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Pickering nanoemulsions were prepared using dual-protein natural symbiotic particles and their physicochemical stability was analyzed to broaden their potential application in the food industry. This study employed alkali extraction-isoelectric point precipitation (AE) and salt extraction-dialysis (SE) to enrich soy protein and flaxseed protein from soybean-flaxseed mixed meal for fabricating dual-protein symbiotic natural particles (SFNPs). First, two dual-protein symbiotic particles were characterized using appearance observation, AFM, circular dichroism, and Raman spectroscopy. Then, Pickering nanoemulsions were prepared with them as particle stabilizers and characterized for their physical and chemical stability. Results demonstrated that AE-SFNPs had a higher uniformity of size and better dispersibility. AE-SFNPs also showed a higher proportion (as high as 51.25%) of β-sheet in its secondary structure, endowing it a more tightly ordered and flexible structure compared with SE-SFNPs. Moreover, both AE-SFNPs and SE-SFNPs could be used to generate Pickering nanoemulsion. During 28 days of storage, the particle size of the stabilized emulsion of AE-SFNPs increased only about 14 nm and its ζ-potential was stabilized at about -34 mV. In contrast, the particle size of the stabilized emulsion of SE-SFNPs increased about 12 fold, and its ζ-potential was decreased 1.32 fold. The stability index (TSI, 5.83) of the AE-SFNPs was much smaller than the TSI value (55.13) of the SE-SFNPs when stored until the 28th day. Notably, the Pickering nanoemulsion stabilized by AE-SFNPs exhibited higher physical and chemical stability than that prepared by sodium caseinate (a common emulsifier used in food processing). Therefore, AE-SFNPs can serve as a natural and efficient plant protein-based particle stabilizer to prepare Pickering nanoemulsion. This work provides a new strategy to enhance the industrial application of nanoemulsions.

Selenium (Se)-enriched Brassica napus L. is a valuable organic Se supplement. In this study, the fermentation broth enriched with organic Se (FFS) was prepared using Lactobacillus plantarum to ferment the substrate of Se-enriched Brassica napus L. Significant increases were observed after fermentation in total sugars, reducing sugars, soluble proteins, total phenolic content (TPC), and total flavonoid content (TFC). The organic Se was retained at a concentration of 54.75 ​mg/g in the freeze-dried sample. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis showed good separation between the FFS and unfermented (FS) groups. Fragrant 2-ethyloxetane had the highest content among all volatiles, while sinapine had the highest content among all phenolic compounds. The fermentation process showed remarkable improvement in the abundance and concentration of volatile compounds and phenolic contents, making FFS exhibit strong antioxidant activity and inhibitory capacity against α-glucosidase activity. The bioaccessibility of phenolic compounds was significantly greater in FFS compared to FS. ADMET analysis revealed that the majority of phenolic compounds contained in FFS did not exhibit mutagenicity toxicity, hepatotoxicity, skin sensitization, or blood-brain barrier penetration, indicating a favorable level of biosafety. Overall, our study provides a new insight into the further utilization of Se-enriched Brassica napus L. in foods.

The objective of this study was to determine the differences of aroma and taste in three black sesame originsbefore and after processing via flavor and widely metabolomics. By analyzing the sensory characteristics and metabolites of raw and treated black sesame from China, Vietnam, and Myanmar, treated Chinese sesame have the most significant change in hardness after thermal processing, low viscosity and was easy to chew. The electronic nose could distinguish between raw and treated sesame due to the aroma distribution. The reason of treated sesame from China was “fragrant” is due to the highest content (2545.50 ​μg/kg) of total pyrazines including 2,5-dimethylpyrazine, 2-ethyl-5-methylpyrazine, 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine. 933 metabolites were detected via a wide targeted metabolomics in the taste of raw and treated sesame. Based on the analysis of metabolites related to bitterness, 145 substances were selected. The main bitter contributors may be amino acids, dipeptides and organic acids.

Abstract Background Primary caregivers of hemodialysis patients suffer from varying degrees of stress from their patients. Caring for hemodialysis patients can expose caregivers to many problems, leading to an increased burden of care and even impacting the quality of care. The purpose of our study was to examine whether family resilience could be a mediating variable moderating the relationship between patient coping styles and caregiver burden. Methods The study was a cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical study that interviewed 173 pairs of hemodialysis patients and their caregivers at a blood purification center in a public hospital in China. The Brief Coping Styles Scale (Chinese version) was used to assess individuals’ coping styles for disease and treatment. From the caregiver’s perspective, the Family Resilience Assessment Scale (Chinese version) was used to understand the resilience of families, and the Zarit Caregiver Burden Scale was used to capture the caregiver’s subjective experience of burden. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 23 and Amos version 26 to analyze the relationships between variables to examine for correlation and construct mediated effects models. Results Coping styles showed a significant positive correlation with family resilience (r = 0.347, P

Peritoneal metastasis is one of the important causes of death in patients with gastrointestinal cancer and is also a difficult point in clinical diagnosis and treatment. How to predict the occurrence of peritoneal metastasis in patients with high-risk factors, advance the threshold of diagnosis and treatment before the occurrence of peritoneal metastasis, and improve the survival benefit of patients is an unsolved problem in clinical work. In the case of low positive rate of cytology and difficulty in diagnosing occult peritoneal metastasis, new molecular markers and detection techniques for early diagnosis of peritoneal metastasis need to be verified. Peritoneal lavage fluid has the characteristics of less leukocyte-derived cell-free DNA interference, higher concentration of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), and direct contact with the primary lesion or potential peritoneal metastasis at physical distance, making it a unique advantage in gastrointestinal cancer. At present, the detection methods of ctDNA in peritoneal lavage fluid include digital PCR, epigenetic-based analysis, and next-generation sequencing. With the iteration of technology, the application of next-generation sequencing and personalized panels to ctDNA detection has not only shown great potential in predicting postoperative peritoneal metastasis, but also promoted the idea of preventive escalation treatment of peritoneal metastasis. This article reviews the current application of ctDNA to peritoneal lavage fluid in predicting peritoneal metastasis of gastrointestinal cancer.

Perilla (Perilla frutescens L.) is an annual herbaceous plant whose seed oil is rich in unsaturated fatty acids such as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). This oil exhibits various health benefits, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, lipid-lowering, hypoglycemic, neuroprotective and immunomodulatory activities. In addition, incorporating perilla oil into a diet can effectively increase the abundance of beneficial bacteria in the gut microbiota. However, perilla oil is prone to oxidation, which reduces its nutritional value and lowers its bioavailability. To address these issues, encapsulation technologies such as emulsions, oleogels, liposomes and microcapsules have been employed, showing promising results. Nonetheless, further research is needed to fully elucidate the underlying mechanisms of perilla seed oil’s health effects, validate its benefits through large-scale human clinical trials and optimize encapsulation techniques. Future investigations should also explore the synergistic effects of combining perilla seed oil with other functional components and its role in modulating gut microbiota to achieve comprehensive health benefits.

Gliadin nanoparticle (GNP) is a promising foaming agent, but its application is hindered by the limited foam stability under low acidic conditions. Herein, we attempted to tune the foam stability of GNP by coating it with flaxseed gum (FG) and investigated the structure, interfacial behaviors, and foam functionality of gliadin-FG (GFG) particles at pH 4.5. Results showed that the formation of GFG complex particles was driven by an electrostatic interaction between positive charge patches on the surface of GNP (~17 mV) and negative charges in FG molecule (~−13 mV) at all tested ratios. The addition of appropriate amounts of FG (1:0.05) effectively improved the foam stability of GNP. This was because GFG with larger sizes and lower surface charge possessed higher rigidity after coating with FG. When they adsorbed at the air/water interface, their deformation process was slower than that of GNP, as indicated by interfacial dilatational rheology and cryo-SEM, and the covered particles seemed to be more closely distributed to form solid-like and dense interfacial films. Notably, the addition of FG at a higher ratio (1:0.3) promoted the foam stability of GNP by about five folds because the larger GFG with suitable flexibility and wettability could form a stiff interface layer with more significant elastic response, and the unabsorbed particles and FG could form a gel-like network structure in the continuous phase. These characteristics effectively prevented foam disproportionation and coalescence, as well as retard the drainage. Our findings demonstrate that coating GNPs with FG is an effective approach to improve their application in foamed foods.

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major public health problem. After HBV infection, viral antigens shift the immune balance in favor of viral escape. Sulforaphane (SFN) is a traditional Chinese medicine.It regulates multi-biological activities, including anti-inflammation, anticancer, and antiviral. However, few studies reported that SFN can inhibit HBV infection before. Methods: An immunocompetent HBV CBA/CaJ mouse model and a co-culture model were used to explore the effect of SFN on HBV and whether SFN altered the immune balance after HBV infection. Results: We found that SFN was able to reduce HBV DNA, cccDNA, HBsAg, HBeAg, and HBcAg levels in serum and liver tissues of HBV-infected mice. In vitro and in vivo experiments showed that SFN could significantly increase the expression of Cd86 and iNOS and inhibit the expression of Arg1 on macrophages after HBV infection. After SFN administration, Th17 markers in liver tissue and serum were significantly increased. There was no significant changes in the proportion of Treg cells in peripheral blood, but a significant increase in the proportion of Th17 cells and decrease of the Treg/Th17 ratio. Using a network pharmacology approach, we predicted macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) as a potential target of SFN and further validated that MIF expression was significantly increased after HBV infection and SFN significantly inhibited MIF expression both in vitro and in vivo. There was an upward trend in HBV markers (p>0.05) after MIF overexpression. Overexpression of MIF combined with the use of SFN resulted in a significant reversion in the expression of HBV markers and polarization of macrophages towards the M1 phenotype. Conclusion: Our results indicated that immunocompetent HBV CBA/CaJ mouse model is a good model to evaluate HBV infection. SFN could inhibit the expression of HBV markers, promote polarization of macrophages towards the M1 phenotype after HBV infection, change the proportion of Treg and Th17 cells. Our findings demonstrate that SFN inhibit HBV infection by inhibiting the expression of MIF and promoting the polarization of macrophages towards the M1 phenotype, which illustrates a promising therapeutic approach in HBV infection.

Combining a single-component white-light phosphor with ultraviolet light emitting diode chips emerges as a promising method to produce white-light-emitting diodes (WLEDs). Nevertheless, it is still a challenge for synthesizing single-component white-light phosphors with a high color rendering index (CRI). Herein, Bi3+/Te4+ co-doped Cs2ZrCl6 perovskite white-light phosphor is presented with a high CRI of 91.7 and good stability against oxygen, water, and heat. The Cs2ZrCl6 microcrystals were prepared using an ultrasound-assisted hydrochloric acid method with controllable Bi3+ and Te4+ dopant contents. By manipulating the excitation wavelength, the emission light can be altered between cold and warm white. The Bi3+/Te4+ co-doped Cs2ZrCl6 phosphor can also emit the warm-white light, showing a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 82.9%. The presented Bi3+/Te4+ co-doped Cs2ZrCl6 perovskite phosphors with a high CRI and great environmental stability offer a new approach for the synthesis of single-phase white-light phosphors and have high potentiality for the application of WLEDs.

Introduction: Diminished brain insulin sensitivity is associated with reduced cognitive function. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is known to maintain normal brain function. Objectives: This study aimed to determine whether DHA impacts hippocampal insulin sensitivity and cognitive function in aged rats fed a high-fat diet (HFD). Methods: Eight-month-old female Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups (n = 50 each). Rats in the aged group, HFD group, and DHA treatment group received standard diet (10 kcal% fat), HFD (45 kcal% fat), and DHA-enriched HFD (45 kcal% fat, 1% DHA, W/W) for 10 months, respectively. Four-month-old female rats (n = 40) that received a standard diet served as young controls. Neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, amyloid formation, and tau phosphorylation in the hippocampus, as well as systemic glucose homeostasis and cognitive function, were tested. Results: DHA treatment relieved a block in the insulin signaling pathway and consequently protected aged rats against HFD-induced hippocampal insulin resistance. The beneficial effects were explained by a DHA-induced decrease in systemic glucose homeostasis dysregulation, hippocampal neuroinflammation and oxidative stress. In addition, DHA treatment broke the reciprocal cycle of hippocampal insulin resistance, Aβ burden, and tau hyperphosphorylation. Importantly, treatment of model rats with DHA significantly increased their cognitive capacity, as evidenced by their increased hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, restored neuron morphology, enhanced cholinergic activity, and activated cyclic AMP-response element-binding protein. Conclusion: DHA improves cognitive function by enhancing hippocampal insulin sensitivity.

Discovering maximal frequent itemsets is an important issue and key technique in many data mining problems such as association rule mining. In the literature, generating maximal frequent itemsets proves either to be NP-hard or to have O(l34l(m+n))O\left({l}^{3}{4}^{l}\left(m+n)) complexity in the worst case from the perspective of generating maximal complete bipartite graphs of a bipartite graph, where mm, nn are the item number and the transaction number, respectively, and ll denotes the maximum of ∣C∣∣Ψ(C)∣/(∣C∣+∣Ψ(C)∣−1)| C| | \Psi \left(C)| \hspace{0.1em}\text{/}\hspace{0.1em}\left(| C| +| \Psi \left(C)| -1), with the maximum taken over all maximal frequent itemsets CC. In this article, we put forward a method for discovering maximal frequent itemsets, whose complexity is O(3mn2β+4βn)O\left(3mn{2}^{\beta }+{4}^{\beta }n), lower than the known complexity both in the worst case, from the perspective of semigroup algebra, where β\beta is the number of items whose support is more than the minimum support threshold. Experiments also show that an algorithm based on the algebraic method performs better than the other three well-known algorithms. Meanwhile, we explore some algebraic properties with respect to items and transactions, prove that the maximal frequent itemsets are exactly the simplified generators of frequent itemsets, give a necessary and sufficient condition for a maximal i+1i+1-frequent itemset being a subset of a closed ii-frequent itemset, and provide a recurrence formula of maximal frequent itemsets.

To date, it is controversial which metallic impurities play crucial role in the laser induced degradation and damage of fused silica at 355 nm. In this work, a First -principles study for the influences of impurities in fused silica are presented, which are usually contaminated during manufacture and post-processing processes. Our results show that Ca, K, Fe and Ce can lead to obvious optical absorption near 355 nm. Moreover, we find that, for K and Ca, the absorption intensity near 355 nm is highly sensitive to the concentration. Our results indicate that K and Ca can easily induce degradation and damage of fused silica at 355 nm. These two impurities should be concerned during manufacture and post-processing processes. The detailed theoretical study reveal that Ca and K can induce obvious impurity states in band gap and the optical absorption near 355 nm is originated from the transition between impurity states to conduction band. Our results also reveal that, for fused silica with Ca impurity, the exciton effect plays an important role for the optical absorptions near 355 nm, while it is not significant for K. Our work helps to explore laser damage mechanism and improve manufacture and post-processing techniques of fused silica.

Aluminum is an inorganic contaminant and has adverse effects on human and animal health by mainly accumulating in the immune system to exert toxicity. α-Linolenic acid (ALA), a crucial dietary component, possesses various bioactivities. Nevertheless, the effects of ALA on Al-induced toxicity have not been sufficiently understood. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the possible mechanism of aluminium chloride hexahydrate (AlCl3·6H2O, Al) exposure to RAW264.7 cells and the response of ALA through an RNA sequencing (RNA‐seq). RNA-seq results demonstrated that Al exposure resulted in 2106 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) with 53 pathways, including the NF-κB, enriched by the KEGG analysis. 200 of the 2106 DEGs were modulated in ALA-pretreated group, which were enriched into 36 pathways, containing the NF-κB. qRT-PCR results displayed the RNA-seq's reproducibility and reliability. Western blot analysis confirmed that the protection of ALA against Al toxicity was associated with NF-κB mediated JAK2/STAT3/SOCS3 pathway and HO-1 activation. These results elucidated the protection of ALA against Al-induced toxicity from a new perspective and provided a potential therapy for Al treatment.

ObjectiveResearch on the possible impact of social alienation, family resilience, and caregiver burden on the coping styles of Chinese patients on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) is scarce. We explore the influence of social alienation, family resilience, and caregiver burden on the coping styles of MHD patients, both directly and indirectly.MethodsWe invited 173 MHD patients and their primary caregivers for a cross-sectional study; the study using convenience sampling method at the hemodialysis center of the First People’s Hospital of Foshan. The Chinese version of the generalized social of alienation scale, the Chinese version of the simplified coping style questionnaire, and a sociodemographic questionnaire were completed by the MHD patients, while their primary caregivers had filled out the Chinese family resilience assessment scale, the Chinese version of the Zarit caregiver burden interview, and provided socio-demographic information. SPSS macro program PROCESS v3.3 Model 6 were used for analyses of chain-mediated effects.ResultsIn the mediating effects model, the direct influence of social alienation upon coping styles was significant (95% CI −0.050, −0.014), and social alienation indirectly impacted coping style by family resilience in a significant way (95% CI −0.012, −0.001) or caregiver burden (95% CI −0.013, −0.001). In addition, social alienation significantly impacted coping style by both family resilience and caregiver burden (95% CI −0.008, −0.001).ConclusionSocial alienation can exert both a direct and indirect influence on coping styles through the mediating factors of family resilience and caregiver burden. Clinicians can take interventions to strengthen family resilience and reduce caregiver burden, which may be useful in improving socially isolated behaviors and coping skills in MHD patients.

A two-step physical-chemical etching method, namely large incident angle ion beam etching followed by HF etching, is proposed to remove the damage precursors in fused silica surface to achieve good surface quality and significantly improve the laser damage resistance of fused silica. Ion beam etching with large incident angle is utilized to remove the metal impurities and most subsurface defects in fused silica surface, which can reduce the removal amount of subsequent HF etching of fused silica, thus suppressing the replication and expansion of the subsurface defects, deposition of reaction products and deterioration of surface shape during the HF etching process. After that, HF etching is used to remove the atomic-scale damaged layer and reduce the P–V value of the reflection surface shape induced by ion beam etching. Therefore, a better laser damage performance of fused silica can be obtained by the two-step etching method compared with single ion beam etching and single HF etching. The results show that the two-step physical-chemical etching can be developed to fabricate high-quality and high damage-resistant fused silica optical components with small etching amount and good surface quality for high-power laser application.

To fully mobilize small hydropower resources in the virtual power plants to operate collaboratively， improve operational controllability， and reduce carbon emissions， a low-carbon operation strategy of virtual power plants （VPPs） considering the spatiotemporal coupling characteristics of small hydropower is proposed. Firstly， based on the network theory of node parameter modeling， a matrix collection characterizing the spatiotemporal coupling characteristics among multiple hydropower plants is proposed to facilitate efficient storage and convenient recall of information. Secondly， a low-carbon operation model of VPPs considering the spatiotemporal coupling characteristics is constructed with the objective of their day-ahead equivalent carbon emissions that take account of the regulation factor of the operation mode. The sharing of each hydropower plant’s reservoir capacity regulation is realized through aggregating coordinated scheduling of small hydropower. Finally， a small hydropower plant in a county of Zhejiang is used as an example to verify the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method.

Aluminum has been associated with neurodegenerative diseases. ALA (α-linolenic acid), an essential dietary component for human health, possesses prominent biological activities. Herein, we aim to explore the neuroprotective effects of ALA on aluminum toxicity and reveal the underlying mechanism. Results show that aluminum chloride (denoted as Al) enabled cell viability decline and apoptosis with oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage in differentiated rat pheochromocytoma cells (PC12) for 24 ​h incubation. Compared with Al (10 ​mmol/L) treatment alone, ALA (50 ​μmol/L) pretreatment for 24 ​h significantly enhanced cell viability by 28.40%, and hindered cell apoptosis by 12.35%, together with recovering redox state balance and alleviating mitochondrial damage. It was measured that ALA treatment upregulated Bcl-2 expression and down-regulated Bax level, accompanied with an expression decline of caspase-3 and caspase-9. Meanwhile, ALA pretreatment was proved to increase protein kinase A (PKA) expression and to promote phosphorylation of cAMP response element-binding protein (p-CREB), resulting in elevation on the level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). The above results showed that ALA attenuated Al toxicity in PC12 ​cells by mediating the PKA-CREB-BDNF signaling pathway.

To evaluate the clinical applicability of deep learning based auto-segmentation of organs at risk (OARs) based on geometric and dosimetric indices. In this study, a total of 35 patients with rectal cancer who received radiotherapy in the Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were enrolled, and an in-house developed deep learning system was used to automatically segment OARs. Taking manual delineation as reference, the geometric evaluation indices included the dice similarity coefficient (DSC), jaccard similarity coefficient (JSC), hausdorff distance (HD), and mean distance to agreement (MDA). For each case, the treatment planning was optimized based on the auto-segmented OARs. The plan optimization and evaluation process was consistent with clinical procedure, recorded as Plan_FD. The dosimetric differences between Plan_FD and the original clinical treatment plan (recorded as Plan_Treat) were compared through dose-volume parameters and three-dimensional gamma analysis. The auto-segmented and manually delineated OARs were not only highly overlapping in three-dimensional space with an average value of DSC greater than 0.85 but also well matched in edge details with an average value of MDA less than 2.8 mm. In the dosimetric evaluation, a statistically significant difference was observed only for the bladder (p < 0.05); the dose-volume parameters of the other OARs and PTV were not statistically significant. Three-dimensional γ analysis (3 mm / 3 % standard) was performed on Plan_FD and Plan_Treat, where the percentage of points with γ ≤ 1.0 was (91.63 ± 6.27) %. Deep learning-based auto-segmentation of OARs has a high geometric similarity with manual delineation. The auto-segmented OARs have no significant impact on treatment planning and dose distribution, and have the potential to be directly applied to clinical treatment planning.

Focusing on three-phase inverter control with unbalanced and nonlinear loads in islanded microgrids， an inverter control method including fundamental voltage tracking， harmonic voltage suppression， active damping and output current limiting is proposed. A transfer function model for the inverter operation system is established， and the influence of main hardware circuit and control system parameters on the system stability is analyzed. Simulations and experiments verify the accuracy of the system transfer function model， indicating that the proposed inverter control method can ensure the voltage quality on the inverter side under unbalanced and nonlinear load conditions and achieve current-limiting operation under unbalanced overload conditions with excellent dynamic response characteristics.

Abstract Background GATA binding protein 4 (GATA4) has been reported as a potential target of gene therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). It is well known that the main cause of HCC is the chronic infection of hepatitis B virus (HBV). However, whether the effect of GATA4 on HBV has not yet been reported. Methods In this study, the regulation of GATA4 on HBV was analyzed in vitro. In turn, the effect of HBV on GATA4 was also observed in vitro, in vivo, and clinical HCC patients. Subsequently, we analyzed whether the effect of GATA4 on HBV was related to hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4α) in vitro. Results The results showed that GATA4 significantly promoted the secretion of HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) and HBV e antigen in the cell culture medium, improved the replication of HBV genomic DNA, and increased the level of HBV 3.5 kb pre-genomic RNA and HBV total RNA (P 0.05). At the same time, GATA4 expression was decreased in 78.9% (15/19) of HCC patients regardless of the HBV and HBsAg status. Among them, there were 76.9% (10/13) in HBV-associated patients with HCC (HBV-HCC), and 83.3% (5/6) in non-HBV-HCC patients. In addition, the expression of HNF4α was also up-regulated or down-regulated accordingly when stimulating or interfering with the expression of GATA4. Furthermore, stimulating the expression of HNF4α could only alleviate the HBsAg level and HBV transcription levels, but had no significant effect on GATA4. Conclusions In summary, this study found that GATA4 has a positive effect on HBV, and the potential pathway may be related to another transcription factor HNF4α that regulates HBV.

The ground-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (GB-SAR) technique can be applied to the safety monitoring and early warning of geo-hazards, especially for monitoring displacement of various types of landslide masses. One of the key techniques of processing GB-SAR monitoring data is phase unwrapping, which can be dramatically affected by atmospheric humidity, atmospheric pressure, sampling interval, etc. In high mountains and valleys where environmental change is drastic, GB-SAR monitoring data is vulnerable to incoherence both spatially and temporally. Therefore, an improved phase unwrapping method of GB-SAR data for landslide monitoring is proposed in this paper, which can realize three-dimensional phase unwrapping in time and space. The method adopts the idea of sparse data processing and realizes phase unwrapping of monitoring data in two steps. Firstly, taking full advantage of the high temporal resolution of GB-SAR monitoring data, the one-dimensional phase unwrapping method in the spatial domain is applied to the time domain, and the interference phases of PS points are unwrapped in the time domain. Then, the PS network is constructed based on the time-phase unwrapping results, the double-difference phases of the network baselines are obtained and the spatial consistency adjustment is applied to them, and the spatial phase unwrapping can be realized by the indirect least square adjustment method. This method successfully solves the problem of path dependence, island isolation and large computation of the common method of space-borne SAR phase unwrapping, which can process GB-SAR data with high accuracy and efficiency.

Proteases have been widely employed in many industrial processes. In this work, we aimed to improve the thermostability of the serine protease PB92 from Bacillus alcalophilus to meet the high-temperature requirements of biotechnological treatments. Eight mutation sites (N18, S97-S101, E110, and R143) were identified, and 21 mutants were constructed from B-factor comparison and multiple sequence alignment and expressed via Bacillus subtilis. Among them, fifteen mutants exhibited increased half-life (t1/2) values at 65 °C (1.13–31.61 times greater than that of the wild type). Based on the composite score of enzyme activity and thermostability, six complex mutants were implemented. The t1/2 values of these six complex mutants were 2.12–10.05 times greater than that of the wild type at 65 °C. In addition, structural analysis revealed that the increased thermal stability of complex mutants may be related to the formation of additional hydrophobic interactions due to increased hydrophobicity and the decreased flexibility of the structure. In brief, the thermal stability of the complex mutants N18L/R143L/S97A, N18L/R143L/S99L, and N18L/R143L/G100A was increased 4-fold, which reveals application potential in industry.

For lithium–sulfur batteries, 3D cathodes might be of interest for containing the active material and trapping the polysulfides during cycling, owing to their binder-free and freestanding features. In this work, the MoS2 grown on the 3D structured Carbon Cloth (CC@MoS2) is firstly used to fabricate the Li–S battery and the sulfur loading can be freely tuned by adjusting thermal annealing time at 200 °C. A two-step melt-diffusion strategy is reported for fabrication of cathodes, which involves in melting and diffusion of sulfur covered by CC@MoS2 composites instead of dissolution of sulfur in the toxic organic solvents. Compared with the non-polar carbon cloth, the CC@MoS2 composites exhibit better adsorption capacity for polysulfides due to more edge active sites, which could effectively facilitate polysulfide redox kinetics. The SEM images of the CC@MoS2 cathode after 300 cycles show that MoS2 can still maintain the nanosheet morphology. After 300 cycles at 0.5 C, the CC@MoS2 cathodes loaded with 2 mg sulfur exhibit a better reversible capacity of 698 mA h g−1 compared with CC@MoS2 loaded with 1 mg sulfur (604 mA h g−1) and CC@MoS2 loaded with 4 mg sulfur (420 mA h g−1). This work proposes an environmentally friendly method to fabricate the lithium–sulfur battery cathode material and the sulfur loading can be freely adjusted.

Abstract Background Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have become a promising treatment for spinal cord injury (SCI) due to the fact that they provide a favorable environment. Treatment using MSCs results in a better neurological functional improvement through the promotion of nerve cell regeneration and the modulation of inflammation. Many studies have highlighted that the beneficial effects of MSCs are more likely associated with their secreted factors. However, the identity of the factor that plays a key role in the MSC-induced neurological functional recovery following SCI as well as its molecular mechanism still remains unclear. Methods A conditioned medium (collected from the MSCs) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) were used to test the effects on the differentiation of neural stem cells (NSCS) in the presence of BMP4 with or without a c-Met antibody. In SCI rats, Western blot, ELISA, immunohistochemistry, and hematoxylin-eosin staining were used to investigate the biological effects of MSC-conditioned medium and HGF on nerve cell regeneration and inflammation with or without the pre-treatment using a c-Met antibody. In addition, the possible molecular mechanism (cross-talk between HGF/c-Met and the BMP/Smad 1/5/8 signaling pathway) was also detected by Western blot both in vivo and in vitro. Results The conditioned medium from bone marrow-derived MSCs (BMSCs) was able to promote the NSC differentiation into neurons in vitro and the neurite outgrowth in the scar boundary of SCI rats by inhibiting the BMP/Smad signaling pathway as well as reduces the secondary damage through the modulation of the inflammatory process. The supplementation of HGF showed similar biological effects to those of BMSC-CM, whereas a functional blocking of the c-Met antibody or HGF knockdown in BMSCs significantly reversed the functional improvement mediated by the BMSC-CM. Conclusions The MSC-associated biological effects on the recovery of SCI rats mainly depend on the secretion of HGF.

In recent years, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) signal has been widely used in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging research due to its orthogonality and large bandwidth. Compared with the traditional SAR, OFDM SAR has certain advantages in imaging applications because of its unique signal characteristics. Nevertheless, OFDM SAR faces many challenges. In this paper, on the basis of different antenna configurations, the problems and studies of single-antenna OFDM SAR imaging and multi-antenna MIMO OFDM SAR imaging are reviewed. The imaging methods of SAR/MIMO SAR based on OFDM and cyclic prefix OFDM signals are discussed, and some possible future research directions of OFDM SAR are presented.

The utilization of mountain wind resources are important issues in the development of wind energy. However, when wind flows over mountainous terrain, its velocity and direction undergo certain changes, resulting in more complex mountain wind fields and induced structural wind effects. To study the distribution characteristics of horizontal wind in mountainous areas, in this study, wind tunnel experiments were conducted on regular mountain models with different slopes to investigate the wind field characteristics at various locations in the mountain range. The research shows that near the mountain surface, the wind speed and velocity ratio follow the order of mountain top > mountain waist > mountain foot, with a wind acceleration effect at the mountain top (wind speed ratio greater than 1) and a wind deceleration effect at the mountain foot and waist (wind speed ratio less than 1). As the height increases, the wind speed ratios gradually approach 1. Moreover, with an increase in slope ratio, the wind speed decreases at the mountain foot and increases at the mountain top. And with the increase of the slope leads to an increasing difference in wind speed ratio between the mountain top and the foot.

Cardiovascular complications are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in type 2 diabetes patients. Diabetes greatly increases the risk of heart disease; therefore, the management of diabetes often involves the prevention of heart disease. DPP-4 inhibitors have been proven to be the effective therapeutic agents of glycaemic control. Recent studies have shown that certain types of DPP-4 inhibitors could also have cardiovascular benefits. In this study, we examined the protective role of the newly developed DPP-4 inhibitor anagliptin in cultured cardiac myocytic cell line H9C2 cells. Our data show that exposure of H9C2 cells to hypoxic conditions induced higher expression of DPP-4, indicating that DPP-4 is a hypoxia-inducible factor. The inhibition of DPP-4 by anagliptin ameliorates hypoxia-induced cytotoxicity and induction of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and MCP-1. Anagliptin also suppresses hypoxia-induced oxidative stress as revealed by the detected levels of cellular ROS and reduced GSH. Moreover, anagliptin protects myocytes from hypoxia-associated reduced mitochondrial membrane potential. Mechanistically, we show that anagliptin promotes hypoxia-induced NFR2/HO1 induction but suppresses HMGB1 and MyD88 generation. Collectively, our data indicate that anagliptin-mediated DPP-4 inhibition is a protective mechanism in cardiomyocytes and imply that the DDP-4 inhibitor anagliptin plays dual roles by lowering glucose and protecting cardiomyocytes.

Ultrasound assisted enzymatic method was applied to the degumming of arachidonic acid (ARA) oil produced by Mortierella alpina. The conditions of degumming process were optimized by response surface methodology with Box- Behnken design. A dephosphorization rate of 98.82% was achieved under optimum conditions of a 500 U/kg of Phospholipase A1 (PLA1) dosage, 2.8 mL/100 g of water volume, 120 min of ultrasonic time, and 135 W of ultrasonic power. The phosphorus content of ultrasonic assisted enzymatic degumming oil (UAEDO) was 4.79 mg/kg, which was significantly lower than that of enzymatic degumming oil (EDO, 17.98 mg/kg). Crude Oil (CO), EDO and UAEDO revealed the similar fatty acid compositions, and ARA was dominated (50.97 ~ 52.40%). The oxidation stability of UAEDO was equivalent to EDO and weaker than CO, while UAEDO presented the strongest thermal stability, followed by EDO and CO. Furthermore, aldehydes, acids and alcohols were identified the main volatile flavor components for the three oils. The proportions of major contributing components such as hexanal, nonanal, (E)-2-nonanal, (E, E)-2,4-decadienal, (E)-2-nonenal and aldehydes in UAEDO and EDO were all lower than CO. Overall, Ultrasound assisted enzymatic degumming proved to be an efficient and superior method for degumming of ARA oil.

We report a simple one-step hydrothermal strategy for the fabrication of a C-MoS2/rGO composite with both large surface area and high porosity for the use as advanced electrode material in lithium–sulfur batteries. Double modified defect-rich MoS2 nanosheets are successfully prepared by introducing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and amorphous carbon. The conductibility of the cathodes can be improved through the combination of amorphous carbon and rGO, which could also limit the dissolution of polysulfides. After annealing at different temperatures, it is found that the C-MoS2/rGO-6-S composite annealed at 600 °C yields a noticeably enhanced performance of lithium–sulfur batteries, with a high specific capacity of 572 mAh·g−1 at 0.2C after 550 cycles, and 551 mAh·g−1 even at 2C, much better than that of MoS2-S nanosheets (249 mAh·g−1 and 149 mAh·g−1) and C-MoS2/rGO-S composites (334 mAh·g−1 and 382 mAh·g−1). Our intended electrode design protocol and annealing process may pave the way for the construction of other high-performance metal disulfide electrodes for electrochemical energy storage.

BACKGROUND The higher thermal maturity of organic matter and the shortage of terrestrial plants are the main characteristics of Lower Paleozoic marine shale in China, which results in the difficulty of distinguishing macerals. Nowadays the existing methods of vitrinite reflectance, rock eval, Tm/Ts and other biomarker indices cannot be effectively used to evaluate the maturity of organic matter in shale. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the maturity of organic matter in highly evolved shale. METHODS The shale of the Silurian Longmaxi Formation of Well Anye-1 in Zheng'an area of Guizhou Province is used in the experiments. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy and Laser Raman Spectroscopy are used to obtain the Raman Spectra of organic matter in different occurrences of highly evolved shale, independent of the type of organic macerals. RESULTS It can be found that there are four types of organic matter in the Silurian Longmaxi Formation of Well Anye-1, i.e. bio-structural type, vein-like or clump-like type, euhedral and anhedral boundary filling gap shape. The euhdedral boundary filling gap shape has an organic aperture larger than 80nm, whereas the anhedral boundary filling gap shape has an organic aperture less than 60nm. These two types of organic matter are the main reservoir space of rock reservoirs, which account for more than 90%. Four types of organic matter have different thermal evolution degrees. Moreover, the Raman maturity ranges from 2.8% to 3.0%, which is calculated from the laser Raman surface scanning data. The proportion of Raman maturity of various organic matters to the total amount is consistent with the semi-quantitative statistical results observed by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy. CONCLUSIONS The methods used in the experiments are effective in measuring the maturity of organic matter in highly evolved marine shale in China.

Acrylamide (ACR), widely present in heat treatment of starchy foods, has attracted much attention in chronic neurotoxin. Canolol is a crucial phenolic compound and generated in rapeseed oil during microwave pressing. The present study aimed to reveal the ameliorative effects of canolol against ACR-induced toxicity in PC12 cells and the underlying mechanism. Cells pretreated with canolol inhibited ACR-exerted cytotoxicity and cell apoptosis. Canolol attenuated the increase of intracellular ROS and MDA level induced by ACR, and restored ACR-triggered depletion of glutathione content and mitochondrial membrane potential. Furthermore, canolol upregulated expressions of phosphorylated ERK1/2 protein, and downregulated phosphorylated p38 and JNK proteins after 24 h pretreatment in ACR-treated PC12 cells. Notably, ACR-stimulated autophagy activation was hindered by canolol in counteracting ACR-exerted LC-3 conversion and promoting the expression of p62 protein. Our study demonstrated that canolol prevented ACR damage involving MAPKs pathway and autophagy in PC12 cells, providing a potential application of canolol for ACR toxicity.