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Environmental pollutants (EP) and carbon emissions (CE) generated by fossil fuel combustion have the same root and origin, but the synergistic effect of EP and CE in specific management is not clear. This study develops a systematic method to evaluate the synergistic effect of EP and CE, which combines the EP-CE synergy performance under different scenarios and the process decomposition of “source prevention-process control-terminal output” based on the construction of the EP-CE synergy performance assessment, and forms a complete chain of EP-CE synergy performance assessment under the system view of ecological civilization. Furthermore, the synergy of EP and CE in 79 prefecture-level cities of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) is evaluated as an example. Results show that: (1) The overall EP-CE synergy performance in the YRB is in the transition to high-quality development, and the EP-CE synergy performance of each reaches show the evolution of “the lower the performance, the faster the progress”; (2) The EP-CE synergy performance under the scenario of collaborative pollution control and carbon reduction is significantly higher than those of separate pollution control, separate carbon reduction, or no consideration of environmental constraints, and there are noticeable spatial differences, with the upper reaches having the highest EP-CE synergy performance; (3) The EP-CE synergy performances among the different process decomposition in the YRB needs to be strengthened. The process control had the highest overall performance level, but the inclusion of environmental factors could significantly decrease the performance level, while the opposite is exact for the terminal output. The study provides a multi-scenario and process decomposition approach to assess the synergistic effects of EP and CE, and the scenario simulation assessment, process decomposition analysis, and synergistic control recommendations can be used as references for other regions or countries suffering from both EP and CE to formulate environmentally synergistic management development strategies and improve ecological quality according to local conditions.

Effective utilization of waste kitchen oil (WKO) is important to environmental protection and economic development. Presently, an endophytic fungus Chaetomium globosum CGMCC 6882 polysaccharide (CGP-WKO) was successfully produced through submerged fermentation with the sole carbon source of WKO. CGP-WKO had a yield of 1.53 ± 0.27 g/L and contained 95.85 % ± 3.02 % carbohydrate and 2.94 % ± 0.62 % protein. Structural feature analysis indicated that CGP-WKO contained glucose, glucosamine, mannose, rhamnose, galactose, fructose, and glucuronic acid in a molar ratio of 30.38: 1.34: 32.22: 9.68: 1.59: 0.62: 3.73. The weight-averaged molecular weight of CGP-WKO was 26.64 kDa, and its polydispersity was 1.48. Moreover, antioxidant capacity detection in vitro demonstrated that when the concentration of CGP-WKO was 1.0 mg/mL, its scavenging effects against 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl; 2,2′-azinobis-di-(3-ethyl-benzothiazolin-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt; and hydroxyl and superoxide radicals were 45.89 % ± 1.89 %, 55.89 % ± 1.12 %, 29.02 % ± 2.61 %, and 52.76 % ± 2.12 %, respectively; and the IC50 values were 6.4612, 0.8888, 13.8585, and 0.9398 mg/mL, respectively. CGP-WKO increased the content of superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase and reduced malondialdehyde content in H2O2-challenged HepG2 cells. Overall, the present work indicated that CGP-WKO can be used as an antioxidant agent in the food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical industries.

Avian astrovirus can infect a variety of poultry species and cause viral diarrhea, with a wide epidemic range strong pathogenicity and a high incidence. Among them, Duck astrovirus 3(DAstV-3), Duck astrovirus 4(DAstV-4), Goose astrovirus 1(GoAstV-1) and Goose astrovirus 2(GoAstV-2) are four types of astroviruses newly discovered in waterfowl in recent years. In order to realize the rapid detection of these four kinds of waterfowl stellate viruses, specific primers and probes were engineered to target a highly conserved region of ORF1b gene of DAstV-3, GoAstV-1 and GoAstV-2 and the ORF2 gene of DAstV-4, and a quadruple fluorescence quantitative RT-PCR method was developed. The results indicate that the method established in this study has good specificity and no cross reactivity with other pathogens. This method can detect viruses with a minimum concentration of 1 × 101 copies/μL for DAstV-4, GoAstV-1 and GoAstV-2, respectively, while the minimum concentration for DAstV-3 is 1 × 102 copies/μL. Compared with the routinely used RT-PCR method, the limit of detection by the multiplex RT-PCR lower. Both intra- and inter-assay variability tests revealed excellent reproducibility. This method was then used to analyze 269 field samples, and the results were verified by genome sequencing. In conclusion, this study presents a sensitive, accurate, and specific method for detecting DAstV-3, DAstV-4, GoAstV-1, and GoAstV-2 in a single reaction, enabling the monitoring and differential diagnosis of these four types of waterfowl astroviruses.

Waterfowl astroviruses are mainly duck astroviruses and goose astroviruses, of which duck astroviruses (DAstV-3, -4), goose astroviruses (GoAstV-1, -2) are the four new waterfowl 21 astroviruses in recent years, which can lead to enteritis, viral hepatitis, gout and reduce the growth performance of waterfowl, affecting the healthy development of the waterfowl farming industry. Since no targeted drugs or vaccines on the market, studies on the epidemiology of the virus are necessary for vaccine development. In this study, we collected 1546 waterfowl samples from 13 provinces in China for epidemiological investigation. The results showed that 260 samples (16.8%) were positive. Four species of astrovirus were detected in 13 provinces except Fujian province. Among the four sites tested, the highest positive rates were found in farms and slaughterhouses. Cross-host and mixed infection were observed in four species of waterfowl astroviruses. The whole genome of 17 isolates was sequenced and compared with published sequences. Genetic evolution and homology analysis showed that the isolated strains had high similarity to their reference sequences. To assess the pathogenicity of GoAstV, 7-day-old goslings were inoculated with GoAstV-1 and GoAstV-2 by the intramuscular route, and infected geese showed similar clinical signs, such as anorexia, depression, and weight loss. Organ damage was seen after infection, with histopathological changes in the heart, liver, spleen, kidney, and intestine, and higher viral loads in throat and anal swabs. These findings increase our understanding of the pathogenicity of GoAstV-1 and GoAstV-2 in goslings and provide more references for future research.

Due to its high mortality rate, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), a notifiable animal illness designated by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), has caused enormous financial losses to the poultry sector. The H5 subtype of avian influenza virus (H5-AIV) is regarded as the most common highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) that threatens public health and safety. Virus isolation and reverse transcription quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) are usually used to detect H5-AIV and are important for the timely diagnosis and control of H5-AIV. However, these methods are time-consuming and require a significant amount of effort. In this study, we established a recombinase-aided amplification (RAA) combined with CRISPR-Cas13a and lateral flow dipstick (LFD) assay for the detection of H5-AIV. The results showed that the process can be completed within 40 min at 37°C. The method had a detection limit of 0.1 copy/μL, which was comparable to the RT-qPCR. There was no cross-reactivity with H3-AIV, H7-AIV, H9-AIV, H10-AIV, IBV, NDV, RVA and DAstV. The kappa value of RT-RAA-Cas13a-LFD and RT-qPCR in 380 clinical samples was 0.89 (κ>0.75). In conclusion, we established a convenient, efficient and accurate method to detect H5-AIV, and the results can be visualized and interpreted using LFD, which can be adapted to the needs of grassroots laboratories and field-deployable assays. This approach provides a new perspective for clinical H5-AIV diagnosis and has great potential for application in clinical quarantine of the poultry farming.

Rapid non-destructive testing technologies are effectively used to analyze and evaluate the linoleic acid content while processing fresh meat products. In current study, hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technology was combined with deep learning optimization algorithm to model and analyze the linoleic acid content in 252 mixed red meat samples. A comparative study was conducted by experimenting mixed sample data preprocessing methods and feature wavelength extraction methods depending on the distribution of linoleic acid content. Initially, convolutional neural network Bi-directional long short-term memory (CNN-Bi-LSTM) model was constructed to reduce the loss of the fully connected layer extracted feature information and optimize the prediction effect. In addition, the prediction process of overfitting phenomenon in the CNN-Bi-LSTM model was also targeted. The Bayesian-CNN-Bi-LSTM (Bayes-CNN-Bi-LSTM) model was proposed to improve the linoleic acid prediction in red meat through iterative optimization of Gaussian process acceleration function. Results showed that best preprocessing effect was achieved by using the detrending algorithm, while 11 feature wavelengths extracted by variable combination population analysis (VCPA) method effectively contained characteristic group information of linoleic acid. The Bi-directional LSTM (Bi-LSTM) model combined with the feature extraction data set of VCPA method predicted 0.860 Rp2 value of linoleic acid content in red meat. The CNN-Bi-LSTM model achieved an Rp2 of 0.889, and the optimized Bayes-CNN-Bi-LSTM model was constructed to achieve the best prediction with an Rp2 of 0.909. This study provided a reference for the rapid synchronous detection of mixed sample indicators, and a theoretical basis for the development of hyperspectral on-line detection equipment.

Dislocation engineering is important for designing structural materials. Here the authors demonstrate that a high-entropy oxide ceramic with a high density of edge dislocations can be stabilized by increasing the compositional complexity, resulting in enhanced fracture toughness.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a crucial component of the soil carbon pool that regulates fundamental soil properties and water status. In the global context of restoring vegetation, the soil carbon-water coupling relationship has gained attention. In particular, the regulatory mechanism of SOC on soil moisture requires further research. In this study, three typical forests in subtropical China were chosen as restoration sequences to investigate the changes in SOC and soil moisture during subtropical forest restoration and its regulation mechanisms: broadleaf-conifer mixed forest (EF), broad-leaved forest (MF), and old-growth forest (LF). The soil water content (35.71 ± 1.52%), maximum water holding capacity (47.74 ± 1.91%), capillary water holding capacity (43.92 ± 1.43%), and field water holding capacity (41.07 ± 1.65%) in LF were significantly higher than those in EF (p < 0.01). As forest restoration progressed, the amount of litter returning to the soil increased gradually, and the SOC content (0–100 cm) increased from 9.51 ± 1.42 g/kg (EF) to 15.60 ± 2.30 g/kg (LF). The SOC storage increased from 29.49 ± 3.59 to 42.62 ± 5.78 Mg/ha. On one hand, forest restoration led to a change in SOC content, which optimizes the soil structure and enhances soil porosity (path coefficient of 0.537, p < 0.01), further leading to a change in soil water content (path coefficient of 0.940, p < 0.01). On the other hand, the increase in SOC influenced the change in soil nutrient content, i.e., total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) (path coefficient of 0.842, p < 0.01). Changes in SOC and soil nutrients stimulated changes in the stoichiometric ratio, i.e., C:P and N:P (path coefficients of 0.988 and –0.968, respectively, p < 0.01), and the biological activity in soil changed appropriately, which eventually led to a change in soil water content (path coefficient of –0.257, p < 0.01). These results highlight the changes in SOC and soil water content (SWC), as well as the mechanism of SOC controlling SWC as a result of vegetation restoration, which is of tremendous importance for advancing our understanding of the eco-hydrological process of subtropical forest restoration.

Vegetation succession can change the function and quality of the soil. Exploring the changes in soil properties during secondary forest restoration is of great significance to promote forest restoration and improve the ecological service function of subtropical ecosystems in South China. In this study, we chose three typical forests in subtropical China as restoration sequences, broadleaf–conifer mixed forest (EF), broad-leaved forest (MF), and old-growth forest (LF), to study the changes in soil physico-chemical and biological properties and the changes of soil comprehensive quality during the secondary succession of subtropical forest. The results showed that the soil physical structure was optimized with the progress of forest succession. The soil bulk density decreased gradually with the progress of forest restoration, which was significantly affected by soil organic carbon (p

Study region: Dinghushan watershed, China. Study focus: The dynamics of litter moisture content play an important role in understanding the forest’s internal environmental changes, forest fire forecast and prediction of general forest health and so on. These characteristics have not been extensively analyzed in lower subtropical China and therefore, three typical subtropical evergreen forest ecosystems, Pinus massoniana coniferous forest (PF), mixed conifer-broadleaf forest (CBF), and monsoon evergreen broadleaved forest (MBF), were chosen to explore the changes of the litter moisture content and its response to environmental factors. New hydrological insights for the region: Over a 7-year observation period, the mean annual litter moisture content was 72.0 ± 7.3%, 87.9 ± 11.3%, and 100.5 ± 15.7% for PF, CBF, and MBF respectively. The litter moisture content increased while the litter standing mass decreased after vegetation restoration. The litter moisture content in the three forests during the wet season was substantially higher than that in the dry season. Compared to the soil layer, the coefficient of variation of the litter moisture content during the dry and wet seasons was higher as compared to the topsoil (0–30 cm) water content, indicating the litter layer was more sensitive to changes in external environmental factors. Further analysis revealed that soil water content was the dominating factor controlling the dynamics of litter moisture content both during the dry and wet seasons. Analyses of the litter moisture can be very useful in forests around the world as a guideline in indicating the change in a forest’s environment.

Hybrid flow-shop scheduling based on the parallel sequential movement mode (HFSP-PSMM) is an extended application of hybrid flow-shop scheduling that ensures that the equipment works continuously during the processing cycle. However, current research has only investigated the flow-shop scheduling of single-equipment processing, and ignores the effect of auxiliary time. Therefore, this paper investigates a multi-equipment hybrid flow-shop scheduling problem based on the parallel sequential movement mode and considers the setup time and handling time. The mathematical model of the HFSP-PSMM was developed with the handling and makespan numbers as the optimization objectives. The NSGA-II-V based on the NSGA-II was designed by combining the problem characteristics. New crossover, mutation, and selection strategies were proposed and variable neighborhood search operations were implemented for the optimal set of Pareto solutions. Finally, through an algorithm comparison, performance testing, and an example simulation, the effectiveness of the NSGA-II-V for solving the HFSP-PSMM was verified.

The inter-regional payments for watershed services (PWS) is an important policy to promote environmental cooperation in the river basin management. However, existing PWS in China may overestimate the value of watershed-related ecosystem services (WES) and induce a mismatch between ecological benefits and costs of stakeholders. A equitable framework of inter-regional PWS standards is necessary for the policymakers, especially in Yellow River Basin. For this reason, the focus of current article was emphasized on green ecological spillover value through multi-regional input–output model deducting suppliers’ own watershed services consumption, then explored the influencing factors of watershed-related ecological benefits, ecological profit or loss and spatial spillover conditions within Yellow River Basin, finally designed inter-regional PWS transfer standards. The estimated results revealed that watershed-related ecological benefits within Yellow River Basin had obvious heterogeneous characteristics and spatial spillover. The implementation of economic financial power, awareness of water resources ecological functions, and inter-regional PWS policies could significantly improve watershed-related ecological benefits, and the increase in water resources protection routine power led to the loss of watershed-related ecological benefits. Based on the green ecological spillover value, we comprehensively considered factors such as water resources protection routine power, economic financial power, and awareness of water resources ecological functions to design an inter-regional PWS transfer program, which was reasonable and feasible in theory and practice. For regional ecological and environmental cooperation, it is essential to strengthen spatial spillover and improve the level of inter-regional PWS, which may pave the way for other river basins or countries.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a malignant tumor of the hematopoietic system, and leukemia stem cells are responsible for AML chemoresistance and relapse. KG-1a cell is considered a leukemia stem cell-enriched cell line, which is resistant to chemotherapy. Arsenic trioxide (ATO) is effective against acute promyelocytic leukemia as a first-line treatment agent, even as remission induction of relapsed cases. ATO has a cytotoxic effect on KG-1a cells, but the mechanism remains unclear. Our results demonstrated that ATO can inhibit cell proliferation, induce apoptosis, and arrest KG-1a cells in the G2/M phase. Using transcriptome analysis, we investigated the candidate target genes regulated by ATO in KG-1a cells. The expression profile analysis showed that the ATO had significantly changed gene expression related to proliferation, apoptosis, and cell cycle. Moreover, MYC, PCNA, and MCM7 were identified as crucial hub genes through protein–protein interaction network analysis; meanwhile, the expressions of them in both RNA and protein levels are down-regulated as confirmed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blot. Thus, our study suggests that ATO not only inhibits the expression of MYC, PCNA, and MCM7 but also leads to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in KG-1a cells. Overall, this study provided reliable clues for improving the ATO efficacy in AML.

Objective: To investigate the association between polymorphisms in PTPN2 (rs1893217 and rs478582) and type 1 diabetes (T1D) risk with different diagnosed age, as well as related clinical characteristics in Chinese Han population. Methods: A total of 2270 Chinese Han individuals (1023 T1D patients and 1247 healthy controls) were genotyped for rs1893217 and rs478582. And 306 newly diagnosed T1D patients were measured for C-peptide levels based on a standard mixed-meal tolerance test. In addition, 40 healthy controls were analyzed for different T cell subsets by multi-color flow cytometry. Results: Neither rs1893217 nor rs478582 showed any association with T1D risk under an additive model. Stratified analysis for T1D diagnosed age revealed that rs1893217, but not rs478582, was significantly associated with T1D patients diagnosed age ≤18 (OR =0.80, 95% CI: 0.67–0.97, p = 0.02). For those diagnosed age >18, neither of them showed any association. We also found that rs1893217 had a higher positive rate of ZnT8A (CC vs. TT carrier, OR = 2.07, 95% CI: 1.07–4.03, p = 0.026) and IA-2A (CT vs. TT carrier, OR = 1.36, 95% CI: 1.02–1.80, p = 0.038). Furthermore, for rs478582, compared with TT, healthy individuals carrying CC/CT carriers had significantly lower frequency and Helios expression of naive Treg subsets (p = 0.049 and 0.048 respectively), but not secreting or activating Treg subsets. In addition, we did not find any association between these two polymorphisms and residual β-cell function in newly diagnosed T1D patients. Conclusions: Our results suggest that rs1893217 may increase the risk of early-onset T1D and affect humoral immunity, while rs478582 may affect Treg subsets.

The design and implementation of a spiral-folded printed quadrifilar helical antenna (FPQHA) is presented for a global positioning system (GPS) L1-/L2-band application. The proposed FPQHA can be miniaturized by inserting dielectric loading inside the helix, covering the radiation elements by the dielectric sealant and turning the radiation elements into the form of parallelogram spirals. The manufactured antenna's radiation elements are printed on a hollow rod ceramic substrate with a diameter of 12 mm and a height of 24.7 mm. The measurement results of the proposed FPQHA mounting on unmanned platform fit very well with the simulations, which validates the design methods and suggests that the proposed FPQHA is suitable for GPS L1-/L2-band applications.

CD4 Tregs are involved in the regulation of various autoimmune diseases but believed to be highly heterogeneous. Studies have indicated that Helios controls a distinct subset of functional Tregs. However, the immunological changes in circulating Helios+ and Helios− Tregs are not fully explored in type 1 diabetes (T1D). Here, we elucidated the differences in maturation status and immune regulatory phenotypes of Helios+ and Helios− Tregs and their correlations with monocyte subsets in T1D individuals. As CD25−/low FOXP3+ Tregs also represent a subset of functional Tregs, we defined Tregs as FOXP3+CD127−/low and examined circulating Helios+ and Helios− Treg subpopulations in 68 autoantibody-positive T1D individuals and 68 age-matched healthy controls. We found that expression of both FOXP3 and CTLA4 diminished in Helios− Tregs, while the proportion of CD25−/low Tregs increased in Helios+ Tregs of T1D individuals. Although the frequencies of neither Helios+ nor Helios− Tregs were affected by investigated T1D genetic risk loci, Helios+ Tregs correlated with age at T1D diagnosis negatively and disease duration positively. Moreover, the negative correlation between central and effector memory proportions of Helios+ Tregs in healthy controls was disrupted in T1D individuals. Finally, regulatory non-classical and intermediate monocytes also decreased in T1D individuals, and positive correlations between these regulatory monocytes and Helios+/Helios− Treg subsets in healthy controls disappeared in T1D individuals. In conclusion, we demonstrated the alternations in maturation status and immune phenotypes in Helios+ and Helios− Treg subsets and revealed the missing association between these Treg subsets and monocyte subsets in T1D individuals, which might point out another option for elucidating T1D mechanisms.

Over the past several decades, vegetation restoration has been carried out extensively in South China. Theoretically, the process of vegetation restoration is usually accompanied by changes in soil properties. However, the effects of vegetation restoration on soil hydraulic properties are poorly documented in humid subtropical China. In this study, we compared soil hydraulic properties across three undisturbed subtropical forests, i.e., Pinus massoniana forest (PF), mixed Pinus massoniana/broad-leaved forest (MF), and monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest (BF), which represented a vegetation restoration sequence in South China. Our results showed that vegetation restoration decreased the bulk density while increasing the total porosity and the soil organic matter (SOM). The clay content and capillary porosity of soil in the middle- and late-recovery-stage forests were significantly higher than those in the early stage, which was consistent with the soil water-holding capacity. The saturated hydraulic conductivity (KS) values of BF were always significantly higher than those of the other forests. In the whole soil profile, the water-holding capacity and KS in the topsoil (above 30 cm depth) were significantly higher than those in the deep soil for all forests. Further analyses indicated that the SOM was the main factor that affected KS, and the relationship of them could be fitted by a linear equation. Overall, our study revealed vegetation restoration ameliorates soil hydraulic properties in humid subtropical China. And the role of SOM in improving soil hydraulic properties should be emphasized in future forest ecosystem management.

We consider the sixth-order $m$-point boundary-value problem $$displaylines{ u^{(6)}(t)=fig(u(t), u''(t), u^{(4)}(t)ig),quad tin(0,1),cr u(0)=0, quad u(1)=sum_{i=1}^{m-2}a_iu(eta_i),cr u''(0)=0, quad u''(1)=sum_{i=1}^{m-2}a_iu''(eta_i),cr u^{(4)}(0)=0, quad u^{(4)}(1)=sum_{i=1}^{m-2}a_iu^{(4)}(eta_i), }$$ where $f: mathbb{R}imes mathbb{R}imes mathbb{R} o mathbb{R}$ is a sign-changing continuous function, $mgeq3$, $eta_iin(0,1)$, and $a_i>0$ for $i=1,2,dots,m-2$ with $sum_{i=1}^{m-2}a_i