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Summary: The effect of tea polyphenols (TP) on the physicochemical, structural and digestive properties of Cynanchum auriculatum Royle ex Wight starch (C. auriculatum starch) was studied. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that a looser and more porous structure was observed in C. auriculatum starch‐TP. Rheological results revealed that G′ and G″ of C. auriculatum starch were decreased with TP addition. X‐ray diffraction pattern showed TP could inhibit the relative crystallinity structure of C. auriculatum starch, thereby delaying the retrogradation of starch. Fourier‐transform infrared analysis confirmed that TP and C. auriculatum starch molecules formed non‐inclusive complexes through hydrogen bonding interaction. Moreover, TP could reduce the digestibility of the gelatinised C. auriculatum starch. These findings provide a theoretical information on C. auriculatum starch as a functional ingredient for regulating the postprandial glycemic response of starchy foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RGB-T salient object detection (SOD) has made significant progress in recent years. However, most existing works are based on heavy models, which are not applicable to mobile devices. Additionally, there is still room for improvement in the design of cross-modal feature fusion and cross-level feature fusion. To address these issues, we propose a lightweight cross-modal information mutual reinforcement network for RGB-T SOD. Our network consists of a lightweight encoder, the cross-modal information mutual reinforcement (CMIMR) module, and the semantic-information-guided fusion (SIGF) module. To reduce the computational cost and the number of parameters, we employ the lightweight module in both the encoder and decoder. Furthermore, to fuse the complementary information between two-modal features, we design the CMIMR module to enhance the two-modal features. This module effectively refines the two-modal features by absorbing previous-level semantic information and inter-modal complementary information. In addition, to fuse the cross-level feature and detect multiscale salient objects, we design the SIGF module, which effectively suppresses the background noisy information in low-level features and extracts multiscale information. We conduct extensive experiments on three RGB-T datasets, and our method achieves competitive performance compared to the other 15 state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The present study aims to examine whether secondhand smoke exposure (SHSE) in university students can affect three indices of self-satisfaction related to depression as indiced by appearance, weight, and freedom of life choice. Participants: We collected data from 740 nonsmoking students in the summer of 2018, of which 57.84% were exposed to secondhand smoke. Methods: Depressive symptoms, SHSE, smoking status, weight satisfaction, appearance satisfaction, and freedom of life choice were self-reported via a questionnaire. Results: The generalized linear analyses revealed that SHSE was linked to lower scores of perceived freedom of life choice but not significantly associated with weight nor appearance satisfaction. The mediation analyses indicated that perceived freedom of life choice fully mediated the association between SHSE and depressive symptoms. Conclusions: These findings shed light on the importance of SHSE and its effects on mental health in university students. Preventive strategies should therefore locally target university campuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The China sports lottery contributes to sports and welfare causes. This study aims to construct a macro forecasting model supporting its sustained growth aligned with Vision 2035. Methods: The modeling employed a distributional regression. Sales data of the China sports lottery from 2011 to 2022 were chosen as the response variable, alongside various macro- and event-level explanatory factors. Results: A gamma distribution best fit the data. In the stable model spanning 2011–2019, urbanization, population dynamics, and FIFA emerged as significant contributors (Chi–square p < 0.05) to the location shift parameter. These three factors retained their significance in the 2011–2022 shock model, where shock itself notably impacted sales (p < 0.001). Utilizing the shock model, we simulated the trajectory of the China sports lottery up to 2035. China's demographics changes are poised to create structural headwinds starting in 2026, leading to an anticipated decline in sales driven by population shifts from 2032 onward. However, the FIFA effect is projected to continue fortifying this sector. Conclusions: Beyond offering original insights into the sales trajectory until 2035, specifically concerning new urbanization, negative population growth, and the FIFA effect, this macro forecasting framework can assist in addressing the policy priority of balancing growth with risk mitigation. We recommend policymakers connect market development with mass sports, potentially garnering a dual boost from the growing population of older consumers and the inherent benefits of a "FIFA (mass sports)" effect. A people-centered approach to the China sports lottery could significantly contribute to the long–range objectives of achieving common prosperity outlined in Vision 2035. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To elucidate the change in glutamate levels in preterm infants at different gestational ages by glutamate chemical exchange saturated transfer (GluCEST) magnetic resonance imaging and to compare the difference in glutamate levels among different brain regions between very early preterm infants and middle and late preterm infants. Methods: Fifty-three preterm infants (59% males; median gestational age = 33.6 weeks) underwent MRI, including conventional MRI and GluCEST. The original data were postprocessed in MATLAB. Correlation analysis was used to determine the relationship between the MTRasym and gestational age. The differences in MTRasym signals among different ROIs were statistically analysed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The MTRasym difference of the bilateral hemispherical ROI was compared by a paired T test. Results: In all ROIs, glutamate concentration was positively correlated with gestational age. The glutamate concentration in the thalamus was higher than that in the frontal lobe in very early, middle and late preterm infants. A difference in glutamate concentration was not found in the bilateral ROIs. Conclusions: The concentration of glutamate in the brains of preterm infants of different gestational ages increased with gestational age, which may be one of the factors contributing to the higher incidence of neurodevelopmental dysfunction in very early preterm infants compared to that in middle and late preterm infants. Meanwhile, the glutamate concentrations among different brain regions were also diverse. Key Points: • The glutamate concentration was positively correlated with gestational age in preterm infants of the brain. • Glutamate concentrations were dissimilar in different brain regions of preterm infants. • Glutamate concentration during the process of brain development in premature infants was not found to be asymmetric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a heterogeneous disease comprising histologically defined subtypes among which clear cell RCC (ccRCC) accounts for 70% of all RCC cases. DNA methylation constitutes a main part of the molecular mechanism of cancer evolution and prognosis. In this study, we aim to identify differentially methylated genes related to ccRCC and their prognostic values. Methods. The GSE168845 dataset was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between ccRCC tissues and paired tumor-free kidney tissues. DEGs were submitted to public databases for functional and pathway enrichment analysis, protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, promoter methylation analysis, and survival correlation analysis. Results. In the setting of |log2FC| ≥ 2 and adjusted p value <0.05 during differential expression analysis of the GSE168845 dataset, 1659 DEGs between ccRCC tissues and paired tumor-free kidney tissues were sorted out. The most enriched pathways were "T cell activation" and "cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction." After PPI analysis, 22 hub genes related to ccRCC stood out, among which CD4, PTPRC, ITGB2, TYROBP, BIRC5, and ITGAM exhibited higher methylation levels, and BUB1B, CENPF, KIF2C, and MELK exhibited lower methylation levels in ccRCC tissues compared with paired tumor-free kidney tissues. Among these differentially methylated genes, TYROBP, BIRC5, BUB1B, CENPF, and MELK were significantly correlated with the survival of ccRCC patients (p < 0.001). Conclusion. Our study indicates the DNA methylation of TYROBP, BIRC5, BUB1B, CENPF, and MELK may be promising results for the prognosis of ccRCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to develop and test a new technique by using the convergent arcTAN (cATAN) method capable of dealing with the virtual source position delivered by different carbon ion energies from the pattern of scanning-passive scatter beam. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A homemade large-format CMOS sensor and Gaf Chromic EBT3 films are used for the virtual source position measurement. The Gaf films are embedded in a self-designed rectangular plastic frame to tighten films and set up on a treatment couch for irradiation in air with the film perpendicular to the carbon ion beam at the nominal source-axis-distance (SAD) as well as upstream and downstream from the SAD. The horizontal carbon ion beam with 5 energies at a machine opening field size is carried out in this study. The virtual source position is determined by using the convergent arcTAN (cATAN) method and compared with a linear regression by back projecting FWHM to zero at a distance upstream from the various source-film-distance. RESULTS: The film FWHM measurement error of 0.5 mm leads to 0.001% deviation of α (cATAN) at every assumed textend. The overall uncertainty for the reproducibility of calculated virtual source position by the assumed textend in the vertical and horizontal directions amounts to 0.1%. The errors of calculated virtual source position by assumed textend with back projecting FWHM to zero methods are within 1.1±0.001, p = 0.033. CONCLUSION: We develop a new technique capable of dealing with the virtual source position with a convergent arcTAN method to avoid any manual measurement mistakes in scanning-passive scatter carbon ion beam. The readers are encouraged to conduct the proposed cATAN method in this study to investigate the virtual source position in the Linac-based external electron beams and the proton beams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-phase medium-entropy alloys (MEAs) with face-centered cubic (fcc) structure exhibit high elongation and toughness but suffer from insufficient strength. In this work, two novel (CrCoNi)Al 4 and (CrCoNi)Al 4 Nb 2 MEAs were designed with the aim of introducing precipitation hardening effect and thus improve strength of the alloys. It was revealed that addition of Al alone, only slightly increased the strength, but the elongation decreased severely. Conversely, the combination of Al and Nb can significantly increase strength and maintain acceptable elongation. The Al addition promotes the formation of a disperse distribution of BCC/B2 composite precipitates, however, the large size and incoherent nature of these composite precipitates produce minor hardening response. Except for the BCC/B2 composite precipitates, a high density of the nanoscale γ′ phase with L1 2 structure and stoichiometry of (Ni, Co, Cr) 3 (Al, Nb) is produced in the Al 4 Nb 2 MEA, which significantly increases the strength of the alloy. After the addition of Al and Nb, the deformation mechanism of the alloys is changed from nanotwins to stacking fault (SF) dominated plasticity. Such phenomenon mainly relates to the increasing critical twinning stress affected by the channel width of the matrix. This study provides new insight for the composition design of precipitation-hardening MEAs. • Individual Al addition only slightly increases the strength, and the elongation is reduced. • The combination of Al and Nb can significantly increase the strength and maintain acceptable elongation. • The deformation products of the alloys are changed from nanotwins to stacking faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of noise interference in road defect detection, caused by various environmental factors or acquisition equipment. In this article, we add three different levels of salt & pepper noise to the road defect dataset and propose a novel anti-noise dual-branch network (ADNet). The proposed ADNet leverages two backbone networks equipped with the dual-branch interaction (DI) modules to learn the defect information from noise and clear images for improving noise immunity. Then, the weighted feature representation (WFR) module is designed to extract more context-aware cues from the multi-level feature. Additionally, the region perception unit is proposed, where channel-spatial attention optimization (CSAO) module extracts more defect region information by utilizing the attention mechanism and multi-scale refinement (MR) optimizes the boundary information with the U-Net structure. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms state-of-the-art methods, making it a promising solution for detecting road defects in noisy environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined influences of pre-aging treatment (PA) and changing Mg/Si ratio on the natural aging (NA) effect and bake hardening response for a series of 6000 series alloys with excess Mg and Cu content was studied. The results showed that PA provides a clear improvement in alloy hardness after paint baking whereas a rising excess Mg (from 1.5 to 3.0) decreases this effect. The hardness in T4P temper however was generally relatively low, due to the combined effect of PA and a high Mg/Si ratio. The strong interaction energy between Cu and Mg was responsible for facilitating the clustering and precipitation processes inducing this behavior. During NA, Mg-Cu and Mg-Mg clusters were found in addition to the Mg-Si(-Cu) clusters, with the total cluster number density decreasing in excess-Mg alloys, resulting in reduced T4P temper hardness. After bake hardening, the disordered β″ precipitates, containing substructures of "low density cylinders" (LDC) and Cu sub-unit clusters, and the lath-like QP2 phases are responsible for the excellent hardening response regardless of Mg/Si ratio effects. The alloy with a Mg/Si ratio of 1.5 exhibits a low strength in T4P temper (134 MP) and very high strength (274 MPa), coupled with a good ductility (14%) after paint baking. This alloy has great potential for automotive application. • Cu addition can strengthen NA hardening and improve the bake hardening response of the alloys. • The combination of Mg/Si ratio and PA can produce a lower hardnness in T4P temper while higher hardness after aging. • The disordered β" and QP2 phases are responsible for hardening for Mg-rich high Cu alloys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have highlighted the importance of calibrating receiver antennas in target direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation and surface current measurement for high-frequency (HF) radar systems. It is worth noting that the calibration contributes to the performance of both shore-based HF radar and platform-mounted HF radar. Compared with shore-based HF radar, the influence of six-degrees-of-freedom (six-DOF) platform motion should be considered in the calibration of platform-mounted HF radar. This paper initially describes a calibration scheme that receives phased-array antennas for an anchored platform-mounted HF radar incorporating a model of free rotation, which is called yaw rotation and dominates the six-DOF platform motion in this study. In the presence of yaw rotation, the amplitude and phase of the source calibration signal from the other shore-based radar sites reveal the directional sensitivity of the receiver phased-array antennas. The calibration of receiver phased-array antennas is composed of channel calibration (linking cables and receiver hardware calibration) and antenna pattern calibration. The antenna pattern at each bearing can be represented by the Fourier series. The estimation of channel calibration and antenna pattern calibration depends on an overdetermined HF radar system consisting of observed values and theoretical constraints, so the least-squares fits of the channel calibration coefficients and antenna pattern calibration coefficients are obtained. The experimental results show that the target DOA estimation and surface current measurement can be improved if the phased-array platform-mounted HF radar system is calibrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have confirmed that the classical cadherin (CDH) gene family may be involved in the development and progression of various tumors. However, the comprehensive assays of CDH family members in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) were rarely reported. In this study, our group analyzed TCGA datasets and identified 18 dysregulated CDH members in LUAD specimens. Several CDH members exhibited an increased level in LUAD specimens, such as CDH1, CDH2, CDH3, CDH4, CDH5, CDH15, CDH16, CDH17, CDH18, CDH24, and CDH26. However, some others exhibited decreased levels in LUAD specimens. Correlation analysis revealed that most CDH members were negatively regulated by the methylation of CDH genes, leading to their low expression in LUAD tissues. Survival assays identified 16 survival-related CDH members in LUAD patients. More importantly, we further performed multivariate analysis to determine the prognostic value of the above CDH family members and found that the expression levels of CDH17, CDH19, and CDH24 were an independent prognostic biomarker of the LUAD outcome. Finally, the results of functional enrichments revealed that CDH members participated in several tumor-related pathways. Collectively, our findings suggest that CDH Family members functioned as oncogenes or antioncogenes in LUAD and may be a potential biomarker for this malignancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unsatisfactory bitterness of quercetin restricts its application to healthy food systems. In this study, whey protein isolate (WPI) inserted and coated quercetin-loaded liposomes were compared in reducing quercetin bitterness and improving the stability of quercetin-loaded liposomes. By electronic tongue and sensory evaluation, the liposomes coated by WPI (0.5–3.0 mg/mL) and inserted with WPI (0.5 mg/mL) significantly reduced the bitterness of quercetin compared to physical mixing. It was also found that the encapsulation efficiency was increased by 15.24% after insertion of WPI at 2.0 mg/mL. The environmental stability results showed that both WPI insertion and coating improved the thermal stability of the quercetin-loaded liposomes compared to the physical mixture, and the WPI coated quercetin-loaded liposomes had the best storage stability and tolerance to salt ions. In contrast, WPI insertion improved the ability of liposomes to resist against surfactant. Raman spectra and fluorescence analysis demonstrated that the modification of WPI reduced the free motion of lipid molecules and promoted the ordering at the polar headgroup area and hydrophobic core of the lipid bilayer. These findings have the potential to support the utilization of WPI modified liposomes as promising option for an efficient transportation of bitter bioactive compounds in nutraceutical and functional foods. [Display omitted] • WPI coated and inserted quercetin-loaded liposomes were constructed. • WPI coating was more effective in reducing quercetin bitterness. • WPI coating enhanced physical stability of quercetin-loaded liposomes. • WPI inserting effectively improved liposomes loading capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salient object detection methods based on two-modal images have achieved remarkable success with the aid of image acquisition equipment. However, environmental factors often interfere with the Depth and Thermal maps, rendering them ineffective in providing object information. To address this weakness, we utilize the VDT dataset, which includes Visible, Depth, and Thermal images, and propose a triple-modal interaction encoder and multi-scale fusion decoder network (TMNet) to highlight the salient regions. The triple-modal interaction encoder comprises the separation context-aware feature module, channel-wise fusion module, and triple-modal refinement and fusion module, enabling us to fully explore and utilize the complementarity between Visible, Depth, and Thermal information. The multi-scale fusion decoder involves the semantic-aware localizing module and contour-aware refinement module to extract and fuse the location and boundary information, yielding a high-quality saliency map. Extensive experiments on the public VDT-2048 dataset demonstrate that our TMNet outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of all evaluation metrics. • This paper proposes a triple-modal interaction encoder and multi-scale fusion decoder network (TMNet) to highlight the salient regions. • The triple-modal interaction encoder comprises the separation context-aware feature module, channel-wise fusion module, and triple-modal refinement and fusion module to explore and utilize the complementarity between Visible, Depth, and Thermal information. • The multi-scale fusion decoder involves the semantic-aware localizing module and contour-aware refinement module to extract and fuse the location and boundary information, yielding a high-quality saliency map. • Extensive experiments on the public VDT-2048 dataset demonstrate that our TMNet outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of all evaluation metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In patients with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), the prognostic role of adjacent nontumor tissues is still unknown. Alterations in the activity of immunologic and hallmark gene sets in adjacent nontumor tissues may have a potential influence on cell proliferation of normal lung cell after pulmonary lobectomy. We sought to discover LUAD subgroups and prognostic gene sets based on changes in gene set activity in tumor and adjacent nontumor tissues. Firstly, we used gene set variation analysis (GSVA) to characterize the activity changes of 4922 gene sets in LUAD and nontumor samples. Luckily, we identified three novel LUAD subtypes using the nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) algorithm. In detailed, patients with subtype-3 had a favorable prognosis, but subtypes 1 and 2 had a bad prognosis. In addition, patients with subtype-3 in the validation cohort also lived longer. Meanwhile, using the LASSO-Cox algorithm, we discovered 15 prognostic gene sets in tumors (T gene sets) and two prognostic gene sets in adjacent nontumors (N gene sets). Interestingly, genes from N gene sets were related with immune response in nontumor tissues, but genes from T gene sets were correlated with DNA damaging and repairing in tumor tissues. These findings highlighted the possibility of a stronger immune response in nearby nontumor tissues. In conclusion, our study established a theoretical foundation for selecting therapy strategy for LUAD patients that should be guided by changes in activity in tumor and adjacent nontumor tissues, particularly after pulmonary lobectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient protocol for the palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of 2-iodobiphenyls with biphenylene has been developed through C–H activation. The reaction provides a simple and efficient method for the synthesis of unsymmetrically substituted tetra-phenylenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of hydroxyl-terminated polyethylenes (HTPE) bearing various functional side groups (e.g. carboxyl, ester and butane groups) were synthesized by the combination of ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) and visible light photocatalytic thiol-ene reaction. The products are named as α, ω-dihydroxyl-poly[(propionyloxythio)methinetrimethylene] (HTPEcarboxyl), α, ω-dihydroxyl-poly[(methylpropionatethio) methinetrimethylene] (HTPEester) and α, ω-dihydroxyl-poly[(butylthio) methinetrimethylene] (HTPEbutane), respectively. The investigation of ROMP indicated that the molecular weight of resultant hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) can be tailored by varying the feed ratios of monomer to chain transfer agent (CTA). The exploration of the photocatalytic thiol-ene reaction between HTPB precursor and methyl 3-mercaptopropionate revealed that blue light as well as oxygen accelerated the reaction. 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR results verified all the double bonds in HTPB can be modified, and the main chain of resultant polymer can be considered as polyethylene. Subsequently, relationship between the structure of side groups and the thermal properties of functional PEs was studied. And the results suggested that the Tg was in the order of HTPEbutane

Background: Ferroptosis is a new type of nonapoptotic cell death model that was closely related to reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation. Seawater drowning-induced acute lung injury (ALI) which is caused by severe oxidative stress injury, has been a major cause of accidental death worldwide. The latest evidences indicate nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-like 2 (Nrf2) suppress ferroptosis and maintain cellular redox balance. Here, we test the hypothesis that activation of Nrf2 pathway attenuates seawater drowning-induced ALI via inhibiting ferroptosis.Methods: we performed studies using Nrf2-specific agonist (dimethyl fumarate), Nrf2 inhibitor (ML385), Nrf2-knockout mice and ferroptosis inhibitor (Ferrostatin-1) to investigate the potential roles of Nrf2 on seawater drowning-induced ALI and the underlying mechanisms.Results: Our data shows that Nrf2 activator dimethyl fumarate could increase cell viability, reduced the levels of intracellular ROS and lipid ROS, prevented glutathione depletion and lipid peroxide accumulation, increased FTH1 and GPX4 mRNA expression, and maintained mitochondrial membrane potential in MLE-12 cells. However, ML385 promoted cell death and lipid ROS production in MLE-12 cells. Furthermore, the lung injury became more aggravated in the Nrf2-knockout mice than that in WT mice after seawater drowning.Conclusions: These results suggested that Nrf2 can inhibit ferroptosis and therefore alleviate ALI induced by seawater drowning. The effectiveness of ferroptosis inhibition by Nrf2 provides a novel therapeutic target for seawater drowning-induced ALI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon black (CB) has a wide range of industrial applications and recently has been used as the basic model for environmental health studies on airborne particulate matters (PM). Exposure characterization of CB is always the first and most important step towards a better understanding of its effects on human health. However, efforts were largely limited by the lack of valid methods capable of quantifying CB in biological samples. Here, we developed a new method based on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) for CB quantification in bio-samples, with a detection limit of 4.3 ng. The method is so economical and convenient that it can be performed in most biology labs. The application of the method was successfully demonstrated in three different cell models (mouse macrophage cells (Raw264.7), human epithelial cells (A549) and mouse mesenchymal stem cells (MSC)) and the results showed that the uptake rates decrease in the order of MSC > Raw264.7 > A549. The surprisingly highest uptake rate of MSC deserves further investigation. The novel method provides a complementary quantitative tool to the use of conventional methods such as radioactive and fluorescent labeling and may facilitate related toxicological studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on local operations and classical communication, a tripartite quantum operation sharing (QOS) scheme is proposed by utilizing a genuine five-qubit entangled state as quantum channel. The present scheme has such prominent features as the arbitrariness of the concerned operation and the determinacy of sharing successfully as well as the constancy of entanglement resource. Besides, its intrinsic efficiency has come up to 10 % , higher than most previous QOS schemes. More importantly, in terms of complexity, the operations which are necessary to accomplish the present QOS task as a whole are extremely simplistic. In addition, our scheme is feasible with the current experimental techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Associations of serum S-100β, cystatin C (Cys-C) and C-reactive protein (CRP) with umbilical cord blood troponin I (TnI), myoglobin (Mb) and creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) in neonatal hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (NHIE) and the clinical significance were explored. A total of 40 patients with NHIE treated in the Binzhou Medical University Hospital were selected as observation group, while another 40 healthy neonates in the same period were selected as control group. The related data of all subjects were collected, and the levels of serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C, and umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB were compared between the two groups. Associations of the neonatal behavioral neurological assessment (NBNA) score with the changes in serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C and umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB were analyzed. The univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to determine the risk factors for NHIE. In observation group, the levels of serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C were significantly higher than those in control group, and the levels of umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB were also significantly higher than those in control group. The NBNA score was negatively correlated with the changes in serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C as well as the umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB. The levels of serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C, and umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB were related risk factors for NHIE. The increased levels of serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C, and umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB were independent risk factors for NHIE. In NHIE patients, the levels of serum S-100β protein, CRP and Cys-C, and umbilical cord blood TnI, Mb and CK-MB all significantly increased, and they have negative correlation with the nervous system function after onset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• MoO x -promotion enhances yield of crotyl alcohol by 7-fold over Ir/TUD-1 catalyst. • Ir-MoO x interfacial sites are responsible for the enhanced performance. • Decoration of MoO x on Ir alters adsorption and activation of crotonaldehyde. • High decoration of MoO x results in fewer exposed Ir atoms and strong adsorption of crotonaldehyde. A series of MoO x -promoted Ir/TUD-1 catalysts were tested for liquid phase selective hydrogenation of crotonaldehyde. The promoted catalysts showed higher activity and selectivity than the unpromoted one, with the best performance being obtained on an Ir-0.1Mo/TUD-1 (with a crotyl alcohol yield of 86.7% and a turnover number of 325.7 h−1). The large pore sizes of the TUD-1 is beneficial to the diffusion of the reactant and thus the supported catalyst is more active than that supported on the commercial SiO 2. The characterization results revealed decoration of Ir particles by MoO x , which altered the morphologies and electronic properties of the catalysts. Such decoration resulted in the generation of Ir-MoO x interfacial sites, which altered the adsorption and activation of crotonaldehyde molecule and brought up enhanced activity and selectivity. However, at high MoO x content, the Ir surface was fully covered by MoO x , which results in strong adsorption of crotonaldehyde and fewer surface Ir atoms for H 2 dissociation and thus declined activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims/Introduction. The present study estimated the cost-effectiveness of bariatric surgery versus medication therapy for the management of recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in obese patients from a Chinese health insurance payer perspective. Materials and Methods. A Markov model was established to compare the 40-year time costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) between bariatric surgery and medication therapy. The health-care costs in the bariatric surgery group, proportion of patients in each group with remission of diabetes, and state transition probabilities were calculated based on observed resource utilization from the hospital information system (HIS). The corresponding costs in the medication therapy group were derived from the medical insurance database. QALYs were estimated from previous literature. Costs and outcomes were discounted 5% annually. Results. In the base case analysis, bariatric surgery was more effective and less costly than medication therapy. Over a 40-year time horizon, the mean discounted costs were 86,366.55 RMB per surgical therapy patient and 113,235.94 CNY per medication therapy patient. The surgical and medication therapy patients lived 13.46 and 10.95 discounted QALYs, respectively. Bariatric surgery was associated with a mean health-care savings of 26,869.39 CNY and 2.51 additional QALYs per patient compared to medication therapy. Uncertainty around the parameter values was tested comprehensively in sensitivity analyses, and the results were robust. Conclusions. Bariatric surgery is a dominant intervention over a 40-year time horizon, which leads to significant cost savings to the health insurance payer and increases in health benefits for the management of recently diagnosed T2DM in obese patients in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) are widely used in industrial and medical sectors. The increasing exposure of CNMs necessitates the studies of their potential environmental and health effects. High-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) is a nuclear DNA-binding protein, but when released from cells, may cause sustained inflammatory response and promote cell migration and invasion. In this work, we found that 7-day exposure of 2.5 mg/kg/day CNMs, including C60, single-walled carbon nanotubes, and graphene oxides significantly elevated the level of HMGB1 in blood and lung lavage fluids in C57BL/6 mice. Subsequently, cellular effects and underlying mechanism were explored by using Raw264.7. The results showed that noncytotoxic CNMs enhanced HMGB1 intracellular translocation and release via activating P2X7 receptor. Released HMGB1 further activated receptor for advanced glycation endproducts (RAGE) and downstream signaling pathway by upregulating RAGE and Rac1 expression. Simultaneously, CNMs prepared the cells for migration and invasion by modulating MMP2 and TIMP2 gene expression as well as cytoskeleton reorganization. Intriguingly, released HMGB1 from macrophages promoted the migration of nearby lung cancer cell, which can be efficiently inhibited by neutralizing antibodies against HMGB1 and RAGE. Taken together, our work demonstrated that CNMs stimulated HMGB1 release and cell migration/invasion through P2X7R-HMGB1-RAGE pathway. The revealed mechanisms might facilitate a better understanding on the inflammatory property and subsequent cell functional alteration of CNMs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characterization of carbonaceous nanomaterials (CNMs) exposure is a key step and of great importance towards a better understanding of their toxicity and underlying mechanisms. However, it has been bottlenecked for lack of valid methods capable of quantifying cell-associated CNMs. Here, we developed a new economical and convenient method based on sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) that could accumulate graphene oxide (GO) at the interface between the loading well and the gel. The sharp black band formed there can be digitalized and the intensity quantified, which was proportional to the amount of GO loaded onto the gel. The method has a detection limit of 84.1 ng. We showed that the amount of GO in three different cell models, mouse macrophage cells (Raw264.7), human epithelial cells (A549) and mouse mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), could be accurately quantified by this assay, with the uptake rates decreasing in the order of MSC > Raw264.7 > A549. The results were consistent with the fluorescent imaging on cells exposed to fluorescence-labeled GO and TEM examination on ultrathin cell sections. The surprisingly highest uptake rate of MSC might be due to their abundant intracellular vesicles, which deserves further investigation. The novel method provides a complementary quantitative tool to the use of radioactive markers and fluorescent labeling of carbon nanomaterials and may facilitate the toxicological studies on carbon nanomaterials. Image 1 • Gel-electrophoresis based method was developed for accurate quantification of GO in cell samples. • The method has a LOD of 84.1 ng and is applicable in various types of cells. • MSC has the highest uptake rate of GO among three tested cells. • The method can be further extended to other carbon nanomaterials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To boost the product quality, numerous saliency-based surface defect detection methods have been devoted to the areas of industrial production, construction consumable, road construction. However, the existing salient object detection (SOD) methods not only consume a significant amount of computing resources but also fail to meet the detection efficiency requirements of enterprises. Therefore, this paper proposes a lightweight semantics-aware multi-level feature interaction network (SMINet), to address the above issues. In the encoder phase, we integrate multiple adjacent level features in the cross-layer feature fusion (CFF) module to alleviate the discrepancy between multi-scale features. In the decoder phase, we first employ the semantic-aware feature extraction (SFE) module to mine the location cues embedded in the high-level features. Afterwards, we introduce the detail-aware context attention (DCA) module based on the attention mechanism to recover more spatial details. Extensive experiments on four surface defect datasets validate that our SMINet outperforms the existing state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diaphorina citri Kuwayama is of great concern because of its ability to transmit devastating citrus greening illness (Huanglongbing). One strategy for controlling HLB may involve limiting the spread of D. citri. Insecticides using dsRNA target genes may be a useful option to control D. citri. The ecdysone receptor (EcR) and ultraspiracle (USP) are crucial for the growth and reproduction of insects. This study identified the genes for D. citri ecdysone receptor (DcEcR) and ultraspiracle (DcUSP). According to the qPCR data, DcUSP peaked at the 5th-instar nymph stage, while DcEcR peaked at the adult stage. Females expressed DcEcR and DcUSP at much higher levels than males. RNAi was used to examine DcEcR and DcUSP function. The findings demonstrated that inhibition of DcEcR and DcUSP delayed nymph development and decreased survival and eclosion rates. ds EcR caused adults to develop deformed wings, and ds USP caused nymphs to wither and die. Female adult ovaries developed slowly, and the females laid fewer eggs. Additionally, DcEcR and DcUSP were inhibited, increasing D. citri susceptibility to pesticides. These findings suggest that DcEcR and DcUSP are critical for D. citri development, growth, and reproduction and may serve as potential targets for D. citri management. [Display omitted] • The expression level of DcEcR and DcUSP was higher in female than in male. • The development and reproduction of D. citri were impacted by injections of dsRNAs. • ds EcR caused the deformed wings in adults, and ds USP caused nymphs to wither and die. • DcECR and DcUSP were inhibited, increasing D. citri susceptibility to pesticides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Integrated Tonian & Cambrian stratigraphy in Huaibei region at the southeastern (SE) margin of the North China Craton (NCC). • The Great Unconformity is identified and positioned between the redefined Tonian Gouhou Formation and the Cambrian Houjiashan Formation at the SE margin of the NCC. • The Great Unconformity at the SE margin of the NCC represent a ca. 200–300 Myr gap. • New data provide insights into Tonian-Cambrian tectonic history in the NCC. Abstract The Great Unconformity between the Precambrian basement rock and Cambrian sedimentary cover has been extensively documented in Laurentia and may provide insights into the environmental context of the Cambrian explosion. A similar unconformity has been known in the North China Craton (NCC) and it offers an opportunity to constrain the geographic extent and geochronological magnitude of the Great Unconformity. However, the placement and magnitude of the Great Unconformity in the NCC, particularly at the southeastern margin of the NCC, is uncertain. For example, in the Huaibei region of the southeastern margin of the NCC, this unconformity has been variously placed beneath or above the Gouhou Formation, which preserves critical micro- and macrofossil assemblages with great paleobiological and biostratigraphic significance. This uncertainty significantly hampers our ability to fully appreciate the geological history of the NCC. To resolve this issue, we carried out an integrated biostratigraphic, sedimentary petrological and detrital zircon geochronological investigation on the Gouhou Formation and the overlying Houjiashan Formation in the Huaibei region. Our data suggest that the Great Unconformity lies within the Gouhou Formation and represents a ca. 200–300 Myr depositional gap: the Lower Member of the Gouhou Formation is of Tonian age whereas the Middle-Upper members of the Gouhou Formation are of early Cambrian. Therefore, we propose that the Gouhou Formation be redefined to contain only the Lower Member, and the Middle-Upper members be included in the Houjiashan Formation. Our analysis also confirms that the Great Unconformity can be widely recognized along the southeastern margin of the NCC. The recognition of the Great Unconformity in the Huaibei region helps to clarify the tectonic history, basin development, stratigraphic correlation, and paleogeographic reconstruction of the southeastern margin of the NCC during the Tonian–Cambrian periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Digital image correlation (DIC) is used to obtain the crack opening displacement. • Three types of opening displacement patterns help to identify fracture properties. • A technique within the framework of cohesive zone model is introduced. • The critical crack opening and length of the cohesionless crack are measured. • A cohesionless crack is observed to occur at peak load for a notched specimen. Crack initiation and propagation in rock involve the development of a nonlinear zone around the crack tip called fracture process zone. The existence of fracture process zone influences the fracture behavior and therefore it must be carefully investigated. This zone is normally idealized as a cohesive zone whose mechanical properties are difficult to measure. In this study, a relatively simple approach is proposed to identify the properties of the cohesive zone and the length of the cohesionless crack in a sandstone specimen under three-point bending. Two types of specimens were tested: beams with center notch and with smooth boundary. The digital image correlation (DIC) was utilized to obtain the opening displacement around the position where the fracture initiated. For a small length of a horizontal section around the specimen center, the material is considered to be in the state of uniaxial tension and its behavior is interpreted by the cohesive zone model. The proposed approach discusses three types of opening displacement distribution patterns (I), (II), (III). Pattern (I) is related to tensile loading of the material, pattern (II) suggests the development of material softening within the cohesive zone and pattern (III) indicates the development of the cohesionless crack. These displacement patterns together with the appropriate reference loadings are used to identify the length of the cohesionless crack. For example, observation of pattern (III) is consistent with the development of the cohesionless crack when the reference loading is the beginning of experiment. Further, the proposed method is useful for measuring the critical crack opening displacement and the fracture energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Graphene quantum dots (GQDs) possess great potential in various applications due to their superior physicochemical properties and wide array of available surface modifications. However, the toxicity of GQDs has not been systematically assessed, thus hindered their further development; especially, the risk of surface modifications of GQDs is largely unknown. In this study, we employed a lung carcinoma A549 cells as the model to investigate the cytotoxicity and autophagy induction of three types GQDs, including cGQDs (COOH-GQDs), hGQDs (OH-GQDs), and aGQDs (NH 2 -GQDs). The results showed hGQDs was the most toxic, as significant cell death was induced at the concentration of 100 μg/mL, determining by WST-1 assay as well as Annexin-V-FITC/PI apoptosis analysis, whereas cGQDs and aGQDs were non-cytotoxic within the measured concentration. Autophagy detection was performed by TEM examination, LC3 fluorescence tracking, and Western-blot. Both aGQDs and hGQDs induced cellular autophagy to various degrees except for cGQDs. Further analysis on autophagy pathways indicated all GQDs significantly activated p-p38MAPK; p-ERK1/2 was inhibited by aGQDs and hGQDs but activated by cGQDs. p-JNK was inhibited by aGQDs and cGQDs, while activated by hGQDs. Simultaneously, Akt was activated by hGQDs but inhibited by aGQDs. Inhibition of autophagy by 3-MA significantly increased the cytotoxicity of GQDs, suggesting that autophagy played a protective role against the toxicity of GQDs. In conclusion, cGQDs showed excellent biocompatibility and may be considered for biological applications. Autophagy induction may be included in the health risk assessment of GQDs as it reflects the stress status which may eventually lead to diseases. Graphical abstract Unlabelled Image [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wide application of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) has raised great concerns on their side-effects on human health. PFAAs have been shown to accumulate mainly in the liver and cause hepatotoxicity. However, PFAAs can also deposit in lung tissues through air-borne particles and cause serious pulmonary toxicity. But the underlying mechanisms are still largely unknown. Autophagy is a type of programmed cell death parallel to necrosis and apoptosis, and may be involved in the lung toxicity of PFAAs. In this study, lung cancer cells, A549, were employed as the model to investigate the effects of three PFAAs with different carbon chain lengths on cell autophagy. Through Western blot analysis on LC3-I/II ratio of cells exposed to non-cytotoxic concentration (200 µM) and cytotoxic concentration (350 µM), we found concentration-dependent increase of autophagosomes in cells, which was further confirmed by TEM examination on ultra-thin section of cells and fluorescence imaging on autophagosomes in live cells. The abundance of p62 increased with the PFAAs concentration indicating the blockage of autophagy flux. Furthermore, we identified the mitochondrial autophagy (mitophagy) and endoplasmic reticulum autophagy (ER-phagy) morphologically as the major types of autophagy, suggesting the disruption on mitochondria and ERs. These organelle damages were confirmed by the overgeneration of ROS, hyperpolarization of mitochondrial membrane potential, as well as the up-regulation of ER-stress-related proteins, ATF4 and p-IRE1. Further analysis on the signaling pathways showed that PFAAs activated the MAPK pathways and inhibited the PI3K/Akt pathway, with potencies following the order of PFDA > PFNA > PFOA. Anti-oxidant (NAC) treatment did not rescue cells from death, indicating that oxidative stress is not the reason of cytotoxicity. Inhibition of autophagy by Atg5 siRNA and chloroquine even increased the toxicity of PFAAs, suggesting that PFAAs-autophagy was induced as the secondary effects of organelle damages and played a protective role during cell death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface defect detection has become more and more important in the industrial manufacture and engineering application in recent years. However, due to the lack of overall perception and interaction among features layers, lots of computer vision-based detection methods cannot grab the complete details of defects when dealing with complex scenes, such as low contrast and irregular shape. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a Context-aware Aggregation Network (CANet) to accurately pop-out the defects, where we focus on the mining of context cues and the fusion of multiple context features. To be specific, embarking on the multi-level deep features extracted by encoder, we first deploy a sufficient exploration to dig the context information by deploying the weighted convolution pyramid (WCP) module, which extracts multi-scale context features, transfers the information flow between different resolution features, and fuses the features with same resolution. By this way, we can obtain the effective context pyramid features. Then, the decoder deploys the weighted context attention (WCA) module to filter the irrelevant information from context features and employs the cascaded fusion structure (CFS) to aggregate the multiple context cues in a hierarchical way. Following this way, the generated high-quality saliency maps can highlight the defects accurately and completely. Extensive experiments are performed on four public datasets, and the results firmly prove the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed CANet under different evaluation metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: It can be difficult to locate the superior mesenteric vein and dissect around middle colic vessels during laparoscopic right hemicolectomy with complete mesocolon excision due to a high rate of vascular variations in the superior mesenteric vessels. Therefore, we report a modified technique for hand-assisted laparoscopic right hemicolectomy with complete mesocolic excision and central vascular ligation, which addresses these two problems.Methods: Thirty-one consecutive patients with right colon cancer underwent this procedure from March 2014 to August 2015. Extracorporeally, the transverse colon and distal ileum were excised with a transumbilical hand-port incision, and the distal part of the superior mesenteric vein was identified. Intracorporeally, with the assistance of the surgeon's left hand inserted through the incision, D3-lymphadenectomy with central vascular ligation was performed, and the colon with the tumor, which had no blood supply, was removed. Patients' demographic data and intraoperative, postoperative and pathological characteristics were examined.Results: The median operative time was 130.0 (range 115-180) minutes. The median blood loss was 45.0 (range 20-300) milliliters. The median length of the hand-port incision was 7.3 (range 6.0-8.2) centimeters. The median numbers of lymph nodes and central lymph nodes was 34.0 (range 18-91) and 13.0 (range 3-28), respectively. Five (16.1%) of 31 patients had positive central lymph nodes. Specimen morphometric quantitation was as follows: the median distances from the tumor and nearest bowel wall to the high tie were 10.5 (range 5.0-15.0) and 8.0 (range 6.0-12.0) centimeters, respectively; the median resected area of the mesentery was 200.0 (range 96.0-300.0) square centimeters; the median width of the chain of lymph-adipose tissue at the central lymph nodes area was 2.0 (range 0.8-8.0) centimeters; and the median length of the central lymph-adipose chain was 19.0 (range 3.0-26.0) centimeters.Conclusions: Our procedure confers technical advantages and is feasible for treatment of right colon cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The citrus industry has suffered severe losses as a result of Huanglongbing spread by Diaphorina citri. Controlling the population of D. citri is the key to preventing and controlling the spread of Huanglongbing. Ecdysteroids are key hormones that regulate insect development and reproduction. Therefore, the Halloween gene family involved in the ecdysone synthesis of D. citri is an ideal target for controlling the population growth of this insect. In this study, we successfully cloned four Halloween genes expressed during D. citri development. Silencing of one of the four genes resulted in a significant decrease in 20E titers in nymphs and significant decreases in the developmental, survival and emergence rates. Inhibiting Halloween gene expression in adults impeded the growth of the female ovary, diminished yolk formation, lowered vitellogenin transcription levels, and hence impaired female fecundity. This showed that Halloween genes were required for D. citri development and reproduction. DcCYP315A1 and DcCYP314A1 were highly expressed when D. citri was exposed to thiamethoxam and cypermethrin, and silencing these two genes made D. citri more sensitive to these two pesticides. Inhibition of DcCYP315A1 and DcCYP314A1 expression not only significantly delayed the development and reproduction of D. citri but also increased its susceptibility to pesticides. Therefore, these two genes are more suitable as potential target genes for controlling D. citri. [Display omitted] • Expression of Halloween genes in different stages and different tissues of Diphorina citri. • Injection of dsRNAs caused the nymph to develop slowly and the content of ecdysone decreased. • Inhibition of Halloween gene expression led to the decline of adult fecundity. • Inhibition of DcCYP315A1 and DcCYP314A1 expression increased its susceptibility to pesticides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The type III secretion system is a highly conserved virulence mechanism that is widely distributed in Gram-negative bacteria. It has a syringe-like structure composed of a multi-ring basal body that spans the bacterial envelope and a projecting needle that delivers virulence effectors into host cells. Here, we showed that the Yersinia inner rod protein YscI directly interacts with the needle protein YscF inside the bacterial cells and that this interaction depends on amino acid residues 83-102 in the carboxyl terminus of YscI. Alanine substitution of Trp-85 or Ser-86 abrogated the binding of YscI to YscF as well as needle assembly and the secretion of effectors (Yops) and the needle tip protein LcrV. However, yscI null mutants that were trans-complemented with YscI mutants that bind YscF still assembled the needle and secreted Yops, demonstrating that a direct interaction between YscF and YscI is critical for these processes. Consistently, YscI mutants that did not bind YscF resulted in greatly decreased HeLa cell cytotoxicity. Together, these results show that YscI participates in needle assembly by directly interacting with YscF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing concerns on the severity of climate change, CO 2 emissions have become a serious problem in China because of the country's heavy reliance on fossil fuels as an energy source. Therefore, precise quantification of the CO 2 emissions that occur in China is of serious concern. Although most studies focus on CO 2 emissions from power plant and cement production, the emissions from iron and steel industry is not well researched. The iron and steel industries, the energy consumptions of which are high compared to the rest of the world, are confronted with an increasing demand to reduce CO 2 emissions. Data on CO 2 emissions derived from iron and steel-making is a basic requirement for a certificate of CO 2 reduction. This is the first study to present an analysis of CO 2 emissions from China's iron and steel industry, and we have estimated the direct emissions, including coal fired emission, non fossil fuel combustion emission and indirect emissions. Carbon flows from blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace steel-making systems are analyzed using Material Flow Analysis. The computation method of coal oxidation factors is built and used to estimate the CO 2 emissions of China in 2011 based on the production data of twenty typical iron and steel enterprises. The types of coal involved in iron and steel-making systems include coking coal, sintering (pelletizing) coal and spray-blow coal. It was determined that the coal oxidation factors of coking coal, sintering coal and spray-blow coal are 0.9351, 0.9995, and 0.9745, respectively. Based on the consumption and emission factors of different types of coal used in iron and steel-making systems, the total quantity of CO 2 emissions of China in 2011 was estimated to be 1336 million tons, which is 7.06% lower than the result calculated with the parameters offered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in which the contribution of coking coal is the largest at 79.2%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coexistence of nanomaterials and environmental pollutants requires in-depth understanding of combined toxicity and underlying mechanism. In this work, we found that coexposure to the mixture of noncytotoxic level of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) (10 μg/mL) and Ni2+ (20 μM) induced significant cytotoxicity in macrophages. However, almost equal amount of intracellular Ni2+ was detected after Ni2+/SWCNT coexposure or Ni2+ single exposure, indicating no enhanced cellular uptake of Ni2+ occurred. SDS-PAGE analysis revealed 50% more SWCNTs retained in Ni2+/ SWCNT exposed cells than that with SWCNT exposure alone, regardless of the exposure sequence (coexposure, Ni2+pre- or post-treatment), suggesting inhibited SWCNT exocytosis by Ni2+. The increased cellular dose of SWCNTs could quantitatively account for the elevated toxicity of Ni2+/SWCNT mixture to cells. It was then found that agonist (ATP) and antagonist (o-ATP) of P2X7R could regulate intracellular SWCNT amount and the cytotoxicity accordingly. In addition, inhibition of P2X7R by P2X7-targeting siRNA diminished the inhibitory effect of Ni2+. It was therefore concluded that Ni2+impeded SWCNT exocytosis by inhibiting P2X7R, leading to higher intracellular retention of SWCNTs and elevated cytotoxicity. Our work identified exocytosis inhibition as an important mechanism for SWCNT/Ni2+ toxicity, and revealed the crucial role of P2X7R in mediating such inhibitory effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early Ediacaran Lantian Formation in South China contains some of the oldest known representatives of morphologically complex macroorganisms, including various macroalgae and putative animals. The macroalgal fossils have been described previously in several publications, but no taxonomic treatment has been published for the putative animal fossils. This hampers our ability to fully evaluate and communicate the significance of these potentially important Ediacaran macrofossils. To address this deficiency, here we provide a systematic description of these putative animal fossils from the Lantian Formation, including four new genera and five new species: Lantianella laevis gen. et sp. nov., L. annularis gen. et sp. nov., Piyuania cyathiformis gen. et sp. nov., Qianchuania fusiformis gen. et sp. nov. and Xiuningella rara gen. et sp. nov. Morphological comparisons of these fossils and potential modern analogues are provided and critically assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the cytotoxic effect of oridonin (ORI), a diterpenoid isolated fromRabdosia rubescens, in human diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL)in vitroandin vivoand the potential molecular mechanisms for ORI-induced cell apoptosis. ORI treatment caused reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated oxidative DNA damage response (DDR) and the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) pathway activation, leading to an induction of intrinsic apoptosis. ROS abolition blocked ORI-induced apoptosis and attenuated the expression of phospho-histone H2AX and phospho-JNK, indicating that ROS-mediated DNA damage and JNK pathway activation were involved in ORI-induced apoptosis. The systemic administration of ORI suppressed the growth of human DLBCL xenografts without showing significant toxicity. These findings suggest that ORI may have promising therapeutic application in DLBCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anthracnose is presently recognized as one of the most important postharvest disease of mango worldwide. To control the disease, chemical fungicides for a long time was widely used among fruit farmers, but recently found that pathogen had developed increasingly resistance to it. With people's growing desire of healthy and green food, finding new and environmentally friendly biological control approach was very necessary. In this paper, we provided a kind of new antagonistic yeast which enriched the strain resources and the efficacy of Debaryomyces nepalensis against postharvest anthracnose of mango fruit and the influence on quality parameters were investigated. The results showed that the decay incidence and lesion diameter of postharvest anthracnose of mango treated by D. nepalensis were significantly reduced compared with the control fruit stored at 25 °C for 30 d or at 15 °C for 40 d, and the higher concentration of D. nepalensis was, the better the efficacy of the biocontrol was. Study also found that 1 h was the best treatment duration and antagonistic yeast inoculated earlier had good biocontrol effect on anthracnose. Meanwhile, treatment by D. nepalensis could significantly reduce postharvest anthracnose of mango, delay the decrease in firmness, TSS, TA, and ascorbic acid value, and do not impair surface color during postharvest storage. Moreover, the increase in MDA (malondialdehyde) content and increase in cell membrane permeability of fruit treated by D. nepalensis was highly inhibited. The results suggested D. nepalensis treatment could not only maintain storage quality of mango fruit, but also decrease the decay incidence to anthracnose disease. All these results indicated that D. nepalensis has great potential for development of commercial formulations to control postharvest pathogens of mango fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is a persistent organic pollutant that is used worldwide and is continuously being detected in biota and the environment, thus presenting potential threats to the ecosystem and human health. Although PFOS is highly immunotoxic, its underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. The present study examined PFOS-induced immunotoxicity in the mouse spleen and explored its underlying mechanisms by gene expression profiling. Oral exposure of male BALB/c mice for three weeks followed by one-week recovery showed that a 10 mg/kg/day PFOS exposure damaged the splenic architecture, inhibited T-cell proliferation in response to mitogen, and increased the percentages of T helper (CD3 + CD4 + ) and cytotoxic T (CD3 + CD8 + ) cells, despite the decrease in the absolute number of these cells. A delayed type of PFOS immunotoxicity was observed, which mainly occurred during the recovery period. Global gene expression profiling of mouse spleens and QRT-PCR analyses suggest that PFOS inhibited the expression of genes involved in cell cycle regulation and NRF2-mediated oxidative stress response, and upregulated those in TCR signaling, calcium signaling, and p38/MAPK signaling pathways. Western blot analysis confirmed that the expressions of CAMK4, THEMIS, and CD3G, which were involved in the upregulated pathways, were induced upon PFOS exposure. Acute PFOS exposure modulated calcium homoeostasis in splenocytes. These results indicate that PFOS exposure can activate TCR signaling and calcium ion influx, which provides a clue for the potential mechanism of PFOS immunotoxicity. The altered signaling pathways by PFOS treatment as revealed in the present study might facilitate in better understanding PFOS immunotoxicity and explain the association between immune disease and PFOS exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are widely used as flame retardants and are often detected in the environment, wildlife, and humans, presenting potential threats to ecosystem and human health. PBDEs can cause neurotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, and endocrine disruption. However, data on PBDE immunotoxicity are limited, and the toxicity mechanisms remain largely unknown. Both immune cell death and dysfunction can modulate the responses of the immune system. This study examined the toxic effects of 2,2′,4,4′-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47) and decabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-209) on the immune system by using peritoneal macrophages as the model. The macrophages were exposed to PBDEs, and cell death was determined through flow cytometry and immunochemical blot. The results showed that after 24 h of exposure, BDE-47 (>5 μM) and BDE-209 (>20 μM) induced cell apoptosis, increased intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and depleted glutathione. BDE-47 was more potent than BDE-209; the cytotoxic concentrations for BDE-47 and BDE-209 were determined to be 5 μM and 20 μM, respectively, during 24 h of exposure. However, pretreatment with n -acetyl- l -cysteine (ROS scavenger) partially reversed the cytotoxic effects. Further gene expression analyses on C aspase-3 , -8 , -9 , TNFR1 , and Bax revealed that both intrinsic and extrinsic apoptotic pathways were activated. More importantly, non-cytotoxic concentrations BDE-47 (<2 μM) and BDE-209 (<10 μM) could impair macrophage accessory cell function in a concentration-dependent manner, but no effects were observed on phagocytic responses. These revealed effects of PBDEs on macrophages may shed light on the toxicity mechanisms of PBDEs and suggest the necessity of evaluating cellular functionality during the risk assessment of PBDE immunotoxicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organophosphate esters (OPEs), a major group of organophosphorus flame retardants, are regarded as emerging environmental contaminants of health concern. Amino acid decarboxylases catalyze the conversion of amino acids into polyamines that are essential for cell proliferation, hypertrophy and tissue growth. In this paper, inhibitory effect of twelve OPEs with aromatic, alkyl or chlorinated alkyl substituents on the activity of lysine decarboxylase (LDC) was assessed quantitatively with an economic and label-free fluorescence sensor and cell assay. The sensor comprises a macrocyclic host (cucurbit[7]uril) and a fluorescent dye (acridine orange) reporter. The twelve OPEs were found to vary in their capacity to inhibit LDC activity. Alkyl group substituted OPEs had no inhibitory effect. By contrast, six OPEs substituted with aromatic or chlorinated alkyl groups inhibited LDC activity significantly with IC 50 ranging from 1.32 μM to 9.07 μM. Among them, the inhibitory effect of tri- m -cresyl phosphate (TCrP) was even more effective as an inhibitor than guanosine 5′-diphosphate-3′-diphosphate (ppGpp) (1.60 μM), an LDC natural inhibitor in vivo . Moreover, at non-cytotoxic concentrations, these six OPEs showed perceptible inhibitory effects on LDC activity in PC12 living cells, and led to a marked loss in the cadaverine content. Molecular docking analysis of the LDC/OPE complexes revealed that different binding modes contribute to the difference in their inhibitory effect. Our finding suggested that LDC, as a new potential biological target of OPEs, might be implicated in toxicological and pathogenic mechanism of OPEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orbisiana is an Ediacaran fossil characterized by linearly arranged circular or cylindrical units. The genus was first described from the late Ediacaran Redkino Series in the Moscow Syncline of Russia where it is preserved as pyritic molds in siltstone. Here we report Orbisiana linearis , originally described as Seirisphaera lineare , from black shale of the early Ediacaran Lantian Formation in South China. Unlike the type species ( O. simplex ), O. linearis is preserved as carbonaceous compressions on the bedding surface, with rare specimens preserved three-dimensionally, allowing morphological characterization using X-ray microCT techniques. Morphological, paleoecological and taphonomic analysis suggests that O. linearis was a chain-like modular organism characterized by uniserially arranged, millimeter-sized, and tangentially contacting circular or cylindrical units. Ontogenetic growth of O. linearis was likely achieved through both accretionary addition of new modules and inflational expansion of existing units, and it appears that inflational growth was determinate. Although its phylogenetic affinity remains uncertain, O. linearis was likely a procumbent epibenthic or semi-endobenthic organism that lived on the seawater-sediment interface or partly buried in sediments. O. linearis in the Lantian Formation was preserved in situ, although some specimens are disarticulated and many are tectonically deformed. Orbisiana joins a growing list of Ediacaran genera that have a remarkable range of stratigraphic, environmental, ecological, and taphonomic distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of productivity, people set higher demands on the quality of steel. In recent years, artificial intelligence, especially deep learning-based computer vision technology has attracted great attention, which can be used for detecting steel surface defects such as scratches, patches, and rust spots. However, due to the complexity of the strip steel surface, it is still a challenge to accurately and effectively detect defect regions by the existing defects detection methods. Therefore, we propose a unique saliency model, i.e., deeper feature integration network to highlight the defect regions on the strip steel surface. To be specific, after each encoder stage, we introduce the multiscale global feature extraction module to elevate the multiscale deep features from the encoder. Meanwhile, we deploy the deeper feature extraction module, which contains a bidirectional feature extraction unit, to dig the effective representation for defects. Particularly, the forward one is equipped with a channel-space weighted module and the backward one is equipped with a split attention module. After that, the features from the two branches are progressively integrated by the decoder, yielding the final high-quality saliency maps that give a good depiction of the strip steel surface defects. Extensive experiments are executed on the public dataset, and the comparison results show that our model performs better than the 15 state-of-the-art methods, which proves the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the exact cause of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains elusive, mounting evidence continues to support the involvement of neuroinflammation in the development of AD. Triptolide isolated from the herb Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F has anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive activities. In this study, we observed the effects of triptolide on dendritic spines of hippocampal neurons in model rats with AD. Thirty male SD rats were randomly divided into control group, AD model group and triptolide-treated group. The AD model group was made with bilateral microinjection of aggregated beta-amyloid protein (Aβ)1-40 into hippocampus in rats and the control group rats were injected with normal saline in the same way. The triptolide-treated group rats were administered triptolide intraperitoneally for 30 days after microinjection of aggregated Aβ1-40 into hippocampus. Dendritic morphology of hippocampal neurons in each group was analyzed using Golgi staining and ImageJ software. Our data showed that the total number of intersection points of dendrites and spine density in hippocampal neurons in the AD model group were decreased as compared with the control group. However, the total number of intersection points of dendrites and spine density in hippocampal neurons in the triptolide-treated group were increased as compared with the AD model group. Our results indicate that triptolide can alleviate the degeneration of dendritic spines in hippocampal neurons in model rats with AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the exact cause of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remains elusive, mounting evidence continues to support the involvement of neuroinflammation in the development of AD. Triptolide isolated from the herb Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F has anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive activities. In this study, we observed the effects of triptolide on dendritic spines of hippocampal neurons in model rats with AD. Thirty male SD rats were randomly divided into control group, AD model group and triptolide-treated group. The AD model group was made with bilateral microinjection of aggregated beta-amyloid protein (Aβ) into hippocampus in rats and the control group rats were injected with normal saline in the same way. The triptolide-treated group rats were administered triptolide intraperitoneally for 30 days after microinjection of aggregated Aβ into hippocampus. Dendritic morphology of hippocampal neurons in each group was analyzed using Golgi staining and ImageJ software. Our data showed that the total number of intersection points of dendrites and spine density in hippocampal neurons in the AD model group were decreased as compared with the control group. However, the total number of intersection points of dendrites and spine density in hippocampal neurons in the triptolide-treated group were increased as compared with the AD model group. Our results indicate that triptolide can alleviate the degeneration of dendritic spines in hippocampal neurons in model rats with AD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banana wilt disease, caused by the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense 4 (Foc4), is regarded as one of the most devastating diseases worldwide. Cavendish cultivar ‘Yueyoukang 1’ was shown to have significantly lower disease severity and incidence compared with susceptible cultivar ‘Brazilian’ in greenhouse and field trials. De novo sequencing technology was previously performed to investigate defense mechanism in middle resistant ‘Nongke No 1’ banana, but not in highly resistant cultivar ‘Yueyoukang 1’. To gain more insights into the resistance mechanism in banana against Foc4, Illumina Solexa sequencing technology was utilized to perform transcriptome sequencing of ‘Yueyoukang 1’ and ‘Brazilian’ and characterize gene expression profile changes in the both two cultivars at days 0.5, 1, 3, 5 and 10 after infection with Foc4. The results showed that more massive transcriptional reprogramming occurs due to Foc4 treatment in ‘Yueyoukang 1’ than ‘Brazilian’, especially at the first three time points, which suggested that ‘Yueyoukang 1’ had much faster defense response against Foc4 infection than ‘Brazilian’. Expression patterns of genes involved in ‘Plant-pathogen interaction’ and ‘Plant hormone signal transduction’ pathways were analyzed and compared between the two cultivars. Defense genes associated with CEBiP, BAK1, NB-LRR proteins, PR proteins, transcription factor and cell wall lignification were expressed stronger in ‘Yueyoukang 1’ than ‘Brazilian’, indicating that these genes play important roles in banana against Foc4 infection. However, genes related to hypersensitive reaction (HR) and senescence were up-regulated in ‘Brazilian’ but down-regulated in ‘Yueyoukang 1’, which suggested that HR and senescence may contribute to Foc4 infection. In addition, the resistance mechanism in highly resistant ‘Yueyoukang 1’ was found to differ from that in middle resistant ‘Nongke No 1’ banana. These results explain the resistance in the highly resistant cultivar and provide more insights in understanding the compatible and incompatible interactions between banana and Foc4. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Two carbon nanomaterials were used to study the cytotoxicity in macrophages. [•] Both carbon nanomaterials induced autophagosome accumulation. [•] Both carbon nanomaterials blocked autophagy flux. [•] Carbon nanomaterials accumulated in lysosomes and caused lysosome destabilization. [•] Graphene oxides were more potent than carbon nanotubes in inducing cell responses. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

It is increasingly important to understand the single-walled carbon nanotubes' (SWCNTs) immune response as their increasingly biomedical researches and applications. Macrophages and T cells play important roles in scavenging foreign materials and pathogens and regulating immune response. In this work, primarily cultured murine peritoneal macrophages and purified splenic T cells were utilised to determine the toxic effects of SWCNTs and acid-functionalised SWCNTs (AF-SWCNTs) on the immune system, especially on macrophage functions. Macrophages were exposed to 0-50 μg/ml of CNTs for 24 h and no significant cytotoxicity was found by live/dead and annexin-V-FITC/PI analyses. The TEM images revealed that AF-SWCNTs were engulfed mostly through phagocytosis and located in lysosomes of macrophages. Measurement of mitochondrial membrane potential and proteasome subunit gene expression demonstrated that 10 and 50 μg/ml AF-SWCNTs could damage mitochondrial function and proteasome formation in a concentration-dependent manner. Functional analyses revealed that the percentage of phagocytic cells were affected significantly by 20 μg/ml CNTs, and 5 μg/ml AF-SWCNTs inhibited the phagocytic efficiency of latex beads in macrophages. The accessory cell function was affected by both AF-SWCNTs and SWCNTs at concentrations of 10 and 50 μg/ml, respectively. Furthermore, AF-SWCNT biased naïve T-cell differentiation to Th1 type by inducing the production of IFN-γ and TNF, implying the potential risk of Th1-associated diseases (e.g. autoimmune diseases and inflammation) on AF-SWCNT exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]