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Textured perovskite ferroelectric ceramics have attracted considerable attention from both academia and industry. In a recent study, an interesting phenomenon was observed in textured perovskite ferroelectric ceramics, i.e. the planar Poisson's ratios of these ceramics ranged from − 0.05 to 0.1, much lower than those of their non-textured counterparts (0.3–0.4). In this study, we fabricated a < 001 > -textured Pb(In 1/2 Nb 1/2)O 3 –Pb(Mg 1/3 Nb 2/3)O 3 –PbTiO 3 ceramic using 5 vol% BaTiO 3 templates. By studying the orientation dependence of Poisson's ratio, we found that the < 001 > -oriented grain exhibits a large anisotropy of planar Poisson's ratio, where some orientations even show negative Poisson's ratio, and the lowest Poisson's ratio is present as the x-axis is along < 110 > directions. Based on these results, the near-zero Poisson's ratio was attributed to the intrinsic microstructural feature of < 001 > -textured perovskite ceramic, i.e. the out-of-plane orientation of most grains is along the < 001 > crystallographic direction and the in-plane orientations of the grains are randomly distributed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 32-year fertilizer experiment was conducted to investigate mineral and organic fertilization impacts on soil P forms by P K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure and solution 31P nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The experiment included six treatments: control without fertilization, mineral fertilizers (NPK), pig manure at 30,000 (M1) and 60,000 kg ha–1 (M2), M1 plus NPK, and M2 plus NPK. The predominant P compounds were hydroxyapatite (up to 51.3% of soil total P) and orthophosphate and orthophosphate monoesters (up to 85.7% and 57.0% of soil NaOH-EDTA extractable total P, respectively). Compared with the control, the concentrations and proportions of monocalcium phosphate and orthophosphate increased following mineral fertilizers alone. Manure application, especially high rate manure combined with mineral fertilizers, further increased the concentrations and proportions of monocalcium phosphate and orthophosphate relative to mineral fertilizers alone. Moreover, manure amendment also generally increased the concentrations of other inorganic and organic P compounds. Manure application improve soil P availability by adding high concentrations of bioavailable inorganic P compounds to soil, similar to the addition of mineral fertilizers. This study contributes to the understanding of applied fertilizers and residual soil P dynamics and provides insights for sustainable P management in agricultural ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stropharia rugosoannulata has been used in environmental engineering to degrade straw in China. The nitrogen and carbon metabolisms are the most important factors affecting mushroom growth, and the aim of this study was to understand the effects of different nitrogen levels on carbon metabolism in S. rugosoannulata using transcriptome analysis. The mycelia were highly branched and elongated rapidly in A3 (1.37% nitrogen). GO and KEGG enrichment analyses revealed that the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were mainly involved in starch and sucrose metabolism; nitrogen metabolism; glycine, serine and threonine metabolism; the MAPK signaling pathway; hydrolase activity on glycosyl bonds; and hemicellulose metabolic processes. The activities of nitrogen metabolic enzymes were highest in A1 (0.39% nitrogen) during the three nitrogen levels (A1, A2 and A3). However, the activities of cellulose enzymes were highest in A3, while the hemicellulase xylanase activity was highest in A1. The DEGs associated with CAZymes, starch and sucrose metabolism and the MAPK signaling pathway were also most highly expressed in A3. These results suggested that increased nitrogen levels can upregulate carbon metabolism in S. rugosoannulata. This study could increase knowledge of the lignocellulose bioconversion pathways and improve biodegradation efficiency in Basidiomycetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microbes, including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other eukaryotic organisms, are commonly present in multiple organs of the human body and contribute significantly to both physiological and pathological processes. Nowadays, the development of sequencing technology has revealed the presence and composition of the intratumoral microbiota, which includes Fusobacterium , Bifidobacteria , and Bacteroides , and has shed light on the significant involvement in the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC). Here, we summarized the current understanding of the intratumoral microbiota in CRC and outline the potential translational and clinical applications in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of CRC. We focused on reviewing the development of microbial therapies targeting the intratumoral microbiota to improve the efficacy and safety of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for CRC and to identify biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of CRC. Finally, we emphasized the obstacles and potential solutions to translating the knowledge of the intratumoral microbiota into clinical practice. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low temperature is an important environmental factor that restricts the growth of Stropharia rugosoannulata; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying S. rugosoannulata responses to low-temperature stress are largely unknown. In this study, we performed a transcriptome analysis of a high-sensitivity strain (DQ-1) and low-sensitivity strain (DQ-3) under low-temperature stress. The liquid hyphae of S. rugosoannulata treated at 25 °C and 10 °C were analyzed by RNA-Seq, and a total of 9499 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses showed that these genes were enriched in "xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism", "carbohydrate metabolism", "lipid metabolism" and "oxidoreductase activity". Further research found that carbohydrate enzyme (AA, GH, CE, and GT) genes were downregulated more significantly in DQ-1 than DQ-3 and several cellulase activities were also reduced to a greater extent. Moreover, the CAT1, CAT2, GR, and POD genes and more heat shock protein genes (HSP20, HSP78 and sHSP) were upregulated in the two strains after low-temperature stress, and the GPX gene and more heat shock protein genes were upregulated in DQ-3. In addition, the enzyme activity and qRT–PCR results showed trends similar to those of the RNA-Seq results. This result indicates that low-temperature stress reduces the expression of different AA, GH, CE, and GT enzyme genes and reduces the secretion of cellulase, thereby reducing the carbohydrate metabolism process and mycelial growth of S. rugosoannulata. Moreover, the expression levels of different types of antioxidant enzymes and heat shock proteins are also crucial for S. rugosoannulata to resist low-temperature stress. In short, this study will provide a basis for further research on important signaling pathways, gene functions and variety breeding of S. rugosoannulata related to low-temperature stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stropharia rugosoannulata uses straw as a growth substrate during artificial cultivation and has been widely promoted in China. However, its fruiting body formation and development processes have not been elucidated. In this study, the developmental transcriptomes were analyzed at three stages: the mycelium (G-S), primordium (P-S) and fruiting body (M-F) stages. A total of 9690 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in the different developmental stages. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses showed that these DEGs were involved mainly in hydrolase activity, structural molecule activity and oxidoreductase activity as well as xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism and energy metabolism pathways. We further found that the higher expression of most carbohydrate enzyme (i.e., GH, CE, CBM, AA and PL) genes in the hyphal (i.e., G-S) stage was related mainly to substrate degradation, while the upregulation of glycosyltransferase (GT) gene expression in the P-S and M-F stages may be related to cell wall synthesis. In addition, we found that CO2-sensing-related genes (i.e., CA-2, CA-3, PKA-1 and PKA-2) were upregulated in the P-S and M-F stages, heat shock protein genes (HSP60 and HSP90) were significantly downregulated in the P-S stage and upregulated in the M-F stage and the transcription factors (i.e., steA, MYB, nosA, HAP1, and GATA-4/5/6) involved in growth and development were significantly upregulated in the P-S stage. These results suggest that environmental factors (i.e., CO2 and temperature) and transcription factors may play a key role in primordium formation. In short, this study provides new insights into the study of stimulating primordia formation affecting the development of fruiting bodies of S. rugosoannulata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low temperature is an important environmental factor that restricts the growth of Stropharia rugosoannulata; however, the molecular mechanisms underlying S. rugosoannulata responses to low-temperature stress are largely unknown. In this study, we performed a transcriptome analysis of a high-sensitivity strain (DQ-1) and low-sensitivity strain (DQ-3) under low-temperature stress. The liquid hyphae of S. rugosoannulata treated at 25 °C and 10 °C were analyzed by RNA-Seq, and a total of 9499 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses showed that these genes were enriched in "xenobiotic biodegradation and metabolism", "carbohydrate metabolism", "lipid metabolism" and "oxidoreductase activity". Further research found that carbohydrate enzyme (AA, GH, CE, and GT) genes were downregulated more significantly in DQ-1 than DQ-3 and several cellulase activities were also reduced to a greater extent. Moreover, the CAT1, CAT2, GR, and POD genes and more heat shock protein genes (HSP20, HSP78 and sHSP) were upregulated in the two strains after low-temperature stress, and the GPX gene and more heat shock protein genes were upregulated in DQ-3. In addition, the enzyme activity and qRT–PCR results showed trends similar to those of the RNA-Seq results. This result indicates that low-temperature stress reduces the expression of different AA, GH, CE, and GT enzyme genes and reduces the secretion of cellulase, thereby reducing the carbohydrate metabolism process and mycelial growth of S. rugosoannulata. Moreover, the expression levels of different types of antioxidant enzymes and heat shock proteins are also crucial for S. rugosoannulata to resist low-temperature stress. In short, this study will provide a basis for further research on important signaling pathways, gene functions and variety breeding of S. rugosoannulata related to low-temperature stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, density functional theory calculations have been carried out to study the hydrogen storage properties of high entropy alloy (HEA) TiZrVMoNb. It reveals that a BCC→FCC phase transformation occurs when the hydrogen content reaches 1.5 wt% during hydrogenation process, and octahedral and tetrahedral interstitial sites are preferable for hydrogen occupation before and after phase transformation, respectively. Further energetic analyses show that different hydrogen occupations in HEAs play an important role in the thermal stability of hydrides. The maximum hydrogen storage capacity for TiZrVMoNb is predicted to be 2.65 wt%, which is comparable to the largest value of 2.7 wt% for TiZrVHfNb and larger than that of other reported HEA hydrogen storage materials reported in the literature. As compared with the previously reported HEA TiZrHfMoNb with the change of only one principal element, the TiZrVMoNb not only has much higher hydrogen storage capacity, but also has more moderate hydrogen desorption temperature. The difference in hydrogen storage properties between these two HEAs is mainly attributed to the atomic weight, site occupation, lattice distortion and chemical effect of metal elements. The present study thus suggests that the TiZrVMoNb HEA has great potential as hydrogen storage materials and proposes a strategy to enhance the hydrogen storage properties of HEAs. [Display omitted] • HEA TiZrVMoNb has a maximum hydrogen storage capacity of 2.65 wt%. • A BCC to FCC phase transition occurs when the hydrogen content reaches to 1.5 wt%. • The thermal stability of HEA hydrides can be influenced by hydrogen occupation. • The hydrogen storage property of HEA TiZrVMoNb is superior to HEA TiZrHfMoNb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sequence type 1193 (ST1193) constitutes an emerging fluoroquinolone-resistant Escherichia coli clone in several countries. However, reports of such isolates in neonatal invasive diseases are limited. Here, we assessed the antimicrobial resistance and molecular characteristics of E. coli ST1193 isolates causing neonatal bloodstream infections and meningitis in China. A total of 56 E. coli isolates were collected from neonatal blood and cerebrospinal fluid between September 2009 and June 2015. Antimicrobial susceptibility was evaluated using E-test methods. Polymerase chain reaction amplification was used to detect antibiotic resistance genes including blaTEM, blaSHV, and blaCTX-M groups. Molecular typing was performed via multi-locus sequence typing. Among 56 E. coli isolates, 17 (17/56, 30.4%) were extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) producers, and 37(37/56, 66.1%) were multidrug-resistant. The most frequent sequence types were ST1193 (12/56), followed by ST95 and ST62. ST1193 isolates exhibited a 91.7% resistance rate to ciprofloxacin, amoxicillin, and sulfonamides, and 83.3% resistance rate to tetracycline. A total of 4 (33.3%) among the 12 ST1193 isolates were ESBL producers, of which three carried both blaCTX-M-15 and blaTEM genes with the remaining isolate harboring blaCTX-M-27 and blaTEM genes. Additionally, 1 of the 3 ST1193 isolates obtained from cerebrospinal fluid was an ESBL producer that carried both blaCTX-M-15 and blaTEM genes. This study revealed for the first time the molecular characteristics of E. coli ST1193 causing neonatal invasive diseases in China. Notably, we found that ST1193 isolates were multidrug-resistant. Further multicenter studies are needed to assess the molecular epidemiology of ST1193 in China to control its spread. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Owing to a lack of systematic mathematical models to represent the parameters related to micro‐source disconnection, the stability of interaction between a grid and a micro‐grid with series micro‐source inverters (SMSI‐MG) is difficult to analyze. In this study, the average ratio and the degree of imbalance of three‐phase micro‐source disconnection, denoted respectively by δ and ϵ, are defined, and the positive‐ and negative‐sequence impedances of the SMSI‐MG containing the two parameters are established using a combination of the harmonic linearization and the symmetrical component methods. Moreover, rules of the behavior of the SMSI‐MG after micro‐source disconnection as well as its mechanism of interaction with the grid are revealed by the impedance models. The results of analysis show that high‐frequency harmonic resonance was generated around the carrier frequency when δ ≠ 0, and both high‐ and low‐frequency harmonic resonances were generated when both δ and ϵ increased in the interactive system. Furthermore, three SMSI‐MGs containing five, 10, and 20 micro‐sources in a single phase were simulated, and the results verified the correctness, feasibility, and advantages of the simplified analysis of the impedance models. These insights can be used to apply the corresponding control strategies in a timely manner according to the given conditions of micro‐source disconnection to reduce the harmonic resonance and increase the stability of the SMSI‐MG and the grid. The results of simulations verified the effectiveness of such a control strategy. © 2021 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zn(II)2Cys6 transcription factors are critical for the reproductive growth and sexual development of fungi, but their roles in Basidiomycota remain unclear. In this study, the Hypsizygus marmoreus gene hada-1 was shown to encode a Zn(II)2Cys6 transcription factor, the growth rate of mycelia was decreased, hyphae were angulated, and fruiting body development was hindered in the hada-1-silenced strains. In addition, mitochondrial stability was lost, and the mitochondria morphologies changed from oval shaped to dumbbell or linear shaped in the silenced strains. Regarding mitochondrial instability, the mitochondrial complex II, III, and V activities and adenosine triphosphate content were significantly decreased. At the same time, the activities of the carbohydrate metabolism-related enzymes glucose-6-plosphatase, glucose dehydrogenase, and laccase were significantly decreased, which might have resulted in the reduction of carbon metabolism. Furthermore, hada-1 was shown to regulate the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level; compared with the wild-type (WT) strain, the silenced mycelia exhibited higher ROS contents and were more sensitive to oxidative stress. Taken together, these results indicate that, as a global regulator, hada-1 plays crucial roles in mycelial growth, fruiting body development, carbon metabolism, mitochondrial stability, and oxidative stress in the basidiomycete H. marmoreus. Key points: • Zn(II)2Cys6transcription factor, mitochondrial stability, fruiting body development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a triple intersecting U-Nets (TIU-Nets) for brain glioma segmentation. First, the proposed TIU-Nets is composed of binary-class segmentation U-Net (BU-Net) and multi-class segmentation U-Net (MU-Net), in which MU-Net reuses multi-resolution features from BU-Net. Second, we introduce a segmentation soft-mask predicted by BU-Net, that is, candidate glioma region is generated by removing most of non-glioma backgrounds, which guides multi-category segmentation of MU-Net in a weighted manner. Third, an edge branch in MU-Net is leveraged to enhance boundary information of glioma substructure, which facilitates to locate glioma true boundaries and improve segmentation accuracy. Finally, we propose a sigmoid-evolution based polarized cross-entropy loss (S-CE) to resolve class unbalance problem, and apply S-CE loss to soft-mask prediction loss in BU-Net, multi-class segmentation loss in MU-Net and edge prediction loss in edge branch. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed 2D/3D TIU-Nets achieves a higher segmentation accuracy than corresponding 2D/3D state-of-the-art segmentation methods including FCN, U-Net, SegNet, CRDN, IVD-Net, FCDenseNet, DeepMedic, DMFNet, etc, evaluating on publicly available brain tumor segmentation challenge 2015 (BRATS2015) datasets. To show the universality of the proposed method, we also give a comparison of segmentation performance on BrainWeb dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accumulating studies have indicated that N6-methyladenosine (m6A) plays an important role in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). However, little is known about the m6A methylome at a transcriptome-wide scale in AML patients. We obtained three pairs of bone marrow (BM) samples from cytogenetically normal AML patients at the timepoints of diagnosis (AML) and relapse (R_AML) and three BM samples from healthy donors used as normal controls (NCs). Methylated RNA immunoprecipitation next-generation sequencing (MeRIP-Seq) was conducted to identify differences in the m6A methylomes between AML and NC and between R_AML and AML. We identified a total of 11,076 and 11,962 differential m6A peaks in AML and R_AML group, respectively. These dysregulated m6A peaks were detected on all chromosomes, especially chr1, chr19 and chr17, and were mainly enriched in 3′ untranslated regions, stop codon and coding sequence regions. Moreover, GO and KEGG analyses indicated that m6A -modified genes were significantly enriched in cancer-related biological functions and pathways. Additionally, we identified a link between the m6A methylome and RNA transcriptome via combined analyses of MeRIP-seq and RNA-seq data. In addition, 5 genes, HSPG2, HOMER3, TSPO2, CXCL12 and FUT1 regulated by m6A modification potentially, were shown to be related to the prognosis of AML patients. Additionally, we detected the mRNA expression of major m6A regulators and potential target mRNA on the leukemogenesis and found that the expression of IGF2BP2, HSPG2 and HOMER3 were upregulated in AML at the time of diagnosis. Moreover, their expression became downregulated after remission and then elevated again at relapse. Our study provides the first data on the differential m6A methylome in AML patients during initial diagnosis and relapse. This study demonstrates a novel relationship between m6A modification and AML relapse and paves the way for further studies aimed at elucidating the epigenic mechanisms involved in the relapse of AML. • M6A methylation is widespread during both the onset and relapse of AML. • Differentially methylated genes are involved in important biological processes and signalling pathways in both de novo AML and relapsed AML. • Genes regulated by m6A modification are associated with the overall survival of AML patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glutathione peroxidase (GPX) is one of the most important antioxidant enzymes for maintaining reactive oxygen species (ROS) homeostasis. Although studies on fungi have suggested many important physiological functions of GPX, few studies have examined the role of this enzyme in Basidiomycetes, particularly its functions in fruiting body developmental processes. In the present study, GPX-silenced (GPxi) strains were obtained by using RNA interference. The GPxi strains of Hypsizygus marmoreus showed defects in mycelial growth and fruiting body development. In addition, the results indicated essential roles of GPX in controlling ROS homeostasis by regulating intracellular H2O2 levels, maintaining GSH/GSSG balance, and promoting antioxidant enzyme activity. Furthermore, lignocellulose enzyme activity levels were reduced and the mitochondrial phenotype and mitochondrial complex activity levels were changed in the H. marmoreus GPxi strains, possibly in response to impediments to mycelial growth and fruiting body development. These findings indicate that ROS homeostasis has a complex influence on growth, fruiting body development, GSH/GSSG balance, and carbon metabolism in H. marmoreus. Key points • ROS balance, energy metabolism, fruiting development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Medication nonadherence is one of the most significant obstacles to tuberculosis (TB) control worldwide. Identification of the factors associated with medication nonadherence is important. However, few related studies have been carried out in Tibet. This study aimed to explore factors influencing medication nonadherence to pulmonary TB (PTB) treatment in Tibet, China, from the patient perspective. Patients and Methods: In this qualitative study, seventeen PTB patients in Tibet were recruited by purposive and maximum variation sampling methods. In-depth semistructured interviews were conducted to collect data on factors influencing medication nonadherence, and Colaizzi's seven-step method was used to analyze the data. Results: The medication nonadherence of PTB patients in Tibet was influenced by one or a combination of the following four factors. First, patient-related factors included a lack of knowledge of PTB treatment, poor self-management capability, poor self-regulation capability and misperception of health condition. Second, a medication-related factor was medication side effects. Third, health service-related factors included the poor treatment skills of doctors in primary hospitals and a lack of directly observed treatment (DOT). Last, sociocultural factors included the effect of traditional Tibetan medicine, lack of family member support and discrimination. Conclusion: Multiple interplaying factors influenced medication nonadherence during PTB treatment in Tibet, and the main influencing factors were a lack of knowledge about PTB treatment, poor self-management capability, and the effect of traditional Tibetan medicine. TB health workers in Tibet should provide permanently viewable PTB treatment knowledge materials to PTB patients when oral health education is conducted, find feasible alternative strategies to DOT and establish links to traditional Tibetan medicine hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The expression of forkhead box N3 (FOXN3), also known as checkpoint suppressor 1 (CHES1), is reduced in many types of tumours. However, the clinical significance of FOXN3 and its potential role in acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) remain largely unknown. Methods: A total of 117 de novo AML patients newly diagnosed between December 2015 and January 2018 were included in this study. The expression of FOXN3 and its clinical significance were analysed in these AML patients. Results: The expression of FOXN3 was significantly downregulated in AML. In addition, lower FOXN3 expression was associated with older age and higher white blood cell counts. Moreover, a close correlation was observed between lower FOXN3 expression and a lower complete remission (CR) rate and shorter overall survival (OS), which was further analysed by multivariate analysis. Conclusion: These data suggest that FOXN3 is a novel biomarker in AML and that lower FOXN3 expression predicts poor chemotherapy response and prognosis in AML. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary cardiac diffuse large B cell lymphoma (PC-DLBCL) is a rare kind of hematological malignancy, and its clinical and pathologic characteristics, especially in Eastern countries, remain unclear. Moreover, genomic alterations in PC-DLBCL have not been studied previously. We describe a case of a 57-year-old man who presented with exertional dyspnoea due to a heart mass in April 2018 and was diagnosed with PC-DLBCL characterized by immunohistochemical markers of the activated B cell (ABC) subtype and double expression of c-MYC and Bcl-2. Mutations in a total of 11 genes—TBL1XR1, CD79B, IGLL5, ZMYM3, MYD88, TMSB4X, PIM1, BTK, NRXN3, CUX1, and CSMD1—were detected via next-generation sequencing (NGS), while 19 copy number variations (CNVs) such as 1q+, 3p+, 3q+(*2), 5p+, 6p−, 6q−, 7q+, +11, 12q−, 15q−, 17q+, 17p−, +18, 19q+, 19p−, 19q−, X q+, and −Y and 4 copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity (CN-LOH) lesions located at 1q21.1q44, 3p26.3q11.2, 3q13.11q29 and 6p22.2p21.32 were identified by single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array karyotyping. Some key gene alterations in lymphoma, such as PRDM1 deletion and Bcl-2 amplification, were identified using SNP array analysis. The patient received 6 courses of chemotherapy (rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone, R-CHOP regimen) after surgery and is currently in remission. In summary, the present case was diagnosed as PC-DLBCL, ABC subtype by the Hans algorithm and double expression lymphoma, with co-occurrence of the MYD88L265P and CD79B mutations (MCD) subtype by genetic alteration analysis. This study presents a unique PC-DLBCL case in which complex genomic alterations were revealed by NGS and SNP array analysis, which has never been reported in the literature, and these findings could provide new insight into the genomic characterization of PC-DLBCL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gradient descent is prevalent for large-scale optimization problems in machine learning; especially it nowadays plays a major role in computing and correcting the connection strength of neural networks in deep learning. However, many gradient-based optimization methods contain more sensitive hyper-parameters which require endless ways of configuring. In this paper, we present a novel adaptive mechanism called adaptive exponential decay rate (AEDR). AEDR uses an adaptive exponential decay rate rather than a fixed and preconfigured one, and it can allow us to eliminate one otherwise tuning sensitive hyper-parameters. AEDR also can be used to calculate exponential decay rate adaptively by employing the moving average of both gradients and squared gradients over time. The mechanism is then applied to Adadelta and Adam; it reduces the number of hyper-parameters of Adadelta and Adam to only a single one to be turned. We use neural network of long short-term memory and LeNet to demonstrate how learning rate adapts dynamically. We show promising results compared with other state-of-the-art methods on four data sets, the IMDB (movie reviews), SemEval-2016 (sentiment analysis in twitter) (IMDB), CIFAR-10 and Pascal VOC-2012. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MicroRNAs affect various pathological pathways by binding to multiple target mRNAs. Recently, it was reported that eukaryotic RNA G-quadruplexes were enriched in mRNA 3′-UTR, where microRNAs can also bind. To determine the roles of the G-quadruplex within mRNA 3′-UTR in microRNA binding sites, a bioinformatics approach was utilized to identify candidate microRNA target mRNAs with potential G-quadruplex formation. Circular dichroism spectrometry demonstrated the formation of RNA G-quadruplexes in vitro in candidate G-rich sequences. Mutated guanosines that are critical for G-quadruplex formation significantly decreased luciferase activities. Moreover, a G-quadruplex ligand TMPyP4 was used to destabilize the KCNJ11 RNA G-quadruplex in cardiomyocytes, resulting in binding of the microRNA to mRNA and subsequent suppression of KCNJ11 expression. In conclusion, our study showed that the G-quadruplex structure affects microRNA binding to its target mRNA. Thus, our study reveals a novel mechanism for G-quadruplex-dependent regulation of microRNA-mRNA interaction, which is essential to maintain normal gene expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnetic resonance (MR) brain tumor image segmentation can quantitatively analyze the tumor size and provide a large number of brain functional and anatomical information, which to a certain degree can guide the brain disease diagnosis and treatment planning. In this paper, we proposed a framework for brain tumor MR image segmentation combining deep learning and level-set method. First of all, we trained deep neural network (DNN) to classify center pixel of the image patches according to four MR modalities (T1, T1c, T2 and flair) and generated the segmentation result as initialization for level-set method. Secondly, we refine the segmentation results in edema region by level set in flair modality, which compensated for the discontinuity of the DNN segmentation improving the segmentation accuracy. In order to balance tumor patches proportion in datasets increasing them from 2 to 15%, we select patches randomly with a fixed proportion between tumor and normal tissue. Experiments show that the proposed method can effectively overcome discontinuity in segmentation result and obtain a satisfied segmentation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forkhead box protein N3 (FOXN3) is a transcriptional repressor involved in cell cycle regulation and tumorigenesis. Abnormalities in gene structure and epigenetics of FOXN3 are closely associated with the occurrence of hematological malignancies; however, its involvement in the pathogenesis of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains unknown. The present study aimed to examine the potential significance of FOXN3 in AML. FOXN3 expression levels were examined in patients with AML and AML cell lines, and its clinical significance in AML was evaluated. FOXN3-overexpressing AML cell lines were established, and the biological function of FOXN3 was detected by flow cytometry and a Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. A significant decrease in FOXN3 expression levels was observed in patients with AML and in the AML cell lines in vitro. FOXN3 expression levels were associated with the number of leukocytes in patients. FOXN3 overexpression may inhibit cell proliferation in AML cell lines, induce cell cycle S-phase arrest and promote apoptosis in OCI-AML3 and THP-AML cells. The present study provided insight into how FOXN3 may serve as a novel tumor suppressor in AML. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A five-year field experiment with maize straw biochar was performed in a Mollisol. • Biochar enhanced aggregate stability and aggregate-associated organic and humic C. • Biochar was preferentially incorporated into macroaggregates and its humin fraction. • Biochar led to small macroaggregates and its HA fraction became more hydrophobic. In agricultural ecosystems, one optimized crop residue management practice, i.e., incorporating biochar produced from crop residues via pyrolysis to the soil, is considered a promising technology for mitigating climate change and improving soil quality. However, the potential mechanisms are still not well known. In this study, a five-year (2011–2015) field experiment in a Mollisol of Northeast China that included four treatments, i.e., CK (no fertilizer), NPK (mineral nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertilizers), NPKS (NPK plus maize straw) and NPKB (NPK plus maize straw-derived biochar), was conducted to evaluate the effects of maize straw and its derived biochar application on the following: 1) the size distribution and water stability of soil aggregates; 2) the concentrations of organic and humic carbon (C) in bulk soil and water-stable aggregate fractions; and 3) the chemical compositions of organic and humic C in water-stable aggregate fractions. Compared with the CK and NPK treatments, the proportion of macroaggregates (>0.25 mm) [mainly large macroaggregates (>2 mm)] increased whereas the proportions of microaggregates (0.25–0.053 mm) and silt + clay fractions (<0.053 mm) decreased in NPKS and NPKB treatments, resulting in the mean weight diameter (MWD) of soil aggregates being higher under NPKS and NPKB treatments than under CK and NPK treatments. The concentrations of organic and humic C in bulk soil and aggregate fractions were also generally higher under NPKS and NPKB treatments than under CK and NPK treatments. The treatment effects were more apparent for NPKB than for NPKS. With respect to other treatments, the NPKB treatment significantly increased the ratios of macroaggregate- to microaggregate-associated organic C as well as humin C. The solid-state 13C cross-polarization magic-angle-spinning (CPMAS) NMR spectra of small macroaggregates (2–0.25 mm) and its humic acid fraction showed that the NPKS treatment did not alter the proportions of the C functional groups. In contrast, the NPKB treatment clearly decreased the proportions of alkyl C and O-alkyl C but increased the proportion of aromatic C, resulting in the alkyl C/O-alkyl C and hydrophobic C/hydrophilic C ratios being higher whereas the aliphatic C/aromatic C ratio was lower under NPKB than under other treatments. These findings indicate that the application of maize straw biochar enhanced soil aggregate stability and aggregate-associated organic and humic C concentrations. Biochar C was preferentially incorporated into macroaggregates and its humin fraction with respect to microaggregates. Moreover, the molecular structure of small macroaggregates and its HA fraction became more stable, hydrophobic and aromatic. Therefore, physical protection through organic C in aggregate fractions, physical-chemical protection through the encapsulation of humic C within aggregate fractions, and physical-biochemical protection through recalcitrant alkyl C and aromatic C within aggregate fractions may be the primary mechanisms for C preservation in biochar-amended soil. Our results suggested that maize straw biochar application was an effective strategy based on the comprehensive goal of mitigating climate change and improving soil quality in Mollisols of Northeast China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this study, a series of BiOI/TiO2 heterostructure photocatalysts were prepared by a facile one-pot hydrothermal method. All samples were characterized by XRD, TEM and other techniques. The results showed that the heterostructures between BiOI and TiO2 were formed successfully. The photoactivities of the samples were tested by catalytic oxidation of Hg0 and BT-4 showed the highest removal efficiency, reaching up to 82.5%. Moreover, the trapping experiments indicated that ·O2− and h+ were the main reactive components for Hg0 removal. Finally, a possible mechanism was proposed: A Z-scheme electron/hole transport mechanism was the main reason for the enhanced photoactivity.Graphical Abstract: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gradient descent is prevalent for large scale optimization problems in machine learning, especially its major role is computing and correcting the connection strength of neural network in deep learning. However, choosing a proper learning rate for SGD can be difficult. A too small rate may lead to painfully slow convergence, while too large one would hinder convergence. In this paper, we present a novel variance reduction technique which applies the moving average of gradient termed SMVRG. SMVRG can take a large learning rate by using variance reduction technique. And, we only need to preserve current gradient and the previous average gradient. Our method is employed to Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM). The experiment on two data sets, the IMDB (movie reviews) and SemEval-2016 (sentiment analysis in twitter) shows our method can improve the results significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While the exact mechanisms are not fully understood, there are significant links between sleep quality, anxiety, depressive symptoms, and cognitive emotion regulation. This research examines how sleep quality affects anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as the potential of cognitive emotion regulation strategies (CERS) to moderate the impact of sleep quality on these symptoms. Methods: The Chinese version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (CPSQI), the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale-7 (GAD-7) were all completed online by students from two colleges in China's Xizang region. Results: The study included 4325 subjects. The prevalence of poor sleep quality, anxiety symptoms, and depression symptoms was 45.69%, 36.81%, and 51.86%, respectively. We observed significant direct effects on poor sleep and severity of anxiety/depression: c'1 = 0.586 (0. 544–0.628), and c'2 = 0.728 (0.683–0.773). Adaptive CERS only had a mediating effect on the relationship between sleep quality and depression symptoms, with a1b3 = −0.005 (−0.011–−0.001). The link between poor sleep quality and the intensity of anxiety and depression was significantly affected by the indirect effects of maladaptive CERS: effect a2b2 = 0.126 (0.106–0.147), and effect a2b4 = 0.145 (0.123–0.167). Conclusions: Individuals who experience poor sleep quality are more likely to have increased levels of anxiety and depression. However, enhancing sleep quality led to a decrease in anxiety and depression levels. Adaptive CERS did not predict anxiety, but they did predict depression. Multiple maladaptive CERS could increase levels of anxiety and depression. To prevent mental stress, it is crucial to examine sleep problems among college students, understand their cognitive strategies, promote the adoption of adaptive CERS, and reduce the reliance on maladaptive CERS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composition and stability of soil organic matter (SOM) affect the sustenance and productivity of soil over the long-term. This issue is particularly important for karst regions in China where the water supply and fertilizer use are limiting factors. Here, we used four indicators to evaluate changes in the composition and stability of SOM quantitatively in five main land-use types in karst area, including primary forest [PF], 15-year secondary forest [SF], grazing secondary forest [GF], abandoned farmland [AF] and farmland [FL]. We collected soil samples at a depth of 0–20 cm to conduct the analyses. Four indicators were used: soil physical and chemical properties, active organic carbon (C), humus C composition, and SOM functional groups. Our results showed that the content of SOM, total nitrogen, and easily oxidized organic C at 0–20 cm soil depth differed among the five land-use types ( P < 0.05). For humic acid C concentration, the land-use types were ordered as: SF > PF > GF > FL > AF. Solid-state 13 C NMR spectra showed that the highest ratio of Alkyl C/O-alkyl C was in AF, while the lowest was in SF. Overall, the comprehensive quality of SOM in different land-use types was PF (setting 100%) > SF (83.1%) > GF (58%) > AF (30.9%) > FL (29.9%). For karst areas, we suggest that farmlands in sloping area should be converted back to forests, with only moderate grazing being permitted, whereas farmlands in the plains should implement grain-forage rotation and grain-soybean rotation to meet the needs of the growing population and economic development. In conclusion, our findings provide a scientific basis from which to delineate rational land-use types for different land (geographical and geological) formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we aimed to assess the effect of hydrogen-rich water (HRW) on the physicochemical characteristics and antioxidant capacity of Hypsizygus marmoreus during 12 days of postharvest storage at 4 °C. Different concentrations of HRW (25, 50 and 100%) were tested, and our data showed that 25% HRW treatment had the most significant effect on preservation of nutrients in H. marmoreus compared with the control group. In addition, 25% HRW treatment significantly reduced the relative electrolyte leakage rate and malonaldehyde (MDA) content (P < 0.05) and increased anti-superoxide-radical (O ) activity compared with the control group. The activities of antioxidants, superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and glutathione reductase (GR) were activated by 25% HRW treatment, and the expression levels of these genes were also induced. These results suggested that HRW treatment could delay rot incidence in mushrooms during storage by regulating antioxidant defense ability. This study supplies a new and simple method to maintain the quality and extend the shelf life of mushrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mechanical damage can induce fruiting body production in fungi. In this study, the antioxidant kojic acid (KA) was found to enhance injured mycelial regeneration and increase fruiting body production in Hypsizygus marmoreus. KA reduced the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are harmful to mycelia when excessively generated by mechanical damage. Moreover, KA increased catalase and superoxide dismutase activities and glutathione and ascorbic acid contents by up-regulating antioxidant gene expression. These results suggest that KA promotes mycelial regeneration in response to damage by activating a “stress signal” and enhances the ability of H. marmoreus to resist oxidative damage by invoking the antioxidant system. In addition, KA increased the content of extracellular ATP, which serves as a “stress signal” in response to injury, and modulated ROS signaling, decreasing NADPH oxidase gene expression and ROS levels in the mycelial-regeneration stage. KA treatment also up-regulated the MAPK, Ca2+ and oxylipin pathways, suggesting their involvement in the damage response. Furthermore, laccase and cellulase activities were stimulated by KA at different developmental stages. These results demonstrate that KA regulates gene expression and activates pathways for mycelial wound healing, regeneration of damaged mycelia and reproductive structure formation in the basidiomycete H. marmoreus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In plants, hydrogen gas (H) enhances tolerance to several abiotic stresses, including salinity and heavy metals. However, the effect of H on fungal growth under different stresses remains largely unclear. In this study, hydrogen-rich water (HRW) was employed to characterize physiological roles and molecular mechanisms of H in the alleviation of three different stresses in basidiomycete Hypsizygus marmoreus. Our results showed that HRW treatment, of which the H concentration was 0.8 mM, significantly reduced the toxicities of CdCl, NaCl and HO, leading to significantly improved mycelial growth and biomass. These beneficial effects could be attributed to a significantly decreased formation of malondialdehyde (MDA). Besides, HRW treatment significantly increased the activities of antioxidants (SOD, CAT and GR) as well as the gene expressions of these antioxidants (SOD, CAT, and GR) at the mRNA level. In vivo detection of reactive oxygen species (ROS), including HO and O , as well as lipid peroxidation provided further evidence that HRW could significantly improve tolerances of CdCl, NaCl and HO. Furthermore, pyruvate kinase was activated in the mycelia treated with HRW, along with its induced gene expression, suggesting that HRW treatment enhanced the glucose metabolism. Taken together, our findings suggested that the usage of HRW could be an effective approach for contaminant detoxification in H. marmoreus, which was similar with the effects of HRW in plants, and such effects could be also beneficial in entire agricultural system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a single two-level trapped ion system, dynamical control of decoherence induced by phase damping involving electric motion of ion and heating effect involving vibrational motion of ion has been investigated. We have found that two kinds of decoherences can be simultaneously suppressed by applying a series of blue sideband and red sideband pulses to drive alternately the ion in a precision-designed manner, thus best results can be obtained with minimal resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Returning crop residues into fields, either alone or in combination with inorganic fertilizer, is considered as a practical way to enhance soil fertility. However, information concerning the effects of crop residues and inorganic fertilizer application on water extractable organic matter (WEOM) in soil is scarce. The aim of this study was to examine the 10-year effect of corn residue (CR) return with or without the application of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK) fertilizer on the quantity and quality of WEOM in a black soil of northeast China by means of ultraviolet absorbance, fluorescence excitation--emission matrix, and derived spectroscopic indices. The application of NPK fertilizers and CR, alone or together, increased the content of total soil organic carbon (SOC), water extractable organic carbon (WEOC), and ratio of WEOC/SOC, with the sequence being NPK + CR > CR > NPK > CK. Compared with control treatment, the individual application of NPK fertilizer decreased the aromaticity of WEOM. In contrast, elevated proportion of tryptophan-like fluorophore and microbially derived fulvic acid-like components with low molecular weight was detected in the WEOM. The amendment with CR alone resulted in increase in aromaticity of WEOM and proportion of plant-derived humic acid-like component with large molecular weight, accompanied by reduced proportion of tyrosine-like compounds. For the soil with CR restoration, the application of NPK fertilizer increased aromaticity of WEOM, and large molecular weight fulvic acid-like and humic acid-like compounds were found. However, the proportions of tyrosine-like and tryptophan-like compounds were diminished. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of WEOM using fluorescence spectroscopy describes responses to be observed in long-term different fertilization strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) on the physical stability, microrheological property and freeze-thaw stability of papain hydrolysate of soybean isolate protein (SPIH) stabilized curcumin emulsion was studied. Curcumin emulsions were prepared by Microfluidizer containing SPIH and various concentrations of MCC. The curcumin emulsions were assessed by zeta potential, average particle size through dynamic light scattering technique (DLS), stability index by Turbiscan and microrheological behavior through diffusive wave spectroscopy (DWS) technique. With addition of MCC, the negative charge of the droplets was increased, which indicated that the negatively charged fraction from MCC interacted with the protein at the interface. An increase in droplet size and decrease in TSI were noted with increasing MCC concentration. It demonstrated that enough MCC changed microrheological property of curcumin emulsions from purely viscous to viscoelastic over the range of decorrelation times, indicating that the droplets were not free to move due to the droplets network interaction. Freeze-thaw stability analysis demonstrated that MCC brought about a remarkable improvement, which can be attributed to the enhancement of repulsive steric forces between the curcumin droplets. It demonstrated that combined enzymatic hydrolysate of protein and addition of polysaccharide MCC could be an effective method for protecting bioactive compound in emulsions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel type of nanoporous In2O3–Co3O4 hybrid network has been synthesized using a cyano-bridged coordination polymer gel as a precursor. When applied as an anode in lithium-ion batteries, the In2O3–Co3O4 network manifests remarkable capacity retention and high reversible capacities by virtue of its unique compositional and structural features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hypsizygus marmoreus laccase gene ( lcc1 ) sequence was cloned and analyzed. The genomic DNA of lcc1 is 2336 bp, comprising 13 introns and 14 exons. The 1626-bp full-length cDNA encodes a mature laccase protein containing 542 amino acids, with a 21-amino acid signal peptide. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the lcc1 amino acid sequence is homologous to basidiomycete laccases and shares the highest similarity with Flammulina velutipes laccase. A 2021-bp promoter sequence containing a TATA box, CAAT box, and several putative cis-acting elements was also identified. To study the function of lcc1 , we first overexpressed lcc1 in H. marmoreus and found that the transgenic fungus producing recombinant laccase displayed faster mycelial growth than the wild-type (wt) strain. Additionally, primordium initiation was induced 3–5 days earlier in the transgenic fungus, and fruiting body maturation was also promoted approximately five days earlier than in the wt strain. Furthermore, we detected that lcc1 was sustainably overexpressed and that laccase activity was also higher in the transgenic strains compared with the wt strain during development in H. marmoreus . These results indicate that the H. marmoreus lcc1 gene is involved in mycelial growth and fruiting body initiation by increasing laccase activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The low accuracy of MR image segmentation is often caused by blurred glioma region boundaries and intensity inhomogeneity as well as class-imbalance problems, which greatly influences glioma quantitative analysis. To resolve these problems, we propose a Deep Multiple Guidances based Glioma Segmentation Network (DMGSN), which is designed according to an observation of hierarchical structure of glioma region. In DMGSN, Glioma Sub-regions Prediction (GSP) block fuses guidance features from Whole Glioma Prediction (WGP) block and Glioma Boundary Prediction (GBP) block by importance ranking fusion module, which reduces redundancy among guidance features. Specifically, the WGP block is responsible to generate a whole glioma guidance map, which provides a key clue to exclude non-glioma regions for glioma sub-regions segmentation. Meanwhile, we introduce GBP block to estimate glioma sub-regions contours, whose multi-scale feature maps are added into GSP decoding path to strengthen segmentation features around glioma boundaries. Besides, hybrid enhanced-gradient cross-entropy loss regularizes DMGSN training, which efficiently alleviates class-imbalance problem. Large numbers of experimental results have shown that the proposed DMGSN has superior performances against many state-of-the-art glioma segmentation methods in terms of complete dice, core dice and enhance dice. • Glioma segmentation network is designed based on glioma hierarchical structure. • Whole glioma prediction is proposed to reduce wrongly segmented points. • Glioma boundary prediction is introduced to provide semantic glioma contour. • Importance ranking fusion is introduced to reduce feature redundancy. • Our hybrid enhanced-gradient cross-entropy loss can solve class-imbalance problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reference 1 Hao H, Zhang J, Wu S, Bai J, Zhuo X, Zhang J, Kuai B, Chen H. Transcriptomic analysis of Stropharia rugosoannulata reveals carbohydrate metabolism and cold resistance mechanisms under low-temperature stress. Correction to: AMB Express (2022) 12(1): 1-5 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13568-022-01400-2 Following publication of the original article (Hao et al. [1]), the authors reported an error in the author group. [Extracted from the article]

Fluctuant pressure coefficient is presented as an index of vortex energy of the wake behind a bluff body in mist flow. Calculation for vortex energy is obtained from inter-phase force analysis, based on Basset-Boussinesq-Oseen equation and conservation of mechanical energy. Vortex energy is weakened by liquid disturbance, the relationship between the fluctuant pressure coefficient and liquid velocity is set up on theory analysis. An existence criterion for vortex streets is proposed using the relationship. A new algorithm for prediction of liquid velocity is put forward and compared with the method in Higham's patent. The predicted results fit the experimental results well. • Calculation for vortex energy is obtained from inter-phase force analysis. • The relationship between the fluctuant pressure coefficient and liquid velocity is set up on theory analysis. An existence criterion for vortex streets is proposed using the relationship. • A new algorithm for prediction of liquid velocity is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To elucidate the mechanisms of fruit body development in H. marmoreus, a total of 43609521 high-quality RNA-seq reads were obtained from four developmental stages, including the mycelial knot (H-M), mycelial pigmentation (H-V), primordium (H-P) and fruiting body (H-F) stages. These reads were assembled to obtain 40568 unigenes with an average length of 1074 bp. A total of 26800 (66.06%) unigenes were annotated and analyzed with the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), Gene Ontology (GO), and Eukaryotic Orthologous Group (KOG) databases. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) from the four transcriptomes were analyzed. The KEGG enrichment analysis revealed that the mycelium pigmentation stage was associated with the MAPK, cAMP, and blue light signal transduction pathways. In addition, expression of the two-component system members changed with the transition from H-M to H-V, suggesting that light affected the expression of genes related to fruit body initiation in H. marmoreus. During the transition from H-V to H-P, stress signals associated with MAPK, cAMP and ROS signals might be the most important inducers. Our data suggested that nitrogen starvation might be one of the most important factors in promoting fruit body maturation, and nitrogen metabolism and mTOR signaling pathway were associated with this process. In addition, 30 genes of interest were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR to verify their expression profiles at the four developmental stages. This study advances our understanding of the molecular mechanism of fruiting body development in H. marmoreus by identifying a wealth of new genes that may play important roles in mushroom morphogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on Biot–Savart law and single-phase flow Kármán vortex characteristics, flow field has been analyzed when gas–liquid flow past a fixed bluff body with high void fraction. Vortex signal characteristics have been studied for stratified two-phase flow on atmospheric conditions in a horizontal pipe. To discuss the relation between void fraction and vortex signal amplitude spectrum, this paper sets up the vortex-induced pressure field model for gas–liquid two-phase flow and gives the relationship between void fraction and relative amplitude spectrum of two-phase flow to single-phase flow. An algorithm is proposed for predicting the two-phase flow parameters. Experiments were performed using air–water as working fluid along with a test tube diameter of 50 mm, at gas volume flow rate of 20–68 m 3 /h, and void fraction of 0.9–1. The results indicate that calculations by the vortex-induced pressure field model on the amplitude spectrum of vortex signal are in good agreement with the experimental data, and relative errors of the algorithm predictions on gas volume flow rate and liquid volume flow rate are 0.08 and 0.56, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A great many low-light image restoration methods have built their models according to Retinex theory. However, most of these methods cannot well achieve image detail enhancement. To achieve simultaneous restoration and enhancement, we study deep low-light image enhancement from a perspective of texture-structure decomposition, that is, learning image smoothing operator. Specifically, we design a low-light restoration and enhancement framework, in which a Deep Texture-Structure Decomposition (DTSD) network is introduced to estimate two complementary constituents: Fine-Texture (FT) and Prominent-Structure (PS) maps from low-light image. Since these two maps are leveraged to approximate FT and PS maps obtained from normal-light image, they can be combined as the restored image in a manner of pixel-wise addition. The DTSD network has three parts: U-attention block, Decomposition-Merger (DM) block, and Upsampling-Reconstruction (UR) block. To better explore multi-level informative features at different scales than U-Net, U-attention block is designed with intra group and inter group attentions. In the DM block, we extract high-frequency and low-frequency features in low-resolution space. After obtaining informative feature maps from these two blocks, these maps are fed into the UR block for the final prediction. Numerous experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed method can achieve simultaneous low-light image restoration and enhancement, and it has superior performance against many state-of-the-art approaches in terms of several objective and perceptual metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recently, chiral ionic liquids (ILs) have drawn increasing attention in chiral separation field; however, few papers reported the application of chiral ILs for chiral separation by capillary electrophoresis (CE), and among the papers, chiral ILs were mainly applied as additives to β-cyclodextrin derivatives systems to establish synergistic systems. The synergistic system based on antibiotics with chiral ILs as additives has never been reported before. In this paper, two chiral ionic liquids (ILs) based on amino acid ester, l-alanine and l-valine tert butyl ester bis (trifluoromethane) sulfonamide, were first applied to evaluate the synergistic effect with antibiotic selector for CE chiral separation. The vancomycin-based synergistic system with chiral ILs as additives was successfully established and investigated for the enantioseparation of naproxen, carprofen, ibuprofen, ketoprofen and pranoprofen. Compared to vancomycin-alone cases, significant improvement of separation for all the analytes was observed. Several parameters, such as type and proportion of organic modifier, composition and pH of buffer, concentration of chiral ILs and vancomycin were systematically investigated, and then evaluated by means of Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) to research the influences on the synergistic effect. Finally, the established method was successfully applied to test the chiral impurity of naproxen sample. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Only a few papers reported the application of chiral ILs in enantioseparation by CE. [•] Few papers focused on chiral ILs synergistic system based on β-CD derivatives in CE. [•] Amino acid derived chiral ILs were first applied as additives in synergistic system. [•] Addition of chiral ILs has significantly improved the separation of tested drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The HEA TiZrHfMoNb and its hydrides exhibit excellent ductility and high temperature resistance. • The TiZrHfMoNb hydride is expected to possess superior mechanical properties in the phase transition region. • Both hydrogen distribution and lattice distortion in TiZrHfMoNb hydrides affect the mechanical strength and ductility. [Display omitted] In recent years, high entropy alloys (HEAs) have demonstrated potential applications in nuclear reactors. As a transmutation byproduct in fission reaction or a fuel for fusion reaction, the hydrogen may affect the mechanical properties of HEAs. In this study, the mechanical properties and thermal stability of HEA TiZrHfMoNb and its hydrides are investigated by first-principles calculations. Our results show that the HEA TiZrHfMoNb exhibits excellent ductility and high temperature resistance. After hydrogenation, the hydrides still maintain high ductility with enhanced melting temperature, suggesting that the HEA TiZrHfMoNb is a potential candidate structural material in fusion reactors. Both of hydrogen distribution and lattice distortion in TiZrHfMoNb hydrides are found to affect the mechanical strength and ductility, which is quite different from that in pure HEAs. The TiZrHfMoNb hydrides within the phase transformation region is expected to exhibit superior mechanical performance as compared to the single-phase regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humic substances are heterogeneous mixtures of organic compounds occurring in huge amounts mainly in waters, soils, sediments and organic wastes. They are formed during the decay of living organisms. They play a very important role in many environmental processes including carbon sequestration, water cleaning and retention, soil erosion, fertility and pollutant retention. However, due to their complex nature, humic substances are still poorly characterized and much less known than living matter. Humin is the most insoluble and, in turn, the least understood fraction of humic substances. To our knowledge, no information is currently available on the adsorption and desorption behaviors of metal ions on soil humin. Here, we report the adsorption and desorption properties of Cu(II) on humin and humic acids isolated from a forest soil in northeast China using the batch equilibration method. Solid-state C cross-polarization magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance (C CPMAS NMR) spectroscopy was used to characterize and compare the chemical structures of humin and humic acid. The batch experiments' results show that humin has a lower adsorption capacity and higher adsorption reversibility for Cu(II) than humic acid. The adsorption isotherms well fitted both the Langmuir and Freundlich equations. Humin, therefore, plays an important role in controlling the fate, transport and bioavailability of Cu(II) in the environment. The C CPMAS NMR spectra showed that compared with humic acid, humin was higher in alkyl C, carbohydrate C and phenolic C and was lower in methoxyl C, aryl C and carbonyl C. These findings mean that humin was less alkylated, more aliphatic and more hydrophobic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The effect of earthworms on humus composition and humic acid (HA) characteristics was studied in a rice–wheat rotation agroecosystem. Experimental plots in the rotation had five treatments, i.e., incorporation or mulching of maize residues with or without added earthworms and a control. Compared with the control, the application of maize residues to soil either alone or in combinations with earthworms strongly affected the humus composition and HA characteristics. In the presence of earthworms, the carbon ratio of HA to fulvic acid (FA), and the alkyl C/O-alkyl C and hydrophobic C/hydrophilic C ratios of HA were slightly higher, while the aliphatic C/aromatic C ratio of HA was slightly lower following maize residue incorporation than the same treatment without earthworms. In contrast, these ratios generally remained almost constant following maize residue mulching. Thus, earthworm activity following maize residue incorporation was more favorable for the HA formation, and was associated with a decrease in aliphaticity of HA, and an increase in its degree of humification and hydrophobicity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Postovulatory oocyte aging has a major influence on the development potential of embryos. Many antioxidants can delay oocyte aging by regulating the expression of SIRT1. However, there is a lack of knowledge on SIRT1 function in postovulatory oocyte aging. In vitro transcribed RNA of Sirt1 was injected into fresh oocytes to investigate the function of SIRT1 during postovulatory oocyte aging. In the present study, SIRT1 was found to be down-regulated in aged oocytes compared with fresh oocytes. Meanwhile the intensity of acetylation of H3K9 (H3K9ac) and H3K4 methylation increased in postovulatory aged oocytes. After the oocytes were injected with SIRT1 and aged for 12 h, the intensity of H3K9ac and H3K4 methylation markedly decreased compared with controls. Furthermore, SIRT1 overexpression also reduced the aging-induced oocyte morphological changes and reactive oxygen species accumulation, maintained the spindle normal morphology and attenuated the aging-associated abnormalities of mitochondrial function. The role of SIRT1 in protecting oocyte aging was diminished when oocytes with overexpressed SIRT1 were cultured with SIRT1 inhibitor EX-527. Briefly, these present results show that SIRT1 not only reduced the non-epigenetic changes such as abnormal oocyte morphology, ROS accumulation, spindle defects and mitochondrial dysfunctions but also regulated the epigenetic changes in order to maintain the quality of postovulatory aged oocytes. Image 1 • The intensity of H3K9ac and H3K4me2/3 increased in postovulatory aged oocytes. • SIRT1 overexpression inhibited the increase of H3K9ac and H3K4me2/3. • SIRT1 overexpression ameliorated aging-induced epigenetic and non-epigenetic changes in oocytes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Textured relaxor-PbTiO3 ceramics have received considerable attention from both academia and industry, due to their crystal-like properties, high composition homogeneity easy-to-process, and relatively low cost compared to their crystal counterparts. In this work, the ⟨ 001 ⟩ -oriented Pb(In1/2Nb1/2)O3-Pb(Sc1/2Nb1/2)O3-PbTiO3 textured ceramics were fabricated by the template grain growth method. To explore the property variation in these textured ceramics under practical applications of piezoelectric devices, their electromechanical properties were characterized and analyzed under uniaxial stress, hydrostatic pressure, and d.c. bias electric field. The results show that the dielectric constants of all textured ceramics increase with an increase in the uniaxial prestress and hydrostatic pressure but decrease with an increase in the d.c. bias electric field. Among all textured ceramics, the textured ceramic with 3 vol. % BT templates exhibits the best stability under external fields. In particular, the electromechanical coupling factors of the textured ceramic change less than 2% with the hydrostatic pressure increase to 100 MPa. This work provides important data on textured relaxor ferroelectric ceramics, which will benefit the design and application of piezoelectric devices based on textured piezoelectric ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morchella importuna has been artificially cultivated, but stable production remains difficult because its mechanisms of fruiting body formation are unclear. To investigate the fruiting body formation mechanisms, we sequenced the transcriptomes of Morchella importuna at the mycelial and young fruiting body stages. Among the 12,561 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 9215 were upregulated, and 3346 were downregulated. DEG enrichment analysis showed that these genes were enriched in the "generation of precursor metabolites and energy", "carbohydrate catabolic process", and "oxidoreductase activity" Gene Ontology (GO) functional categories. Enzyme activity assay results indicated that the activity levels of CAZymes (carbohydrate-active enzymes), oxidoreductases (SOD (superoxide dismutase), CAT (catalase)) and mitochondrial complex (complex I, II, III) proteins were significantly increased from the mycelial stage to the young fruiting body stage. In addition, the genes encoding CAZymes, mitochondrial proteins, oxidoreductases and heat shock proteins had higher expression levels in the young fruiting body stage than in the mycelial stage, and the qRT-PCR results showed similar trends to the RNA-Seq results. In summary, these results suggest that carbohydrate catabolism and energy metabolism are significantly enhanced in the young fruiting body stage and that growth environment temperature changes affect the formation of fruiting bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temperature and moisture belong to the most important environmental factors affecting the growth and development of fungi. However, the effect of temperature on the mycelia of the edible Morchella mushrooms has not been determined. Here, a comprehensive analysis was performed to determine the influence of culture temperature on 13 strains of mycelia of three Morchella species (Morchella sextelata, Morchella septimelata, and Morchella importuna) at 5 °C, 10 °C, 15 °C, 20 °C, 25 °C, and 30 °C. The mycelial branching and growth rate data showed that 15–20 °C was a suitable temperature range for the mycelial growth of the 13 Morchella strains. RNA sequences revealed that a total of 2843, 2404, 1973, 1572, and 1866 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified at 5 °C, 10 °C, 15 °C, 25 °C, and 30 °C compared with 20 °C. A Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis further indicated that the purine nucleotide and tyrosine metabolism pathways were crucial for mycelium development. Moreover, the enrichment of autophagy of mitochondria, regulation of cell morphogenesis, and piecemeal microautophagy of the nuclei at 25 °C (vs. 20 °C) indicated the damage caused by heat stress in Morchella mycelia. Notably, a total of four unique module eigengenes (MEs) were identified through a weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA). Among them, 2293 genes in the turquoise module were significantly positively correlated with temperature (r = 0.946, p < 0.001), whereas 739 genes in the blue module were significantly negatively correlated with temperature (r = −0.896, p < 0.001), suggesting that the effect of high temperatures on mycelial genes was significantly greater than that of low temperatures. Moreover, the coexpression network indicated that high culture temperatures accelerated the oxidative stress response and energy metabolism in mycelia, while upregulation of purine nucleotide catabolism and ribosomal protein-related genes were improved by low-temperature tolerance. In addition, the upregulated expression of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), and heat shock protein (HSP) genes in mycelia was associated with reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated damage at high temperatures. Overall, this study provides an important theoretical basis and application value for optimizing Morchella cultivation techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]