in SDN, which is likely to suffer denial-of-service (DoS) flooding attack. We propose a popularity and timeout analysis-based controller protection approach to protect the controller from the flooding attack. We develop a controller protection application on the SDN controller in which a popularity table is maintained. When the arriving rate of the packets to the controller exceeds the pre-defined threshold, the selected proactive flow table entries will be installed on the data plane switches to ensure that the requests to the most popular destination addresses can be served with higher priority. Furthermore, we mitigate the unpopular requests to a low priority queue, which can send Packet_In requests to the controller with rate limiting. The timeout analysis module in the application can identify the malicious host by analyzing the lifetime of the flows according to the flow-removed messages. Blocking entries will be added to the blacklist table on the switch. Our controller protection approach can effectively alleviate the impact of the SDN controller-oriented flooding attack. The detection rate is 99.90%, and the false alarm rate is 0.41%.

Bisphenol Z (BPZ), bisphenol S (BPS), bisphenol C (BPC), and bisphenol F (BPF) had been widely used as alternatives to bisphenol A (BPA), but the toxicity data of these bisphenol analogues were very limited. In this study, the joint toxicity of BPZ, BPS, BPC, and BPF to zebrafish (Danio rerio) was investigated. The median half lethal concentrations (LC50) of BPZ, BPS, BPC, and BPF to zebrafish for 96 h were 6.9 × 105 µM, 3.9 × 107 µM, 7.1 × 105 µM, and1.6 × 106 µM, respectively. The joint toxicity effect of BPF–BPC (7.7 × 105–3.4 × 105µM) and BPZ–BPC (3.4 × 105–3.5 × 105µM) with the same toxic ratio showed a synergistic effect, which may be attributed to enzyme inhibition or induction theory. While the toxicity effect of the other two bisphenol analogue combined groups and multi-joint pairs showed an antagonistic effect due to the competition site, other causes need to be further explored. Meanwhile, the expression levels of the estrogen receptor genes (ERα, ERβ1) and antioxidant enzyme genes (SOD, CAT, GPX) were analyzed using a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in zebrafish exposure to LC50 of BPZ, BPS, BPC, and BPF collected at 24, 48, 72, and 96 h. Relative expression of CAT, GPX, and ERβ1 mRNA declined significantly compared to the blank control, which might be a major cause of oxidant injury of antioxidant systems and the disruption of the endocrine systems in zebrafish.

To explore the flavonoids from Morus alba L. leaves (MLF), the process of extracting was optimized by a response surface methodology and the antimicrobial and antioxidant activities were evaluated in vitro. The yield of flavonoids reached 50.52 mg g−1 under the optimized extraction conditions (i.e., extraction temperature, 70.85 °C; solvent concentration, 39.30%; extraction time, 120.18 min; and liquid/solid ratio, 34.60:1). The total flavonoids were extracted in organic solvents with various polarities, including petroleum ether (MLFp), ethyl acetate (MLFe), and n-butanol (MLFb). In vitro, the four MLF samples exhibited good antioxidant activities for scavenging of 2, 2′-azinobis-(3-ethylbenz-thiazoline-6-sulphonate) radical, 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical, and total reducing power. Regarding antimicrobial efficacy, the MLF samples suppressed the development of Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis, and Bacillus pumilus. The MLF samples inhibited α-amylase activity to a certain extent. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used to evaluate comprehensively the bioactivities of the MLF samples. The AHP results revealed that the bioactivity comprehensive score (78.83 μg mL−1) of MLFe was optimal among the four MLF samples. Morus alba L. leaves also exhibited non-hemolytic properties. All bioactivities suggested the potential of MLFe as a candidate resource in the food and drug industries.

A Lotka-Volterra competition model with nonlinear boundary conditions is considered. First, by using upper and lower solutions method for nonlinear boundary problems, we investigate the existence of positive solutions in weak competition case. Next, we prove that -d1Δu=u(a1-b1u-c1v), x∈Ω; -d2Δv=v(a2-b2u-c2v), x∈Ω; ∂u/∂ν+f(u)=0, x∈∂Ω; ∂v/∂ν+g(v)=0, x∈∂Ω, has no positive solution when one of the diffusion coefficients is sufficiently large.

In this paper we study a doubly singular parabolic equation with absorption, $$ u_t = hbox{ m div} ( |abla u^m|^{p-2}abla u^m ) -u^q $$ with $m>0$, $p>1$, $m(p-1)1$. We give a complete classification of solutions, which we call singular, that are non-negative, non-trivial, continuous in ${mathbb R}^n imes [0, infty)backslash{(0,0)} $, and satisfy $u(x,0)=0$ for all $xeq 0$. Applications of similar but simpler equations show that these solutions are very important in the study of intermediate asymptotic behavior of general solutions.

The extinction phenomenon of solutions for the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary value problem of the porous medium equation ut=Δum+λ|u|p−1u−βu, 0