Search

Abstract The oxygen evolution reaction plays a vital role in modern energy conversion and storage, and developing cost-efficient oxygen evolution reaction catalysts with industrially relevant activity and durability is highly desired but still challenging. Here, we report an efficient and durable FeNi hydroxide organic framework nanosheet array catalyst that competently affords long-term oxygen evolution reaction at industrial-grade current densities in alkaline electrolyte. The desirable high-intensity performance is attributed to three aspects as follows. First, two-dimensional nanosheet porous arrays with maximum specific surface facilitate mass/charge transfer to accommodate high-current-density catalysis. Second, in situ derived FeNi hydroxide motifs offer bimetallic synergistic catalysis centers with high intrinsic activity. Third, carboxyl ligands alleviate metal oxidation favorable for charge tolerability against peroxidation dissolution under strong polarization. As a result, this catalyst requires an overpotential of only 280 mV to deliver high current density up to 1 A/cm2 with long durability over 1000 h. Moreover, an alkaline water electrolyzer with this catalyst alternative demonstrates an increased economic effectiveness compared to commercial levels at present.

Background and objective Lung cancer is the cancer with the highest incidence and mortality rates in China, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 80%-85% of all malignant lung tumors. Currently, surgical treatment remains the primary treatment modality for lung cancer. In recent years, the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors for NSCLC has become a consensus, and neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy (nICT) has shown promising efficacy and safety in early to intermediate stage NSCLC. However, there are fewer studies related to nICT for locally advanced NSCLC. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of nICT therapy in locally advanced resectable NSCLC. Methods 85 confirmed resectable stage IIIA and IIIB patients treated in the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Second Hospital of Lanzhou University, from January 2021 to April 2024, were divided into the nICT group (n=32) and the surgery alone group (n=53). Clinical baseline data, perioperative indicators, postoperative complications, imaging response rate, pathological response rate, incidence of adverse events, and quality of life were compared between the two groups. Results There were no statistically significant differences in clinical baseline data between the two groups (P>0.05). Incidence of choosing thoracotomy was higher in the nICT group than in the surgery alone group (P=0.002). There were no significant differences in surgical time, intraoperative blood loss, number of dissected lymph nodes, duration of chest tube placement, postoperative hospital stay, and R0 resection rate between the two groups (P>0.05). The overall incidence of postoperative complications was 31.25% in the nICT group and 22.64% in the surgery alone group, with no statistically significant difference (P=0.380). In the nICT group, the objective response rate (ORR) was 84.38%, with 5 cases of complete response (CR)(15.63%), 22 cases of partial response (PR)(68.75%), 15 cases of pathological response rate (pCR)(46.88%), and 11 cases of major pathological reaponse (MPR) (34.38%). During nICT treatment, 12 cases (37.50%) experienced grade 3 treatment-related adverse events, no death induced by adverse events or immune related adverse events. Moreover, the symptoms of the patients were improved after nICT treatment. Conclusion Neoadjuvant immunochemotherapy shows promising efficacy in locally advanced resectable NSCLC, with manageable treatment-related adverse events. It is a safe and feasible neoadjuvant treatment modality for locally advanced resectable NSCLC.

Abstract We aimed to investigate the effects of Bacillus cereus YB1 on the growth, intestinal digestive enzyme activity, liver antioxidant enzyme activity, and intestinal tissue structure of juvenile black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii). A 50‐day feeding experiment was conducted. Feeding was conducted in four diet groups: control group with no YB1 supplement in diet and three treatment groups E‐L, E‐M, and E‐H containing 105, 106, and 107 CFU/g YB1, respectively. The results revealed that the weight gain and specific growth rate of juvenile fish significantly increased, while the feed coefficient was reduced in all three diet treatment groups. This indicated that the growth of black rockfish was significantly and positively affected by YB1 feeding. Enzyme activity in the intestinal tract was not significantly affected by YB1. However, the activity of protease, amylase, and lipase increased because of YB1 treatment, except for the proteases in the E‐M diet group. Meanwhile, no significant differences were recorded in the activities of the antioxidant enzymes in liver, but the level of catalase, superoxide dismutase, and malondialdehyde activities in treatments shows a better performance compared with the control in overall perspective. Furthermore, the structural features of the intestine (i.e., number of intestinal villi, length of gut villi, and thickness of muscularis) was significantly elevated with the inclusion of B. cereus YB1 in the diet. These results reveal that dietary supplementation of B. cereus YB1 is beneficial to the boosting of enzymatic activities and structure of intestinal tissue as well as the antioxidative ability of liver tissue. Such findings suggest that fish growth would be improved under YB1 feeding conditions.

Abstract A comprehensive evaluation of collagen-based historical artifacts is crucial for the preservation and inheritance of cultural relics, necessitating interdisciplinary approaches that integrate scientific knowledge with practical expertise to develop effective conservation strategies. The present work was focused on a piece of historical leather armor housed in Turpan Museum, Xinjiang, China. SEM–EDS, XRD, ATR-FTIR, and NMR were carried out on this historical leather armor from macro and micro perspectives, mainly including morphology observation, composition analysis, structural assessment, which could provide both quantitative and qualitative insights into the deterioration of the historical leather armor. Additionally, the non-destructive sampling methods and the third-generation sequencing technology (TGS) were employed to identify a total of 13 bacterial species and 8 fungal species, and their metabolic pathways were predicted, providing guidance for preventive conservation and restoration strategies. By the present work, necessary fundamental knowledge might be provided for the effective preservation and inheritance of collagen-based historical artifacts. Graphical Abstract

Bacillus paranthracis, a Gram-positive conditional pathogen of Bacillus cereus group species, is capable of causing foodborne and waterborne illnesses, leading to intestinal diseases in humans characterized by diarrhoea and vomiting. However, documented cases of B. paranthracis infection outbreaks are rare in the world, and the genomic background of outbreak strains is seldom characterized. This study retrospectively analyzed strains obtained from an outbreak in schools, as well as from water systems in peri-urban areas, China, in 2020. In total, 28 B. cereus group isolates were retrieved, comprising 6 from stool samples and 22 from water samples. Epidemiological and phylogenetic investigations indicated that the B. paranthracis isolate from drinking water as the causative agent of the outbreak. The genomic comparison revealed a high degree of consistency among 8 outbreak-related strains in terms of antimicrobial resistance gene profiles, virulence gene profiles, genomic content, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). The strains related to the outbreak show highly similar genomic ring diagrams and close phylogenetic relationships. Additionally, this study shed light on the pathogenic potential and complexity of B. cereus group through its diversity in virulence genes and mice infection model. The findings highlight the usefulness of B. paranthracis genomes in understanding genetic diversity within specific environments and in tracing the source of pathogens during outbreak situations, thereby enabling targeted infection control interventions.

Methamphetamine (METH) is a highly abused substance on a global scale and has the capacity to elicit toxicity within the central nervous system. The neurotoxicity induced by METH encompasses neuronal degeneration and cellular demise within the substantia nigra-striatum and hippocampus. Caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), a constituent of propolis, is a diminutive compound that demonstrates antioxidative and anti-inflammatory characteristics. Numerous investigations have demonstrated the safeguarding effects of CAPE in various neurodegenerative ailments. Our hypothesis posits that CAPE may exert a neuroprotective influence on METH-induced neurotoxicity via specific mechanisms. In order to validate the hypothesis, a series of experimental techniques including behavioral tests, immunofluorescence labeling, RNA sequencing, and western blotting were employed to investigate the neurotoxic effects of METH and the potential protective effects of CAPE. The results of our study demonstrate that CAPE effectively ameliorates cognitive memory deficits and anxiety symptoms induced by METH in mice. Furthermore, CAPE has been observed to attenuate the upregulation of neurotoxicity-associated proteins that are induced by METH exposure and also reduced the loss of hippocampal neurons in mice. Moreover, transcriptomics analysis was conducted to determine alterations in gene expression within the hippocampus of mice. Subsequently, bioinformatics analysis was employed to investigate the divergent outcomes and identify potential key genes. Interferon-stimulated gene 15 (ISG15) was successfully identified and confirmed through RT-qPCR, western blotting, and immunofluorescence techniques. Our research findings unequivocally demonstrated the neuroprotective effect of CAPE against METH-induced neurotoxicity, with ISG15 may have an important role in the underlying protective mechanism. These results offer novel perspectives on the treatment of METH-induced neurotoxicity.

Sebastes schlegelii is a cold temperate ovoviviparous fish found near the seabed layer and is widely distributed in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea of China, as well as in the coasts of South Korea and Japan. It is characterized by its tender meat, delicious taste, rich nutrition, and high medicinal value, thus it is an economically important marine fish species in the northern coastal areas of China. In recent years, deep-water cage cultures have rapidly developed in China. Among the economically important fish species suitable for cage culture in northern China, S. schlegelii is the most important local breed with excellent quality and characteristics. However, with the expansion of the scale of the aquaculture industry, aquaculture diseases including those caused by Vibrio harveyi, Vibrio anguillarum, and Photobacterium damselae subsp. damselae, occur frequently. The authors isolated and identified a dominant pathogenic bacterium, the P5W of V. harveyi, from the lesions of diseased S. schlegelii and studied the response of S. schlegelii to V. harveyi infection. Multitissue transcriptome analysis screened the immune differential gene protein kinase B. Protein kinase B, also known as Akt protein, is a serine or threonine protein kinase, which mainly conducts signal transduction by phosphorylating other proteins. It plays an important role in various biological processes such as cell metabolism, transcriptional regulation, cell cycle regulation, immune defense, and embryonic development. Many studies have shown that during viral infection of cells, the Akt pathway is activated, thereby inhibiting viral proliferation. To clarify the sequence information, evolutionary characteristics, and biological functions of the Akt gene in S. schlegelii and to understand the immune response mechanism of S. schlegelii to bacterial invasion, the full-length cDNA of the SsAkt gene was obtained using molecular biology, and the sequence characteristics, tissue expression rules of the gene, and the response rules to Micrococcus luteus and V. anguillarum were studied. The results showed that the length of the open reading frame was 1 440 bp. The predicted relative molecular mass of the SsAkt protein was 55.80 kDa and the isoelectric point was 5.64. Sequence analysis revealed that the SsAkt protein contains three conserved domains: the PH domain (residues 6–109), serine/threonine protein kinase catalytic (S_TKc) domain (residues 148–405), and serine/threonine protein kinase (S_TK_X) domain (residues 406–475). The conserved amino acid site appears in the center of the S_TKc domain and at the end of the S_TK_ X domain: Thr305 and Ser472. Homologous alignment showed that the amino acid sequence of this gene was highly conserved among different species. Phylogenetic tree analysis showed that SsAkt is closely related to Akt in vertebrates, such as Sebastes umbrosus, Lates calcarifer, Larimichthys crocea, and Cyprinus carpio. The relative expression of SsAkt in different tissues of S. schlegelii was detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative PCR. The results showed that SsAkt was expressed in all tested healthy tissues of S. schlegelii, which indicated the relative expression of the SsAkt gene in S. schlegelii. This expression has distinct tissue specificity. The expression of SsAkt in the kidney is the highest, and in the blood and brain, it is also higher than that in other tissues. Therefore, it is speculated that higher expression of SsAkt in the kidney and brain is closely related to immune defense, neurodevelopment, and other processes. To study the role of SsAkt in the immune response of S. schlegelii, we designed a bacterial challenge experiment. The results showed that the transcription level of SsAkt changed significantly, and the relative expression of SsAkt in the three tissues increased after stimulation with M. luteus and V. anguillarum compared with the control group (PBS). After infection with M. luteus, its expression only increased sharply in the kidney, whereas its expression increased slowly in the blood and liver. In the experimental group infected with V. anguillarum, the expression increased significantly in the liver and kidney, and the two relative expression peaks in the kidney occurred at 12 h and 72 h after infection, respectively. The results revealed that the SsAkt gene may play an important role in the immune defense of S. schlegelii, which can further enrich the sequence information and evolutionary data of the Akt gene in marine fish and provide reference materials for an in-depth study of the biological function of this gene. In follow-up experiments, we will explore the specific mechanism of SsAkt in the innate immune defense of S. schlegelii to provide theoretical guidance for the study of the immune signaling pathway of S. schlegelii and to lay a theoretical foundation for revealing the role of SsAkt in other important biological functions in growth and development.

α-Glucosidase is an important target for type II diabetes treatment, and the search for natural α-glucosidase inhibitors is currently a hot topic in functional food research. Camellianin A is the main flavonoid in the leaves of Adinandra nitida, but research on its inhibition of α-glucosidase is rarely reported. In view of this, the present study systematically investigated the inhibitory impact of camellianin A on α-glucosidase, combining the fluorescence method and molecular docking to explore their interaction, aiming to reveal the relevant inhibitory mechanism. The results indicated that camellianin A possessed excellent α-glucosidase inhibitory activity (IC50, 27.57 ± 0.59 μg/mL), and van der Waals force and hydrogen bonding dominated the binding process between camellianin A and α-glucosidase, with a binding-site number of 1. A molecular docking experiment suggested that camellianin A formed hydrogen bonding with Glu771, Trp391, Trp710, Gly566, Asp568, and Phe444 of α-glucosidase, consistent with the thermodynamic result. Our result can provide a reference for the development of natural α-glucosidase inhibitors.

In this paper, the nonlinear mechanical response of elastic cable structures under mechanical load is studied based on the discrete catenary theory. A cable net is discretized into multiple nodes and edges in our numerical approach, which is followed by an analytical formulation of the elastic energy and the associated Hessian matrix to realize the dynamic simulation. A fully implicit framework is proposed based on the discrete differential geometry (DDG) theory. The equilibrium configuration of a target object is derived by adding damping force into the system, known as the dynamic relaxation method. The mechanical response of a single suspended cable is investigated and compared with the analytical solution for cross-validation. A more intricate scenario is further discussed in detail, where a structure consisting of multiple slender cables is connected through joints. Utilizing the robustness and efficiency of our discrete numerical framework, a systematic parameter sweep is performed to quantify the force displacement relationships of nets with the different number of cables and different directions of fibers. Finally, an empirical scaling law is provided to account for the rigidity of elastic cable net in terms of its geometric properties, material characteristics, component numbers, and cable orientations. Our results would provide new insight in revealing the connections between flexible structures and tensegrity structures, and could motivate innovative designs in both mechanical and civil engineered equipment.

The cable-stiffened single-layer latticed shell is an innovative structural design that achieves a perfect balance between lightweight and stability by combining cables and a latticed shell. However, the study on dynamic response and failure mechanism of cable-stiffened single-layer latticed shell under seismic action is still lacking. Therefore, small-scale shaking table tests of two kinds of single-layer spherical latticed shells are carried out; the dynamic response and failure mode of the two shells under sine wave earthquake are investigated by using time history analysis. The conclusions show that the introduction of the prestressed cable plays an important role in improving the seismic performance of the single-layer latticed shell, and the cable-stiffened single-layer latticed shell has better load capacity and seismic performance under earthquake action than the ordinary single-layer latticed shell structure.

Background and objective Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and patients have limited survival benefits from traditional treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. As a new treatment for lung cancer, immunotherapy has significantly prolonged the overall survival (OS) of patients. However, only some patients can benefit from it. We need to explore immunotherapy biomarkers more deeply to screen for advantages. Methods The original data were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, and the immunological and prognostic genes of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) were screened using R software and TIMER database. The expression of target genes was studied in TCGA and GEO databases, and Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis and correlation analysis with tumor immune characteristics were performed by R software and TISIDB database. Results We screened out a gene related to immunity and prognosis, cAMP dependent protein kinase inhibitor γ (PKIG), which is significantly differentially expressed in LUSC and normal tissues, and has important reference value for the diagnosis and prognosis assessment of LUSC. PKIG differential genes are mainly concentrated in the regulation of humoral immune response and other processes. The expression of PKIG was positively correlated with the infiltration level of regulatory T cells (Tregs) (r=0.340, P

Background and objective The three-dimensional (3D) can assist in planning lung segmentectomy. 3D reconstruction software based on artificial intelligence algorithm is gradually applied in clinic. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and safety of 3D reconstruction assisted planning of thoracoscopic segmentectomy. Methods A total of 90 patients admitted to Department of Thoracic Surgery of Lanzhou University Second Hospital were evaluated for thoracoscopic segmentectomy. Before operation, artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction software was used to make 3D lung images and conduct preoperative planning. Surgical videos were saved during the operation and perioperative data were recorded. Video recordings of 38 patients were selected to explore the effectiveness of artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction for surgical planning. The results of artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction and Mimics 21 software reconstruction were compared with the actual results in the operation, and the detection and classification ability of bronchus and blood vessels of the two reconstruction methods were compared. Results All the 90 patients underwent artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction planning, including 57 patients (63.3%) with single lung segmentectomy and 33 patients (36.7%) with combined sub-segmentectomy. The accuracy of artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction for lesion localization was 100.0%, and the accuracy of computed tomography (CT) was 94.4% (85/90). The detection accuracy of artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction and Mimics 21 software was 92.1% (35/38) and 89.5% (34/38), and the anatomic typing accuracy was 89.5% (34/38) and 84.2% (32/38), and the total accuracy was 76.3% (29/38) and 71.1% (27/38). In the comparative observation of 38 surgical videos and reconstructed images, the consistent rates of target segment planning, surgical approach, artery dissection, vein dissection and bronchial dissection for preoperative planning using artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction were 92.1% (35/38), 92.1% (35/38), 89.5% (34/38), 86.8% (33/38) and 94.7% (36/38). The overall planning operational consistency rate was 68.4% (26/38). Conclusion It is accurate and safe to use artificial intelligence 3D reconstruction to assist planning thoracoscopic segmentectomy.

Objectives: The use of 3D video in medical education has not been fully explored. This article aims to review the evidence on 3D video currently presented in the medical education literature, including its impact on curriculum activities, to reference future research in this field. Methods: According to the guidelines of Arksey and O’Malley, the authors used a systematic search strategy (the last search was in December 2022) to search nine literature databases published in English, and only primary studies were included. Two authors independently screened all articles based on the eligibility criteria and performed a thematic analysis of the included literature. Results: Of 1,302 articles identified, 23 were included for insights into how opportunities for 3D video in medical education are created, how they are experienced, and how they influence and manifest behavior demonstrated partial congruency. Three themes were identified: (a) advantages of using 3D video in medical education; (b) the effect of using 3D video in medical education on students’ academic achievement and ability; and (c) students’ experience of 3D video in medical education. Conclusions: The application of 3D video in medical education has won the support of most students and educators. However, the effect of using 3D video in medical education is still controversial. Medical educators should combine the curriculum’s characteristics, the students’ learning situation, and the existing educational resources and choose to use them after careful consideration.

Can the urine proteome reflect short-term changes in the growth and development of animals? Do short-term developmental effects on urinary protein need to be considered when performing urine marker studies using model animals with faster growing periods? In this study, urine samples were collected from 10 Wistar rats aged 6–8 weeks 3 and 6 days apart. The results showed that the urine proteome could sensitively reflect short-term growth and development in rats. For example, comparing the urine proteome of Day 0 and Day 6, 195 differential proteins were identified after screening (FC ≥ 1.5 or ≤ 0.67, P

Abstract The Hetao Irrigation District is the primary spring wheat production region in China. However, overuse and unscientific use of chemical fertilizer have resulted in low nutrient use efficiency and potential risks to the environment. Balanced fertilization (BF), a 29.9–36.4% N fertilizer and 40% P fertilizer, was reduced, while a 72 kg K2O ha−1 K fertilizer was supplied and designed to resolve problems encountered during the field trial from 2019 to 2021. The results showed that the grain yield did not decrease significantly in the BF treatments compared in the local farmer practice (FP) treatment. The nitrogen fertilizer partial productivity (PFPN) and agronomic nitrogen efficiency (NAEN) increased 42.95–52.88% and 44.06–49.24% with BF compared to with the FP, respectively. Moreover, the BF treatments reduced nitrate leaching in the 0–100 cm soil layer and reduced the N surplus (Nsur) to approximately 160 kg N per hectare per year, dramatically reducing the environmental risk. The yield maintenance and nitrogen use efficiency increases were attributed to the lower nitrogen concentrations in the seedlings and the higher apparent N translocation efficiency (TR) from the stems and sheaths after anthesis in the BF treatments than in the FP treatments. Considering the yield, nutrient use efficiency, and environmental and economic benefits comprehensively, the BF1 treatment was considered the optimal fertilization scheme for Hetao spring wheat production.

Accurate organ at risk (OAR) segmentation is critical to reduce the radiotherapy post-treatment complications. Here, the authors develop an automated OAR segmentation system to delineate a comprehensive set of 42 H&N OARs.

This paper is concerned with the robust stabilization problem for uncertain saturated linear systems with multiple discrete delays. First of all, a new distributed-delay-dependent polytopic approach is proposed, and a new type of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional is constructed. Then, by further incorporating some integral inequalities, both stabilization and robust stabilization conditions are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities under which the closed-loop systems are asymptotically stable for admissible initial conditions. Finally, a simulation example is given to illustrate the feasibility and advantages of the obtained results.

Myxospermy is an important feature of achenes of the alpine plant Mirabilis himalaica, and the achene mucilage increases the germination rate and early seedling growth during exposure to abiotic stresses, which has important functions that allow M. himalaica to survive the extreme climate of the Tibet Plateau. However, achene formation and mucilage extrusion are poorly understood. In the present study, comprehensive analyses were performed on mucilage production during achene development and mucilage release from hydrated achene pericarp in M. himalaica. First, fertilization initiated the development of M. himalaica achenes, during which their color, size and texture were altered dramatically. Second, using a metachromatic staining procedure, cytological events, the establishment of mucilage secretory cells in the inner epicarp layer were observed. The hydration of mature achenes led to the rapid bursting of mucilage secretory cells, which released a hydrophilic gel that surrounded the achenes. Finally, enzymatic digestion indicated that major components of the mucilage were pectins; glucose (41.40%), rhamnose (26.58%), galactose (18.33%), trehalose (12.12%), and mannose (1.57%) were found to be the components of achene by using ion-exchange chromatography.

In order to evaluate refractive amblyopia suppression and understand the neural mechanism of amblyopia suppression and push-pull perception training, we recorded the EEG of refractive amblyopia children before, during, and after push-pull perception training. We compared the brain activity in different states through the steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) response and power topography and compared them with normal children. We found that amblyopic and fellow eyes have different performances in fundamental and harmonic frequency responses. They also show different characteristics when be masked. Push-pull perception training improved the SSVEP performance of amblyopia children by reducing the SSVEP response difference between eyes and improving the intermodulation frequency response. The result of topography showed that push-pull perception reduced the alpha power of occipital and temporal lobes, which was conducive to improving binocular function. The changes of intermodulation response and occipital alpha power were significantly correlated with the clinical indicator. Thus, EEG is a potential method to measure amblyopia suppression and the efficacy of push-pull perception.

BackgroundThe worldwide emergence and diffusion of extended-spectrum β-lactamase-K. pneumoniae (ESBL-KP) is of particular concern. Although ESBL-KP can inhabit the human gut asymptomatically, colonization with ESBL-KP is associated with an increased risk of ESBL-KP infection and mortality. In this study, we investigated the prevalence and characteristics of ESBL-KP in fecal samples from healthy persons in 12 villages in Shandong Province, China.MethodsScreening for ESBL-KP in fecal samples was performed by selective cultivation. The bacterial species were identified using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and 16S rDNA sequence analysis. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 16 antibiotics were determined by the agar dilution method. Plasmid replicons, antimicrobial resistance genes and Sequence types (STs) of the isolates were determined by whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Genetic relatedness of ESBL-KP isolates was determined by the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). The S1 nuclease-pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (S1-PFGE) was used to characterize the plasmids carried by ESBL-KP isolates. Conjugation assays was used to verify the transferability of blaCTX − M.ResultsESBL-KP prevalence rates increased from 12.0% in 2015 to 27.5% in 2017. The experimental results showed that 97% of isolates had multi-drug resistance. Multiple ESBL resistance genotypes were commonly detected in the isolates. STs among the ESBL-KP isolates were diverse. All 69 blaCTX−M−3-positive isolates were located on plasmids, and these genes could be transferred with plasmids between different strains. Phylogenetic analysis showed the possibility of transmission among some isolates.ConclusionThis study obtained the drug resistance patterns, the drug resistance phenotype and molecular characteristics of fecal-derived ESBL-KP in rural communities in Shandong Province, China. We report a rapid increase in occurrence of ESBL-KP among fecal samples collected from healthy rural residents of Shandong Province from 2015 to 2017. The carriage rate of multidrug-resistant bacteria in healthy residents is increasing. Thus, a need for further monitoring and possible interventions of ESBL-KP in this region is warranted.

Many species can dynamically alter their skin textures to enhance their motility and survivability. Despite the enormous efforts on designing bio‐inspired materials with tunable surface textures, developing spatiotemporally programmable and reconfigurable textural morphing without complex control remains challenging. Herein, a design strategy is proposed to achieve surfaces with such properties. The surfaces comprise an array of unit cells with broadly tailored temporal responses. By arranging the unit cells differently, the surfaces can exhibit various spatiotemporal responses, which can be easily reconfigured by disassembling and rearranging the unit cells. Specifically, viscoelastic shells as the unit cells is adopted, which can be pneumatically actuated to a concave state, and recover the initial convex state sometime after the load is removed. It is shown computationally and experimentally that the recovery time can be widely tuned by the geometry and material viscoelasticity of the shells. By assembling such shells with different recovery times, surfaces with pre‐programmed spatiotemporal textural morphing under simple pneumatic actuation is built, and temporal evolution of patterns, such as digit numbers and emoji, and spatiotemporal control of friction are demonstrated. This work opens up new avenues in designing spatiotemporal morphing surfaces that could be employed for programming mechanical, optical, and electrical properties. A preprint version of the article can be found at: https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.22541/au.164020946.62560710.

Citrus is one of the most important fruits in China. Miyagawa Satsuma, one kind of citrus, is a nutritious agricultural product with regional characteristics of Chongming Island. Near-infrared Spectroscopy (NIR) is a proper method for studying the quality of fruits, because it is low-cost, efficient, non-destructive, and repeatable. Therefore, the NIR technique is used to detect citrus's soluble solid content (SSC) in this study. After obtaining the original spectral data, the first 70% of them are divided into the training set and 30% into the test set. Then, the Random Frog algorithm is chosen to select characteristic wavelengths, which reduces the dimension of the data and the complexity of the model, and accordingly makes the generalization of the classification model better. After comparing the performance of various classifiers (AdaBoost, KNN, LS-SVM, and Bayes) under different characteristic wavelength numbers, the AdaBoost classifier outperforms using 275 characteristic wavelengths for modeling eventually. The accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score are 78.3%, 80.5%, 78.3%, and 0.780, respectively and the ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve, ROC curve) is close to the upper left corner, suggesting that the classification model is acceptable. The results demonstrate that it is feasible to use the NIR technique to estimate whether the citrus is sweet or not. Furthermore, it is beneficial for us to apply the obtained models for identifying the quality of citrus correctly. For fruit traders, the model helps them to determine the growth cycle of citrus more scientifically, improve the level of citrus cultivation and management and the final fruit quality, and thus increase the economic income of fruit traders.

The grey prediction model has been widely used in various fields and demonstrated good performance. However, when the data shows non-homogeneous exponential characteristic, the effect of the grey prediction model performs poorly. Therefore, a grey prediction model with a quadratic polynomial term (denoted as NGM(1,1,k2) is developed. The NGM(1,1,k2) model is generalized, the GM(1,1) model, the GM(1,1,k) model, the SAIGM model and the GM(1,1,k2) model are the special forms of it. Moreover, the parameter characteristics of the NGM(1,1,k2) model and the effect on the modeling precision are evaluated under the multiplication transformation. To make the NGM(1,1,k2) model more precise, we further analyze the error of the NGM(1,1,k2) model and propose a new model, named BNGM(1,1,k2) model, of which the background value is reconstructed based on the Simpson formula. Subsequently, the effectiveness of the new model is verified through four cases. The result shows that the prediction accuracy of the BNGM(1,1,k2) model is significantly improved. Finally, the BNGM(1,1,k2) model is applied to analyse and predict the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Chongqing’s primary industry, the total power of Chongqing’s agricultural machinery and the GDP of Chongqing’s wholesale and retail trades, which shows the prediction performance of the new model is superior to other models.

To accurately predict the time series of energy data, an optimized Hausdorff fractional grey seasonal model was proposed based on the complex characteristics of seasonal fluctuations and local random oscillations of seasonal energy data. This paper used a new seasonal index to eliminate the seasonal variation of the data and weaken the local random fluctuations. Furthermore, the Hausdorff fractional accumulation operator was introduced into the traditional grey prediction model to improve the weight of new information, and the particle swarm optimization algorithm was used to find the nonlinear parameters of the model. In order to verify the reliability of the new model in energy forecasting, the new model was applied to two different energy types, hydropower and wind power. The experimental results indicated that the model can effectively predict quarterly time series of energy data. Based on this, we used China’s quarterly natural gas production data from 2015 to 2021 as samples to forecast those for 2022–2024. In addition, we also compared the proposed model with the traditional statistical models and the grey seasonal models. The comparison results showed that the new model had obvious advantages in predicting quarterly data of natural gas production, and the accurate prediction results can provide a reference for natural gas resource allocation.

Tubular structures contribute to essential organ functions. Therefore, controlling tubulogenesis is essential for bottom-up tissue engineering approaches. Tissue engineering strategies to form tubular structures utilize extracellular matrix (ECM) components and micropatterned molds. To improve the tubular formation rate, we studied the substrate stiffness’s influence on the tubulogenesis of murine inner medullary collecting duct (mIMCD) cells. mIMCD cells were seeded in micropatterned molds with different compositions of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) (1:5, 1:10, 1:15, 1:20, 1:30) and agarose (1%, 2%, 3% 5%). We established the Young’s modulus of the PDMS and agarose substrates and determined the ideal substrate stiffness for tube formation to be between 277 kPa and 2610 kPa. Within our parameters, optimal tube formation was observed at 439.9 kPa, a value similar to the Young’s Modulus found in the basement membrane of the murine renal tubular compartment. We also found that different substrate concentrations of agarose or PDMS are associated with different expression levels of the apical polarization marker Zonula occludens 1 (ZO-1) in the generated tubular structures. In addition to the substrate stiffness, we observed that the tube formation differed based on the substrate material, with agarose showing a generally greater tube formation rate. While previous research demonstrated that ECM stiffness influences cellular behavior towards tube formation, our results suggest that the stiffness of the substrate influences tubular formation independently of the ECM.

As the science and technology develop, crime methods and scenes have become increasingly complex and diverse. Trace evidence analysis has become a more and more important criminal investigation technology and liquid is the main form of trace evidence. Food can provide not only energy, but clues to solve crimes. In this study, we build a hyperspectral imaging system to detect liquid residue traces, including apple juice, coffee, cola, milk and tea, on denims with light, middle and dark colors. The obtained hyperspectral images are first subjected to spectral calibration and hyperspectral data pretreatment. Subsequently, Partial Least Squares (PLS) is applied to select the informative wavelengths from the preprocessed spectra. For modeling phase, the combination optimal strategy, support vector machine (SVM) combined with random forest (RF), is developed to establish classification models. The experimental results demonstrate that the combination optimal model can achieve TPR, FPR, Precision, Recall, F1, and AUC of 83.5%, 2.30%, 79.7%, 83.5%, 81.6%, and 94.7% for classifying fabrics contaminated by various food residuals. With respect to the classification of liquid and fabric types, the combination optimal model also yields satisfactory classification performance. In future work, we will expand the types of liquid, and make appropriate adjustment to algorithms for improving the robustness of classification models. This research may play a positive role in the construction of a harmonious society.

In this paper, a unidirectional wideband dual-linear polarized magnetoelectric dipole antenna with wide beam-width in H-plane is proposed. The antenna is composed of two orthogonal modified $\Gamma $ -shaped feeding structures, four V-portions, two pairs of folded electric dipoles, four vertical walls, and a ground. The orthogonal structures realize two orthogonal linear polarizations. To obtain a wide beam-width in H-plane, an extra equivalent magnetic dipole is introduced by folding the arm of the electric dipole and fixing four interdigital vertical walls on the edges of the ground. By comparing with the conventional ME dipole, the proposed ME dipole antenna has a wider beam-width in H-plane and also keeps the wideband property. Furthermore, the working principle and a parameter study are analyzed in detail. Through simulation, the maximum 3-dB beam-width in H-plane is 214.03° and 212.16° for two polarizations, respectively. According to the measurement results, the overlapped relative bandwidth (VSWR< 1.5) is 66.7% (1.5 GHz - 3 GHz). The boresight gain varies from 2.5 dBi to 5.7 dBi. The simulated and measured radiation patterns show a stable unidirectional radiation property and agree well with each other.

Smartphone-powered drug delivery device A device developed by researchers in China uses a microneedle array to efficiently and painlessly deliver precise doses of insulin and can be used by patients without help from medical staff. The new system was developed by a team led by Xi Xie and Lelun Jiang of Sun Yat-Sen University. The array of microneedles is pressed against the skin to create micro-holes and then automatically retracted. A mild electric current then drives charged nanovesicles carrying insulin through the holes. The circuit is powered and controlled via a smartphone, which can alter the intensity of the current to determine the dosage of insulin delivered. The team showed that the device effectively delivered insulin to a diabetic rat model with no obvious harmful effects. It thus offers a powerful tool for efficient, controllable, and convenient delivery of macromolecular drugs.

Highly donor-doped ceramics with composition of Ba0.984Y0.016TiO3 were prepared for thermistors with positive temperature coefficient of resistivity (PTCR) via a route of solid reaction, reducing sintering and aerial oxidation. The effects of Mn additive were investigated on the ceramic characteristics of composition, morphology and electrical properties. The Mn incorporation affected little on ceramic composition but resulted in an obvious change in ceramic morphology, which illustrated the average grain size of 1.16, 1.65 and 1.01 μm for Mn addition amount of 0, 0.0005 and 0.0010, respectively. The grain growth, together with the Mn additive, influenced the electrical properties of room temperature resistivity, PTCR jump, donor and acceptor densities as well as the depletion layer width.

Objective A case-control study on Clostridium spp. contamination on infant population and infant formula powdered was carried out, the data on Clostridium spp. exposure in some parts of China was obtained. Methods Epidemiological information and samples were collected from 6 locations in 6 provinces in China. The isolation and identification, of Clostridium spp. were performed. Results Totally 501 infants were investigated. Among them, 247 were exclusive breastfeeding and 254 were mixed feeding. According to the month grouping, 367 were 0-6 months and 134 were 7-12 months. A total of 813 samples were collected. After testing, 246 strains of Clostridium spp. were obtained and the positive rate was 30.3% (246/813). C. sporogenes (8.4%, 68/813), C. bifermentans (6.2%, 50/813) and C. butyricum (4.6%, 37/813) had the highest detection rate.37.3% (187/501) of the stool samples were Clostridium spp. positive, followed by 22.3% (27/121) of the infant formula powder, 19.5% (25/128) of the environmental swab and 11.1% (7/63) of the food samples. The detection rate of Clostridium spp. in mixed feeding group was significantly higher than that of breast-feeding group (χ2=40.833, P

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions and using renewable energy to replace fossil fuels have become an essential trend in future energy development. Renewable energy consumption has a significant impact on energy security so accurate prediction of renewable energy consumption can help the energy department formulate relevant policies and adjust the energy structure. Based on this, a novel Fractional Hausdorff Discrete Grey Model, abbreviated FHDGM (1,1), is developed in this study. The paper investigates the model’s characteristics. The fractional-order r of the FHDGM (1,1) model is optimized using particle swarm optimization. Subsequently, through two empirical analyses, the prediction accuracy of the FHDGM (1,1) model is proven to be higher than that of other models. Finally, the proposed model is applied with a view to forecasting the consumption of renewable energy for the years 2021 to 2023 in three different areas: the Asia Pacific region, Europe, and the world. The study’s findings will offer crucial forecasting data for worldwide energy conservation and emission reduction initiatives.

BackgroundThe current clinical workflow for esophageal gross tumor volume (GTV) contouring relies on manual delineation with high labor costs and inter-user variability.PurposeTo validate the clinical applicability of a deep learning multimodality esophageal GTV contouring model, developed at one institution whereas tested at multiple institutions.Materials and MethodsWe collected 606 patients with esophageal cancer retrospectively from four institutions. Among them, 252 patients from institution 1 contained both a treatment planning CT (pCT) and a pair of diagnostic FDG-PET/CT; 354 patients from three other institutions had only pCT scans under different staging protocols or lacking PET scanners. A two-streamed deep learning model for GTV segmentation was developed using pCT and PET/CT scans of a subset (148 patients) from institution 1. This built model had the flexibility of segmenting GTVs via only pCT or pCT+PET/CT combined when available. For independent evaluation, the remaining 104 patients from institution 1 behaved as an unseen internal testing, and 354 patients from the other three institutions were used for external testing. Degrees of manual revision were further evaluated by human experts to assess the contour-editing effort. Furthermore, the deep model’s performance was compared against four radiation oncologists in a multi-user study using 20 randomly chosen external patients. Contouring accuracy and time were recorded for the pre- and post-deep learning-assisted delineation process.

With the rapid development of information and sensory technology, the construction mode of universities and the planning of campus public spaces are confronting great challenges and opportunities. It also brings about new perspectives for reconsidering the relationship between users’ perceptions and the campus environment. This paper reviews the research on the perception of university public spaces over the past 20 years and summarizes the research hotspots by using co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, and burst detection analysis through CiteSpace software. The results demonstrate that the overall development of this field experienced three stages: the initial development stage (2000–2007), the rapid growth stage (2008–2017), and the stable development stage (2018–2021). In terms of research content, hotspot studies are emphasized from the perspectives of thermal perceptions, health impact perception, spatial configuration perception, and user activity perception of on-campus space. In addition, this literature review concluded the emerging research tendencies and new quantification methods in recent years, proposing an enormous potential for quantifying campus space research based on new perceptual technologies. It also encourages the research and optimal design of campus spaces for a more student-oriented campus environment based on the study of the student’s perception of the spaces.

This study presents two new free-living marine nematodes, Haliplectus major sp. nov. and Haliplectus futianisus sp. nov., from a mangrove reservation in Shenzhen, China. Haliplectus major sp. nov. can be distinguished by its total body length of 1615–1998 µm; a cuticle annulated with eight rows of cuticle pores; amphidial fovea at 9–12 µm from the anterior end; a bipartite basal bulb with striated valve plates in both sexes; five to seven closely spaced precloacal supplements in males; a didelphic reproductive system in females, with the vulva at 49.64–52.37% of body length; and sexual dimorphism in tail shape, arcuate-conoid and 2.3–3.2 times anal body diameter long in males and elongate-conid and 3.5–4.2 times anal body diameter long in females. Haliplectus futianisus sp. nov. is characterized by a total body length of 574–655 µm; a cuticle annulated with eight rows of cuticle pores; amphidial fovea at 8–11 µm from the anterior end; a monopartite basal bulb with unstriated valve plates in both sexes; an absence of precloacal supplements in males; and a didelphic reproductive system in females, with the vulva at 42.33–45.63% of body length. The identification was confirmed by analyzing morphological characteristic and 18S rRNA gene sequences. The maximum likelihood (ML) topology was regarded as morphological evidence of H. major sp. nov. and H. futianisus sp. nov. being two distinct species.

As the focus on higher education in China gradually shifts from rapid development to an emphasis on quality, the need for campus environments to become facilitators of education has gained increasing attention. The accelerated development of information technology has also led to tremendous changes in both teaching and learning methods, with informal learning taking on an increasingly important role. Furthermore, the development of human sensing technology, especially visual perception technology, has brought in new opportunities for the research and optimization of informal learning spaces (ILSs) in universities. This paper focuses on the ILS in Chinese universities by exploring optimal design approaches based on visual perception analysis. Through research and field investigation, this paper proposes revised theoretical research of classifications and spatial elements of ILS in universities more applicable to the architectural study of space. This paper also explores practical optimal design methods with two case studies and makes experiments with wearable eye trackers to study the users’ perception in these spaces before and after optimization. The optimal design is made from the aspects of physical space, facilities, and environment. Visual perception experiments and quantitative analysis were used to obtain a higher level of experimental accuracy than the previous studies and thus to study the real feeling of users in spaces. By these means, the effect of the optimized design was verified and the relation between users’ perceptions and the spatial environments was explored for further improvements to optimal design methods. This article can provide theoretical and practical references for campus space optimization research and design, especially for ILS on university campuses.

Two new species belonging to the genus Anticyathus were discovered during an ecological investigation of mangrove sediment in China. Anticyathus shenzhensis sp. nov. and Anticyathus communis sp. nov. are both characterized by: annulated cuticles; ten cephalic setae in a circle; buccal cavity lined with six longitudinal reinforcements; amphids in broken circles or cryptic spirals, located at the very anterior of the head; pharynx with anterior cuticularized, gradually enlarging in posterior portion but without bulb; conical tail; arcuate spicules, the distal ends pointed, gradually broadening towards the proximal; gubernaculum has a dorsal–caudal apophysis; female with two opposed, outstretched ovaries. Anticyathus shenzhensis sp. nov. can be distinguished by ten cephalic setae of length about 2–4 µm; amphids diameter about 20–29% of corresponding body diameter; pharynx occupy 0.07–0.10 times of body length; cardia length about 25 µm; tail length 2.5–3.4 times of anal body diameter (abd) in males and 3.4–4.7 abd in females; spicules length 51–59 µm as arc and 0.71–1.04 abd; apophysis length 18–19 µm; female vulva at 52–56% of body length. Anticyathus communis sp. nov. is identified by ten cephalic setae length about 3–5 µm; amphids diameter about 20–32% of corresponding body diameter; cardia 17–27 µm long; tail length 3.6–4.5 abd in male, 5.3–5.5 abd in female; spicules proximal with distinctly cephalated, 0.74–0.96 abd; gubernaculum shape of “L”, consisting of sleeves around spicule and dorsal–caudal apophysis; five to seven pre-anal and seven to ten post-anal almost invisible papilla or papillae-like setae occur on each ventrally submedian line on the posterior body part of male; the tip of male tail with three slight elevation; female vulva at 52% of body length. A dichotomous key for the genus Anticyathus is given and 39 sequences of 18S rRNA gene from ten individuals of Anticyathus shenzhensis sp. nov. are provided in Genbank database.

As a fast-growing, woody grass plant, Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) can supply edible shoots, building materials, fibrous raw material, raw materials for crafts and furniture and so on within a relatively short time. Rapid growth of Moso bamboo occurs after the young bamboo shoots are covered with a shell and emerge from the ground. However, the molecular reactions of bioenergetic processes essential for fast growth remain undefined. Herein, total and mitochondrial transcriptomes and proteomes were compared between spring and winter shoots. Numerous key genes and proteins responsible for energy metabolism were significantly upregulated in spring shoots, including those involved in starch and sucrose catabolism, glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, the tricarboxylic acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation. Accordingly, significant decreases in starch and soluble sugar, higher ATP content and higher rates of respiration and glycolysis were identified in spring shoots. Further, the upregulated genes and proteins related to mitochondrial fission significantly increased the number of mitochondria, indirectly promoting intracellular energy metabolism. Moreover, enhanced alternate-oxidase and uncoupled-protein pathways in winter shoots showed that an efficient energy-dissipating system was important for winter shoots to adapt to the low-temperature environment. Heterologous expression of PeAOX1b in Arabidopsis significantly affected seedling growth and enhanced cold-stress tolerance. Overall, this study highlights the power of comparing total and mitochondrial omics and integrating physiochemical data to understand how bamboo initiates fast growth through modulating bioenergetic processes.

microRNAs (miRNAs) are important post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression in plant abiotic stress responses. Ammopiptanthus mongolicus is a typical evergreen woody xerophyte, which makes it an ideal model system for studying drought tolerance in woody plants. The response of miRNAs to drought stress is still unknown in this plant. In this research, we obtained 34 695 665 raw reads from two small RNA libraries constructed from control and drought-treated A. mongolicus seedlings by the Illumina deep sequencing technology. Length analysis revealed that reads of 20, 21, and 24 nucleotides accounted for the majority of the small RNAs in the two libraries. Sequence analyses identified 65 conserved miRNA sequences from 190 members of 31 miRNA families and 20 potential novel miRNAs from 17 families that were differentially expressed between the two libraries. The expression patterns of 25 of these miRNAs were significantly different in the two libraries, but only am-miR4a-c was downregulated during drought stress, the other 24 were upregulated. The expression trends determined by the HiSeq sequencing and by qRT-PCR were similar. Furthermore, 35 target genes for the conserved miRNA were markedly changed and 52 target genes for the potential novel miRNAs were predicted and their functions were annotated by computational analysis. Our results provide new molecular evidence for understanding the molecular mechanisms of drought response and tolerance in A. mongolicus.

Ammopiptanthus mongolicus is a tertiary relict evergreen broad-leaf shrub in family Fabaceae with remarkable tolerance to desiccation and low temperature. In this study, we report the complete mitochondrial genome of A. mongolicus. The total genome length was 475,396 bp and contained a total of 127 genes, including 79 protein-coding genes (28 novel genes, 45 known functional genes, and six known orf genes), three rRNA genes, and 45 tRNA genes. Most of the genes were single-copy genes, only six were duplicated and two were multi-copy. The mitochondrial genome also contained ‘promiscuous’ sequences from the chloroplast, 16 intact tRNAs of mitochondrial origin, and 29 intact and potentially functional chloroplast-derived tRNAs. The overall GC content of the mitochondrial DNA was 42.75%. A neighbour-joining phylogenomic analysis showed that A. mongolicus was closely related to Medicago truncatula, which also belongs to family Leguminosae.

In order to obtain the distances between the surrounding objects and the vehicle in the traffic scene in front of the vehicle, a monocular visual depth estimation method based on the depthwise separable convolutional neural network is proposed in this study. First, features containing shallow depth information were extracted from the RGB images using the convolution layers and maximum pooling layers. Subsampling operations were also performed on these images. Subsequently, features containing advanced depth information were extracted using a block based on an ensemble of convolution layers and a block based on depth separable convolution layers. The output from all different blocks is combined afterwards. Finally, transposed convolution layers were used for upsampling the feature maps to the same size with the original RGB image. During the upsampling process, skip connections were used to merge the features containing shallow depth information that was obtained from the convolution operation through the depthwise separable convolution layers. The depthwise separable convolution layers can provide more accurate depth information features for estimating the monocular visual depth. At the same time, they require reduced computational cost and fewer parameter numbers while providing a similar level (or slightly better) computing performance. Integrating multiple simple convolutions into a block not only increases the overall depth of the neural network but also enables a more accurate extraction of the advanced features in the neural network. Combining the output from multiple blocks can prevent the loss of features containing important depth information. The testing results show that the depthwise separable convolutional neural network provides a superior performance than the other monocular visual depth estimation methods. Therefore, applying depthwise separable convolution layers in the neural network is a more effective and accurate approach for estimating the visual depth.

As a main agronomic intervention in tea cultivation, nitrogen (N) application is useful to improve tea yield and quality. However, the effects of N application on the formation of tea quality-related metabolites have not been fully studied, especially in long-term field trials. In this study, a 10-year field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of long-term N application treatments on tea quality-related metabolites, their precursors, and related gene expression. Long-term N application up-regulated the expression of key genes for chlorophyll synthesis and promoted its synthesis, thus increasing tea yield. It also significantly increased the contents of total free amino acids, especially l-theanine, in fresh tea leaves, while decreasing the catechin content, which is conducive to enhancing tea liquor freshness. However, long-term N application significantly reduced the contents of benzyl alcohol and 2-phenylethanol in fresh tea leaves, and also reduced (E)-nerolidol and indole in withered leaves, which were not conducive to the formation of floral and fruity aroma compounds. In general, an appropriate amount of N fertilizer (225 kg/hm2) balanced tea yield and quality. These results not only provide essential information on how N application affects tea quality, but also provide detailed experimental data for field fertilization.

Depth information has been widely used to improve RGB-D salient object detection by extracting attention maps to determine the position information of objects in an image. However, non-salient objects may be close to the depth sensor and present high pixel intensities in the depth maps. This situation in depth maps inevitably leads to erroneously emphasize non-salient areas and may have a negative impact on the saliency results. To mitigate this problem, we propose a hybrid attention neural network that fuses middle- and high-level RGB features with depth features to generate a hybrid attention map to remove background information. The proposed network extracts multilevel features from RGB images using the Res2Net architecture and then integrates high-level features from depth maps using the Inception-v4-ResNet2 architecture. The mixed high-level RGB features and depth features generate the hybrid attention map, which is then multiplied to the low-level RGB features. After decoding by several convolutions and upsampling, we obtain the final saliency prediction, achieving state-of-the-art performance on the NJUD and NLPR datasets. Moreover, the proposed network has good generalization ability compared with other methods. An ablation study demonstrates that the proposed network effectively performs saliency prediction even when non-salient objects interfere detection. In fact, after removing the branch with high-level RGB features, the RGB attention map that guides the network for saliency prediction is lost, and all the performance measures decline. The resulting prediction map from the ablation study shows the effect of non-salient objects close to the depth sensor. This effect is not present when using the complete hybrid attention network. Therefore, RGB information can correct and supplement depth information, and the corresponding hybrid attention map is more robust than using a conventional attention map constructed only with depth information.

Ammopiptanthus mongolicus, a xerophyte plant that belongs to the family Leguminosae, adapts to extremely arid, hot, and cold environments, making it an excellent woody plant to study the molecular mechanisms underlying abiotic stress tolerance. Three dehydrin genes, AmDHN132, AmDHN154, and AmDHN200 were cloned from abiotic stress treated A. mongolicus seedlings. Cytomembrane-located AmDHN200, nucleus-located AmDHN154, and cytoplasm and nucleus-located AmDHN132 were characterized by constitutive overexpression of their genes in Arabidopsis thaliana. Overexpression of AmDHN132, AmDHN154, and AmDHN200 in transgenic Arabidopsis improved salt, osmotic, and cold tolerances, with AmDHN132 having the largest effect, whereas the growth of transformed plants is not negatively affected. These results indicate that AmDHNs contribute to the abiotic stress tolerance of A. mongolicus and that AmDHN genes function differently in response to abiotic stresses. Furthermore, they have the potential to be used in the genetic engineering of stress tolerance in higher plants.

Tin oxide quantum dots (QDs) were prepared in aqueous solution from the precursor of tin dichloride via a simple process of hydrolysis and oxidation. The average grain size of QDs was 1.9 nm. The hydrothermal treatment was used to control the average grain size, which increased to 2.7 and 4.0 nm when the operating temperatures of 125 and 225 °C were employed, respectively. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectrum and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) pattern confirmed a rutile SnO2 system for the QDs. A band gap of 3.66 eV was evaluated from the UV-VIS absorption spectrum. A fluorescence emission peak was observed at a wavelength of 300 nm, and the response was quenched by the high concentration of QDs in the aqueous solution. The current-voltage (I-V) correlation inferred that grain boundaries had the electrical characteristics of the Schottky barrier. The response of the QD thin film to H2 gas revealed its potential application in semiconductor gas sensors.

As a type of dictionary with huge popularity among EFL learners in China, the bilingualized dictionary (BLD) deserves more academic and pedagogical attention than it receives nowadays. This article gives an overview of the BLD within the framework of dictionary research, including dictionary history, dictionary typology, dictionary criticism and dictionary use. It first traces, with a special reference to the Chinese EFL context, the origin and historical development of this type of dictionary, and then proposes several approaches to its classification. The strengths and weaknesses of the BLD are evaluated and its role in language pedagogy discussed, followed by an extensive review of the empirical studies of BLD use. Finally, further areas of BLD research are also suggested. It is hoped that such an overview would kindle more research interest in BLDs which is relevant to language pedagogy, dictionary use instruction and lexicographic practices.

The influence of oxygen vacancy behaviors during a cooling process in semiconductor gas sensors is discussed by the numerical analysis method based on the gradient-distributed oxygen vacancy model. A diffusion equation is established to describe the behaviors of oxygen vacancies, which follows the effects of diffusion and exclusion in the cooling process. Numerical analysis is introduced to find the accurate solutions of the diffusion equation. The solutions illustrate the oxygen vacancy distribution profiles, which are dependent on the cooling rate as well as the temperature interval of the cooling process. The gas-sensing characteristics of reduced resistance and response are calculated. Both of them, together with oxygen vacancy distribution, show the grain size effects and the re-annealing effect. It is found that the properties of gas sensors can be controlled or adjusted by the designed cooling process. The proposed model provides a possibility for sensor characteristics simulations, which may be beneficial for the design of gas sensors. A quantitative interpretation on the gas-sensing mechanism of semiconductors has been contributed.

We investigated the abundance of total and pathogenic Vibrio parahaemolyticus in shellfish sampled from four provinces in China during May 2013 and March 2014 using the most probable number-polymerase chain reaction (MPN-PCR) method. Total V. parahaemolyticus was detected in 67.7% of 496 samples. A total of 38.1% and 10.1% of samples exceeded 1,000 MPN g(-1) and 10,000 MPN g(-1), respectively. V. parahaemolyticus densities followed a seasonal and geographical trend, with Guangxi and Sichuan shellfish possessing total V. parahaemolyticus levels that were 100-fold higher than those of the Liaoning and Shandong regions. Moreover, the levels of V. parahaemolyticus were at least 10-fold higher in the summer and autumn than in the cooler seasons. Pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus levels were generally lower than total V. parahaemolyticus levels by several log units and tended to be high in samples contaminated with high total V. parahaemolyticus levels. The aqua farms had a lower prevalence but higher abundance of total V. parahaemolyticus compared to retail markets. The catering markets showed the lowest levels of total V. parahaemolyticus, but 20.0% of samples exceeded 1,000 MPN g(-1). The levels of both total and pathogenic V. parahaemolyticus in oysters were higher than in clams. The log-transformed abundance of V. parahaemolyticus was significantly correlated with both water temperature and air temperature but not water salinity. These results provide baseline contamination data of V. parahaemolyticus in shellfish in China, which can be applied to local risk assessments to prioritize risk control to key sectors and evaluate the effectiveness of future control measures.

Phenolic acids and derivatives have potential biological functions, however, little is known about the structure-activity relationships and the underlying action mechanisms of these phenolic acids to date. Herein we investigate the structure-thermodynamics-antioxidant relationships of 20 natural phenolic acids and derivatives using DPPH• scavenging assay, density functional theory calculations at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) levels of theory, and quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) modeling. Three main working mechanisms (HAT, SETPT and SPLET) are explored in four micro-environments (gas-phase, benzene, water and ethanol). Computed thermodynamics parameters (BDE, IP, PDE, PA and ETE) are compared with the experimental radical scavenging activities against DPPH•. Available theoretical and experimental investigations have demonstrated that the extended delocalization and intra-molecular hydrogen bonds are the two main contributions to the stability of the radicals. The C = O or C = C in COOH, COOR, C = CCOOH and C = CCOOR groups, and orthodiphenolic functionalities are shown to favorably stabilize the specific radical species to enhance the radical scavenging activities, while the presence of the single OH in the ortho position of the COOH group disfavors the activities. HAT is the thermodynamically preferred mechanism in the gas phase and benzene, whereas SPLET in water and ethanol. Furthermore, our QSAR models robustly represent the structure-activity relationships of these explored compounds in polar media.