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GLI1-altered mesenchymal tumors represent a rare category of soft tissue tumors that have recently been incorporated into the classification of head and neck soft tissue tumors in the fifth edition of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification. However, their precise nature remains undefined, and they have yet to be assigned an ICD code. These tumors are predominantly located in the head and neck region and display distinctive pathological morphology and molecular characteristics. We present the first documented case of a GLI1-altered mesenchymal tumor occurring in the pleura. Microscopic examination revealed that the tumor was composed of ovoid-to-round and vaguely epithelioid cells, as well as a few spindle cells, all exhibiting a uniform morphology and organized in a nested and reticular arrangement, accompanied by a rich capillary network in the stroma. Immunohistochemical staining demonstrated positivity for CD56, S-100, and SMA. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) revealed a PTCH1-GLI1 fusion. Based on the morphological and immunophenotypic characteristics, molecular studies confirmed the diagnosis of a GLI1-altered mesenchymal tumor. At the 15-month follow-up, the patient was alive. We conducted a review of all cases of recurrence and metastasis, concluding that this type of tumor has a distinct propensity to metastasize to the lungs. The tumor exhibits malignant potential, and factors such as its occurrence outside the head and neck region, high-grade histological morphology, active mitosis (>5/10HPF), necrosis and PTCH1-GLI1 fusion are all considered potential risk factors. more...

Abstract Background Patients with cleft lip and palate (CLP) have an oronasal communication differed from the closed state in healthy individuals, leading to a unique oral microbiome. This study aimed to determine if variances in the oral microbiota persist among CLP patients who have received treatments for the closure of these fistulas compared to the microbiota of healthy individuals. Methods Saliva samples were collected from a cohort comprising 28 CLP patients (CLP group) and 30 healthy controls (HC group). Utilizing 16S rRNA sequencing on the Illumina NovaSeq platform, we conducted a comprehensive analysis of the diversity and composition of the oral microbiota. Results The analysis of the microbiota in the saliva samples revealed a total of 23 microbial phyla, 38 classes, 111 orders, 184 families, 327 genera and 612 species. The alpha diversity with microbial abundance and evenness indicated the significant difference between the CLP and HC groups. Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) and the ADONIS test further supported the presence of distinct microorganisms between the two groups. The CLP group displayed elevated abundances of Neisseria, Haemophilus, Porphyromonas, and Granulicatella, as indicated by LefSe analysis. Conversely, Rothia, Veillonella, and Pauljensenia exhibited significant reductions in abundance in the CLP group. The results of the PICRUSt analysis indicated significant differences in the relative abundance of 25 KEGG pathways within the CLP group. Through Spearman correlation analysis, strong associations between Rothia, Veillonella, and Pauljensenia and 25 functional pathways linked to CLP were identified. Conclusion Findings of this study offer a thorough comprehension of the microbiome profiles of CLP patients after the restoration of oronasal structure and are anticipated to present innovative concepts for the treatment of CLP. more...

Background:Langerhans cell histiocytosis is a rare disease characterized by the abnormal proliferation of Langerhans cells within a single organ or multiple organs. This case report aims to improve the knowledge of the presentation of gastrointestinal Langerhans cell histiocytosis to facilitate the diagnosis and management of this rare disorder.Case presentation:A 19-month-old female presented with repeatedly mucinous bloody stools. The abdominal ultrasound revealed a slightly enlarged spleen. The initial colonoscopy revealed chronic enteritis with a very early onset inflammatory bowel disease. After anti-inflammatory treatment without improvement, an intestinal biopsy was performed at The Forth Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. The final intestinal biopsy and histopathology examination confirmed the presence of Langerhans cell histiocytosis. After diagnosis, additional lung and head imaging examinations revealed no abnormalities. Her condition improved gradually after being treated with chemotherapy (vincristine and prednisone) and molecular-targeted drug(dalafinil) treatment.Conclusion:The clinical symptoms of Langerhans cell histiocytosis involving the gastrointestinal tract are not specific and may resemble symptoms observed in inflammatory bowel disease and other primary gastrointestinal tumors. Therefore, in cases of infants presenting with inflammatory gastrointestinal symptoms that do not resolve after treatment, a biopsy is essential to obtain a differential diagnosis. more...

Landslides are common geological hazards that take a heavy toll on human life and infrastructure every year, making it crucial to identify potential landslides. Landslide susceptibility (LS) mapping evaluates landslide proneness with the help of static data (e.g., topography, geology, and hydrology) that hardly change over decades; whereas the ground deformation map (GDM) produced by Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) works as a powerful reinforcement for determining landslide threats. The integration of the two could prompt the evaluation of the LS, yet the existing joint approaches exhibit certain defects. Therefore, a novel LS evaluation approach integrating the weight of evidence (WOE) model and InSAR results was proposed in this study. First, the GDM of the study area was obtained through InSAR process; meanwhile, an initial LS map was produced using the WOE model; subsequently, the LS map was coupled with GDM to develop a refined zoning and identification of landslide hazards. The proposed method was applied in Enshi, China, and achieved a higher AUC of 0.869. In addition, the accuracy of the susceptibility level of geological hazards found during field survey of the study area was improved, indicating that the LS map generated using the proposed method is more sensitive to landslide hazards and produces more accurate results. more...

With the rapid development of autonomous driving, robotics, and intelligent transportation, multi-sensor-based environment sensing technology for intelligent vehicles has become a popular research direction. In order to better fuse the data acquired by multi-sensors, accurate external parameter calibration becomes one of the critical issues. According to the method of external parameter calibration, this paper first introduces the offline calibration technology based on target and targetless methods. However, once these two methods change the relative position between the camera and the LiDAR, it can only be returned to the field to re-calibrate. The computational complexity is high, which makes it necessary to use the online calibration directly. Hence, this paper follows up with the introduction of online calibration technology based on deep learning. Unlike previous methods that need to extract features from calibration boards or environments, various types of networks can directly learn the mapping relationship between images and point clouds, From the calibration results, the average error of translation and rotation of traditional methods can reach 0.34cm and 0.45°, the average error of using deep learning networks such as LCCNet, which is the most widely used in existing networks and has good calibration effect, can reach 0.297cm and 0.017°. Compared with the traditional method, the accuracy of online calibration technology is respectively improved by 12.6% and 96.2%, which shows the results of online calibration technology are better than the traditional offline method, and there are some recently proposed methods incorporate an attention mechanism and use an optimization algorithm instead of a loss function to refine the outer parameters. From the review, learning the relative relationships between sensors through neural networks works best, and the process is relatively free of human intervention. Contrary to the existing reviews, this paper provides a general structure of calibration methods universally used in various environments and compares various methods based on this general structure. more...

This study designs a coherence-based multi-master-image stacking InSAR workflow as an efficient large-scale expressway stability monitoring method, which can improve the overall coherence and number of interferometric pairs via multi-master-image stacking and an average coherence threshold. The average annual ground deformation rate of Shanxi Province, China, was determined using Sentinel-1A data from 2017 to 2021 with a parallel processing strategy to improve efficiency. Compared to global navigation satellite system data, the InSAR results have a root mean square error of 2.90 mm/year. To evaluate the relationship between different factors and the occurrence of geohazards along the expressway network, we conducted a binary logistic regression analysis. The result shows that the deformation rate, annual precipitation, bedrock hardness, distance to stream, and traffic load are significantly related to the occurrence of geohazards along the expressway network in Shanxi Province, among which the deformation rate has the highest significant value, while the traffic load has the lowest, indicating that using InSAR alone to determine geohazards along expressway network is biased and it takes more than InSAR to conduct a comprehensive yet accurate expressway geohazard vulnerability evaluation. This study provides guidance for the road maintenance to ensure the safe operation of expressway systems. more...

Two new phenylspirodrimanes, stachybotrins K and L (1 and 2), together with eight known analogues (3–10), were isolated from deep-sea-derived Stachybotrys sp. MCCC 3A00409. Their structures were determined by extensive NMR data and mass spectroscopic analysis. Absolute configurations of new compounds were determined through a comparison of their circular dichroism (CD) spectra with other reported compounds. The possible reversal effects of all compounds were assayed in the resistant cancer cell lines. Stachybotrysin B (8) can reverse multidrug resistance (MDR) in ABCB1-overexpression cells (KBv200, Hela/VCR) at the non-cytotoxic concentration. Doxorubicin accumulation assay and molecular-docking analysis reveal that the mechanism of its reversal MDR effect may be related to the increase in the intracellular concentration of substrate anticancer drugs. more...

Deformation along a subway rail network is related to the safe operation of the subway and the stability of construction facilities on the surface, making long-term deformation monitoring imperative. Long-term monitoring of surface deformation along the subway network and statistical analysis of the overall deformation situation are lacking in China. Therefore, targeting 35 Chinese cities whose subway mileage exceeds 50 km, we extracted their surface deformation along subway networks between 2018 and 2022, using spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (InSAR) technology and Sentinel-1 satellite data. We verified the results with the continuous global navigation satellite system (GNSS) stations’ data and found that the root mean square error (RMSE) of the InSAR results was 3.75 mm/year. Statistical analysis showed that ground subsidence along the subways was more prominent in Beijing, Tianjin, and other areas in the North China Plain, namely Kunming (which is dominated by karst landforms), as well as Shanghai, Guangzhou, Qingdao, and other coastal cities. In addition, an analysis revealed that the severity of surface subsidence correlated positively with a city’s gross domestic product (GDP) with a Pearson correlation of 0.787, since the higher the GDP, the more frequent the construction and maintenance of subway, and the more commuters there are, which in turn exacerbates the disturbance to the surface. Additionally, the type of land cover also affects the ground deformation. Our findings provide a reference for constructing, operating, and maintaining the urban subway systems in China. more...

Ground subsidence often occurs over a large area. Although traditional monitoring methods have high accuracy, they cannot perform wide-area ground deformation monitoring. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) interferometry (InSAR) technology utilizes phase information in SAR images to extract surface deformation information in a low-cost, large-scale, high-precision, and high-efficiency manner. With the increasing availability of SAR satellite data and the rapid development of InSAR technology, it provides the possibility for wide-area ground deformation monitoring using InSAR technology. Traditional time-series InSAR methods have cumbersome processing procedures, have large computational requirements, and rely heavily on manual intervention, resulting in relatively low efficiency. This study proposes a strategy for wide-area InSAR multi-scale deformation monitoring to address this issue. The strategy first rapidly acquires ground deformation information using Stacking technology, then identifies the main subsidence areas by setting deformation rate thresholds and visual interpretation, and finally employs advanced TS-InSAR technology to obtain detailed deformation time series for the main subsidence areas. The Turpan Basin in Xinjiang, China, was selected as the study area (7474.50 km2) to validate the proposed method. The results are as follows: (1) The basin is generally stable, but there is ground subsidence in the southern plain area, mainly affecting farmland. (2) From 2016 to 2019, the maximum subsidence rate in the farmland area was approximately 0.13 m/yr, with a maximum cumulative subsidence of about 0.25 m, affecting a total area of approximately 952.49 km2. The subsidence mainly occurred from late spring to mid-autumn, while lifting or subsidence mitigation occurred from late autumn to early spring. The study also analyzed the impacts of rainfall, geographical environment, and human activities on subsidence and found that multiple factors, including water resource reduction, overexploitation, geological characteristics, and the expansion of human activities, contributed to the subsidence problem in the Turpan Basin. This method contributes to wide-area InSAR deformation monitoring and the application of InSAR technology in engineering. more...

After mastering the key technologies of manufacturing spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), China’s SAR satellites have been successfully launched into space. As the only civil microwave satellite listed in the “National High-resolution Earth Observation System Major Project,” the Gaofen-3 (GF-3) 01 satellite is the first C-band multi-polarization SAR satellite with a resolution of 1 m. GF-3 series satellites stand out among civil SAR satellites worldwide because of their high resolution, wide swath, high geometric radiation quality, multiple imaging modes, and long operation time. Taking GF-3 series satellites as an example, this study introduces the development of China’s civil SAR satellites, as well as their processing strategies and applications. The success of the GF-3 series satellites shows that China’s SAR remote sensing technology has stepped into a new era of high-quality and high-precision Earth observations. more...

Surface deformation data can be used to provide early warnings of geohazards and are useful in a variety of research fields. The Small BAseline Subset InSAR (SBAS-InSAR) boosts the data sampling rate and improves the accuracy of deformation extraction by restricting the temporal and spatial baselines. However, various factors, such as the types of ground objects and seasons, affect the coherence between SAR images. Traditional SBAS-InSAR employs a fixed temporal baseline, which does not guarantee good coherence and might lead to decorrelation. In this paper, we propose that instead of using a fixed temporal baseline, we directly use the average coherence between SAR images as the baseline constraint index to perform an optimized selection of SBAS-InSAR interferometric pairs, ensuring good coherence of the interferometric pairs and improving the quality of the interferometric fringes. The proposed approach was used to extract surface deformation in two test experiment areas: Houston and Sydney. Compared with the conventional SBAS-InSAR and GPS data, the standard deviation of error of Houston and Sydney dropped from 0.813 to 0.589 and 0.291 to 0.246, respectively; the root mean square error (RMSE) decreased from 1.082 to 1.041 and 0.485 to 0.334, respectively, indicating that the proposed method has better surface deformation extraction accuracy. After demonstrating the accuracy of the proposed method, it was applied to Pingxiang area, a mining city in China, to effectively extract and analyze the surface deformation induced by mining activities, which proves the universality of this method in different scenarios. more...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have widespread application in industrial and civil areas due to their unique physical and chemical properties. With the increasingly stringent regulations of legacy PFAS, various novel alternatives have been developed and applied to meet the market demand. Legacy and novel PFAS pose potential threats to the ecological safety of coastal areas, however, little is known about their accumulation and transfer mechanism, especially after cooking treatment. This study investigated the biomagnification and trophic transfer characteristics of PFAS in seafood from the South China Sea, and assessed their health risks after cooking. Fifteen target PFAS were all detected in the samples, of which perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) was dominant with concentrations ranging from 0.76 to 4.12 ng/g ww. Trophic magnification factors (TMFs) > 1 were observed for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and 6:2 chlorinated polyfluoroalkyl ether sulfonic acid (F-53B), indicating that these compounds experienced trophic magnification in the food web. The effects of different cooking styles on PFAS occurrence were further explored and the results suggested that ΣPFAS concentrations increased in most organisms after baking, while ΣPFAS amounts decreased basically after boiling and frying. Generally, there is a low health risk of exposure to PFAS when cooked seafood is consumed. This work provided quantitative evidence that cooking methods altered PFAS in seafood. Further, suggestions to mitigate the health risks of consuming PFAS-contaminated seafood were provided. more...

The transmission spectrum of a narrow-band interference filter is crucial and highly influenced by factors such as the temperature and angle, thus requiring precise and online measurements. The traditional method of measuring the transmission spectrum of an interference filter involves the use of a spectrometer, but the accuracy of this method is limited. Moreover, placing a narrow-band interference filter inside a spectrometer hinders real-time online measurements. To address this issue, there is demand for high-precision online spectral testing methods. In response to this demand, we propose and experimentally validate a fine spectral characterization method for narrow-band interference filters. This method uses a narrow-linewidth tunable laser, achieving a spectral resolution in the MHz range for online testing. Two types of narrow-band interference filters were tested using the constructed laser spectroscopy experimental system, obtaining a transmission spectrum with a spectral resolution of 318 MHz. In comparison to spectrometer-based methods, our proposed method demonstrates higher spectral accuracy, enables online measurements, and provides more accurate measurements for special spectral interference filters. This approach has significant application value and promising development prospects. more...

Nodal T-follicular helper cell lymphoma (T-FHCL) derived from T-follicular helper (Tfh) cell falls into a heterogeneous category of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). Due to the limited number of therapeutic regimens and limited first-line efficacy, T-FHCL has a poor prognosis, and there is an urgent need for effective targeted therapies. With advancements in sequencing technologies, especially single-cell sequencing and next-generation sequencing, more specific genetic aberrations characteristic of T-FHCL can be discovered, allowing for precise molecular diagnosis and specific research on novel agents. Many biomarker-targeting agents, used either alone or in combination, have been tested, and they have generally enhanced the therapeutic outcomes of T-FHCL. Histone deacetylase inhibitors achieve significant clinical benefits in the treatment of T-FHCL, especially in combination therapy. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T-cell) immunotherapies, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and other potential agents merit further study. more...

The ice, cloud, and land elevation satellite-2 (ICESat-2) can effectively measure global surface elevations and be used as a new data source for global elevation control. ICESat-2 has provided surface-specific data products on land/vegetation (ATL08), ice sheet (ATL06), inland water (ATL13), etc., but not on urban areas. The current research using ICESat-2 data to extract control points mostly based on products already provided, focusing on land, forest and other areas. Few studies have analyzed the feasibility of extracting control points in urban areas, as well as the position and elevation accuracy of control points. In this paper, we proposed a method for extracting high-accuracy control points from ATL03 in urban areas and evaluated the elevation and plane accuracy. First, building and ground photons were extracted and classified according to the photon shape features and neighborhood relationships, thereby addressing the insufficiency of ICESat-2 of not classifying photons in urban areas. Then, high-accuracy photons were selected from the ground photons as the laser control points considering the influence of land cover. Finally, the solid and undulating city outline was used for shape matching with DSM, thereby addressing the problem of plane accuracy evaluation in flat areas. We verified our method in two areas (Nanjing and Auckland) and showed that the method can adequately classify buildings and ground photons in different scenarios. The plane accuracy was better than 3.8 m, which lies well within ICESat-2′s mission requirement, with an elevation accuracy of better than 0.5 m, which meets the accuracy requirements of large-scale mapping, suggesting that photons in urban areas can also provide high-accuracy control data for stereo mapping. more...

Cottonseed protein concentrate (CPC) has been proven to partially replace fishmeal without adverse effects on fish growth performance, while little information is known about the effects on liver health during bacterial infection. In the present study, 15% CPC was included into the diet of juvenile largemouth bass (32.12 ± 0.09g) to replace fishmeal for 8 weeks, with fish growth potential and hepatic inflammatory responses during Nocardia seriolae (N. seriolae) infection systemically evaluated. After adaptation to dietary CPC inclusion, largemouth bass even exhibited better growth potential with higher SGR and WGR during the last three weeks of whole feeding trial, which was accompanied with higher phosphorylation level of TOR signaling and higher mRNA expression level of myogenin (myog). At the end of 8-weeks feeding trial, the histological structure of largemouth bass liver was not significantly affected by dietary CPC inclusion, accompanied with the similar expression level of genes involved in innate and adaptive immunity and comparable abundance of T cells in bass liver. N.seriolae infection induced the pathological changes of bass liver, while such hepatic changes were more serious in CPC group than that in FM group. Additionally, RT-qPCR results also suggested that largemouth bass fed with CPC experienced much higher inflammatory potential both in liver and gill during N. seriolae infection, which was accompanied with higher expression level of genes involved in pyroptosis. Therefore, this study demonstrated that the application of CPC in largemouth bass diet should be careful, which may induce higher inflammatory potential during N. seriolae infection. more...

Background A comprehensive understanding of vascular calcification pathology is significant for the development of cardiovascular disease therapy in high-risk populations. This cross-sectional study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of radial artery calcification (RAC) and to identify the factors that are associated with RAC in end-stage kidney disease (ESKD). Methods Detailed medical histories of 180 patients with ESKD were recorded. Fragments of the radial artery obtained during the creation of arteriovenous fistula for hemodialysis access were stained with alizarin red S. Results Calcification was localized in the arterial media layer. The prevalence of positive calcification staining in the radial arteries was 21.1% (n = 38). Patients with RAC had a higher glycated hemoglobin level (p 5 years (p = 0.022), and diabetes mellitus (p 5 years (odds ratio [OR], 9.864; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.666–36.502; p 5 years had a higher prevalence of RAC (p = 0.012) than those with dialysis duration ≤5 years. Patients with diabetes mellitus had a higher prevalence of RAC (p 5 years and diabetes predict RAC. Thus, the combination of prolonged dialysis and hyperglycemic conditions exerts a synergistic effect on RAC. more...

Heavy metal pollution from various industrial activities has raised global concern. The present study collected 71 surface and 67 subsurface soils from the area with intensive industrial activities in South China. The typical heavy metals, including Cd, As, Hg, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, and Cr concentrations, were detected for studying their spatial distribution patterns. Sources apportionment and risks were analyzed using geographical information system and combined approach, including principal component analysis (PCA), positive matrix factorization (PMF), and geo-accumulation index. The concentrations of Cd, As, Hg, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn (except Cr) were higher than relevant background levels while exhibiting different pollution degrees in surface and subsurface soils. The PMF results showed that agriculture, industry, transportation, and nature were the four primary contributing sources of heavy metals in soils from the study area. In general, anthropogenic activities were the dominant factors, significantly influencing heavy metal distributions in surface and subsurface soils. Health risks of heavy metals in soil to the population via soil inhalation, skin contact, and ingestion indicated the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks were at an unacceptable level. Each exposure route contribution is higher for adults than for children, whereas there is a relatively high risk of cancer for adults than for children. Therefore, increasing attention shall be needed for monitoring the heavy metal pollution in soils in the areas with dramatic economic development, e.g., South China. more...

With the increased awareness of environmental protection, people have higher requirements for the accuracy of environmental information of surrounding life. The current monitoring of urban environmental information mainly comes from local environmental weather stations. Although the monitoring equipment of environmental weather stations is better than personal monitoring equipment, the monitoring equipment of weather monitoring stations is too expensive and only suitable for large-scale coarse-grained monitoring. Because the environmental information of a city is affected by factors such as landforms, buildings, rivers, factories, population density, and traffic flow, there are great differences in the environmental information of different areas in a city. Therefore, this study proposes a method that can be used for small-scale and fine-grained environmental information monitoring: the task grid-based urban environmental information release mechanism for mobile crowd sensing (MCS). Through this mechanism, the monitoring area is divided into different task grids according to the characteristics of the area, and the environmental information is sensed by mobile crowd sensing. For the sensing data, through an efficient data fusion algorithm designed in this study, the sensing information is fused to obtain the fine-grained environmental information of different task grids in the area. Through the use of this mechanism, differentiated environmental information can be provided to users in different areas of the city. In a simulation, this mechanism showed higher information accuracy than traditional information release methods. Thus, the mechanism is scientific and has good application value. more...

Elevated environmental ammonia leads to respiratory disorders and metabolic dysfunction in most fish species, and the majority of research has concentrated on fish behavior and gill function. Prior studies have rarely shown the molecular mechanism of the largemouth bass hepatic response to ammonia loading. In this experiment, 120 largemouth bass were exposed to total ammonia nitrogen of 0 mg/L or 13 mg/L for 3 and 7 days, respectively. Histological study indicated that ammonia exposure severely damaged fish liver structure, accompanied by increased serum alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, and alkaline phosphatase activity. RT-qPCR results showed that ammonia exposure down-regulated the expression of genes involved in glycogen metabolism, tricarboxylic acid cycle, lipid metabolism, and urea cycle pathways, whereas it up-regulated the expression of genes involved in gluconeogenesis and glutamine synthesis pathways. Thus, ammonia was mainly converted to glutamine in the largemouth bass liver during ammonia stress, which was rarely further used for urea synthesis. Additionally, transcriptome results showed that ammonia exposure also led to the up-regulation of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway and down-regulation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway in the liver of largemouth bass. It is possible that the energy supply of oxidative phosphorylation in the largemouth bass liver was increased during ammonia exposure, which was mediated by the MAPK signaling pathway. more...

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have captured worldwide attention due to their persistent and bioaccumulative characteristics. The bullfrog is a highly nutritious and edible aquatic product, but the PFAS accumulation characteristics of bullfrogs had not been paid attention. The present study analyzed the PFAS concentrations in different tissues of cultured bullfrogs and relevant water and sediments collected from the aquaculture region in the coastal area of South China. Results showed that total PFAS concentrations were 50.26–364.25 ng/L in water, with a mean of 135.58 ng/L; concentrations in effluent water were significantly higher than those in influent water, which means bullfrog farming could increase contaminants into the surroundings. The total PFAS concentrations varied from 2.89 to 162.26 ng/g·dw in sediment. The distribution profile of PFASs in sediment was similar to that of water, with short chain playing a significant role. Total PFASs in bullfrog tissues were 3.36–84.07 ng/g·dw, with the highest values in the digestive system (intestines and stomach). As for one novel PFAS alternative, chlorinated polyfluorinated ether sulfonate (F-53B) was found at high detectable levels in all habitat samples and had a higher value of logarithmic bioaccumulation factors. The estimated dietary intake (EDI) for residents in the study area was generally higher than that in other regions; however, the hazard ratios (HRs) for most detected PFASs were far below the safety threshold value “1.” These results suggest that frequent consumption of these bullfrogs would basically not cause severe health effects on local residents in terms of PFASs. more...

Abstract Background Primary pulmonary myxoid sarcoma (PPMS) is an extremely rare lung sarcoma that is characterized in most cases by recurrent balanced chromosomal translocation t(2;22)(q33;q12) leading to the oncogenic fusion gene EWSR1-CREB1. Case presentation We report a case of PPMS with molecular confirmation using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and DNA sequencing in a 45-year-old female patient. Computer tomography (CT) scanning revealed a peripheral circumscribed solid mass of 2.1 × 2 cm in the right lung superior lobe. Histologically, the tumor cells ranged from stellate, polygonal to chondrocyte-like or physaliferous-like, forming reticular network of delicate lace-like cellular strands and cords in abundant myxoid stroma. The tumor cell immunophenotype was positive for vimentin, EMA and negative for CK-pan, TTF-1, CAM5.2, S-100, calponin, SMA, desmin, ALK, CD31 and CD34. Molecular analysis demonstrated EWSR1-CREB1 gene fusion in this tumor. During 38 months of follow-up, the patient was alive with no clinical or radiological evidence of recurrence or metastasis. Conclusion PPMS is a rare low-grade sarcoma with distinct histological and genetic features. We add another case to the literature of this rare tumor and report for the first time occurrence of chondrocyte-like and physaliferous-like tumor cells in this tumor, thus enriching its morphologic and cytologic spectrum. more...

In this paper, both numerical and experimental methods are adopted to study the fluid–structure interaction (FSI) problem of a wedge structure with stiffeners impacted with water during the free-falling water entry process. In the numerical model, a partitioned two-way couple of CFD and FEM solvers is applied to deal with the FSI problem, where the external fluid pressure exported from the CFD simulation is used to derive the structural responses in the FEM solver, and the structural deformations are fed back into the CFD solver to deform the mesh. Moreover, a tank experiment using a steel wedge model that has the same structural properties is also conducted to compare with the numerical results. Verification and validation of the numerical results indicate that the CFD-FEM coupled method is feasible and reliable. The slamming response results by numerical simulation and experiments, including displacement, velocity, acceleration, slamming pressure, deformation, structural stresses and total forces on the wedge, accounting for hydroelasticity effects in different free falling height conditions are comprehensively analyzed and discussed. more...

Background and AimsThe incidence of non-B, non-C hepatocellular carcinoma (NBNC-HCC) is increasing. Like in hepatitis B virus (HBC)/HCV-associated HCC, treatment of NBNC-HCC after resection is challenging due to its high recurrence rate. However, few studies on the recurrence of NBNC-HCC have been published in the past decades. Hence, we aimed to investigate the risk factors for recurrence of NBNC-HCC and construct pre- and postoperative prognostic models for predicting recurrence in these patients who underwent curative resection.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed 608 patients who underwent liver resection for NBNC-HCC. A multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was conducted to identify the independent risk factors of recurrence, based on which the prediction nomogram models were constructed and validated. The predictive performance of the models was assessed using the concordance index, time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve, prediction error cure, and calibration curve. To facilitate clinical use, we stratified the patients into three distinct risk groups based on the score of the models. The cutoff scores of the models were determined by a survival tree analysis.ResultsMultivariable analysis identified neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, alpha fetoprotein, tumor number, and tumor diameter as independent preoperative risk factors for recurrence. In addition to these variables, microvascular invasion was an independent postoperative risk factor for recurrence. The pre- and postoperative nomograms were constructed based on these variables. The C-index of the pre- and postoperative nomograms was 0.689 and 0.702 in the training cohort, 0.682 and 0.688 in the validation cohort, respectively, which were both higher than those of the conventional Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) and 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC8th) staging systems. In addition, the pre- and postoperative nomograms could also re-stratify patients with BCLC stage 0/A or AJCC8th stage IA/IB/II into distinct risk groups.ConclusionsWe constructed pre- and postoperative prognostic models for predicting recurrence in patients with NBNC-HCC who underwent curative resection. They can play a supplementary role to the traditional staging system. more...

Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is commonly used in gas insulated switchgears (GIS) as an insulating medium. When local overheating or partial discharge occurs in GIS, SF6 may be decomposed into various products including CO. In this paper, based on the photoacoustic (PA) effect of gas molecules, the infrared absorption line at 6380.318 cm−1 was chosen as the target line. An infrared laser with a center wavelength of 1567 nm was chosen as the light source, and a cantilever enhanced PA detector was used as the sensor; then, the experimental platform was constructed. The influence of the temperature and pressure on the infrared absorption coefficient of CO was analyzed. The relationship of the PA signal and the CO concentration under the background of SF6 and N2 were obtained. The results show that the temperature has a great influence on the CO absorption coefficient while the influence of pressure is negligible, and the temperature influential coefficient is about 5.0 × 10−6 cm−1/°C. The detection system has the highest signal-to-noise ratio when the frequency of the chopper is 40 Hz. Under N2 and SF6 background gases, there is a good linear relationship between CO concentration and pure PA signals. The minimum detection limit of CO in the background of N2 is 3.63 ppm, while it is 9.88 ppm in SF6. The different kinds of the background gases can influence the PA signals. The PA signals decrease with the increase of the temperature of the gas cell, and they also decrease with the increase of the pressure. more...

The composition and content of dissolved gases in transformer oil are closely related to the type of faults in the transformer and the severity of potential hazards. Dissolved gas analysis (DGA) in insulating oil is an important way to monitor the state of transformer equipment. CO, CH4, and C2H2 are one of the dissolved gases in the transformer oil. Based on the density functional theory, the optimal adsorption site of the transition metal atom Pt on the surface of WSe2, one of the typical layered transition metal disulfides (LTMDs), is determined in the beginning. Attaining the adsorption behavior of these three gases on the surface of Pt-WSe2. The optimal structure of gas adsorption, charge transfer, adsorption energy, electronic density of states (DOS), deformation charge density (DCD), and frontier orbital are analyzed. As an electron acceptor, Pt-WSe2 attracts electrons from all three gas molecules. The adsorption type of CO and C2H2 molecules is chemisorption, whose adsorption effect is strong. The CH4 adsorption is physical adsorption, whose adsorption effect is weak. The adsorption of all the three gas molecules leads to an increase in the bandgap of the Pt-WSe2, that is, the increase in the resistivity. more...

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) absorption correction of the sulfur dioxide (SO2) camera was demonstrated for the first time. The key to improving the measurement accuracy is to combine a differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) instrument with the SO2 camera for the real-time NO2 absorption correction and aerosol scattering correction. This method performs NO2 absorption correction by the correlation between the NO2 column density measurement of the DOAS and the NO2 optical depth of the corresponding channel from the SO2 camera at a narrow wavelength window around 310 and 310 nm. The error of correction method is estimated through comparison with only using the second channel of the traditional SO2 camera to correct for aerosol scattering and it can be reduced by 11.3% after NO2 absorption corrections. We validate the correction method through experiments and demonstrate it to be of greatly improved accuracy. The result shows that the ultraviolet (UV) SO2 camera system with NO2 absorption corrections appears to have great application prospects as a technology for visualized real-time monitoring of SO2 emissions. more...

The piezoelectric (PE) fan is widely adopted in the field of microelectronics cooling due to its advantages of high reliability and good heat dissipation characteristics. However, PE fans driven by conventional circuits suffer from plenty of energy loss. To save energy, we propose an inductor-based charge recovery method and apply it to the driving circuit for the PE fan. Two inductor-based driving circuits, a single inductor-based driving (SID) circuit and a double inductor-based driving (DID) circuit are compared. The SID circuit has a simple structure and a slightly higher energy-saving rate, while the DID circuit introduces no additional oscillations and is more stable. The experimental results show that when the supply voltage changes, both circuits have a relatively stable energy-saving rate, which is about 30% for the SID circuit and 28% for the DID circuit. Moreover, the proposed circuits enjoy the same driving capacity as the conventional circuit, and the driven fan has the same cooling performance. more...

TV spectrum has lower path loss, longer transmission range, and higher penetration capability, resulting in a wide range of potential important applications. However, unlike Wi-Fi bands, TV spectrum is subjected to high spatial and temporal variations due to the random arrivals and departures of primary users (PUs), which results in new technical challenges in TV spectrum utilization. One important issue is how to allocate TV spectrum to secondary users (SUs) by taking the spatial and temporal variations into consideration. This has been largely ignored in previous studies. In this paper, we first formulate the TV spectrum allocation problem as a 0–1 integer optimization problem, and then we approximate our optimal objective via Log-Sum-Exp function. Thereafter, we solve this problem by implementing a Markov chain in a distributed manner. Furthermore, we extend the static problem setting to a dynamic environment where the number of vacant TV channels varies with time due to the arrivals and departures of PUs. Simulation results show that our proposed distributed algorithm can converge very fast to the optimal solution, and can achieve a close-to optimal performance with a guaranteed loss bound. more...

The susceptibility of animals to pathogenic infection is significantly affected by nutritional status. The present study took yellow catfish (Pelteobagrus fulvidraco) as a model to test the hypothesis that the protective roles of glutamine during bacterial infection are largely related to its regulation on the immune and antioxidant system, apoptosis and autophagy. Dietary glutamine supplementation significantly improved fish growth performance and feed utilization. After a challenge with Flavobacterium columnare, glutamine supplementation promoted il-8 and il-1β expression via NF-κB signaling in the head kidney and spleen, but inhibited the over-inflammation in the gut and gills. Additionally, dietary glutamine inclusion also enhanced the systematic antioxidant capacity. Histological analysis showed the protective role of glutamine in gill structures. Further study indicated that glutamine alleviated apoptosis during bacterial infection, along with the reduced protein levels of caspase-3 and the reduced expression of apoptosis-related genes. Moreover, glutamine also showed an inhibitory role in autophagy which was due to the increased activation of the mTOR signaling pathway. Thus, our study for the first time illustrated the regulatory roles of glutamine in the fish immune and antioxidant system, and reported its inhibitory effects on fish apoptosis and autophagy during bacterial infection. more...

Objective:To observe the therapeutic effect of filiform fire needling combined with electroacupuncture in obstinate peripheral facial paralysis (OPFP).Methods:Sixty OPFP patients were assigned into the treatment group and the control group by a random number table, and 30 patients were in each group. The control group received electroacupuncture, once a day. The treatment group received filiform fire needling every other day, combined with electroacupuncture once a day. A treating course consisted of ten days of treatment, and the complete treatment lasted for four courses. The classification of House-Brackmann and Portmann scores were used to evaluate the therapeutic effect of two groups.Results:The Portmann scores were increased after treatment in both groups (PPPP more...

The current full-waveform data at a single wavelength can mainly retrieve the geometric attributes of targets along the light path by detecting waveform components, resulting in the lack of spectral or color attribute information. This kind of device relies on a digital camera for acquiring the color information, however, which is inevitably limited by the lighting conditions and geometric registration errors. With the development of multispectral light detection and ranging (LiDAR) or even hyperspectral LiDAR that often utilize a supercontinuum laser source covering the whole visible light band, including red, green and blue bands, the simultaneous acquisition of color and spatial information becomes possible and makes passive imaging data no longer necessary. In this study, we propose a color restoration method for a full-waveform multispectral LiDAR (FWMSL) system. Additionally, we develop a multispectral lognormal function to fit the tailing echoes measured by FWMSL further accurately. Experimental data from our FWMSL system are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The relative standard deviation, correlation coefficient (R2) and color difference ( Δ E ) metrics suggest that the color restoration for the full-waveform multispectral data is feasible. more...

Illegal open-pit mining causes environmental harm and undermines sustainable development. Conventional monitoring approaches such as field research and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) imagery are time-consuming and labor-intensive, making large-scale monitoring difficult. In comparison, optical remote sensing imagery can cover large areas but is vulnerable to adverse weather conditions and is not sensitive to vertical ground changes. As open-pit excavation causes sudden changes in the scattering properties of ground objects along with dramatic vertical deformation, we evaluated the feasibility of using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) coherence to identify illegal mining activities. Our method extracts the coherence coefficient from two SAR images taken on different dates, applies thresholding and filtering to extract a decorrelation map, and then overlays this with legal mining boundaries and optical satellite images to identify illegal mining activities. For three test cases in southwestern Inner Mongolia, China, 49 legal mining sites were correctly detected (with an accuracy of 90.74%) as well as six illegal mining sites. Ground truthing confirmed the presence of ongoing activity at one of these sites. Our study shows that InSAR coherence is suitable for the identification of mining activities, and our method provides a new approach for the detection and monitoring of illegal open-pit mining. more...

The Gaofen-3 satellite is the first SAR satellite independently developed in China that achieves interferometric imaging and measurement, which improves upon Chinese civil SAR satellite data. To verify the ability of the Gaofen-3 satellite’s InSAR technology, we acquired data from Dengfeng, China, to evaluate the application and accuracy of an InSAR terrain survey. To reduce the effects introduced by data processing of Gaofen-3 data, high-accuracy InSAR image pair co-registration and phase filtering methods were adopted. Six GCPs data and 1:2000-scale DEM data were used to evaluate the elevation accuracy. In addition, for comparison with other satellites, we processed the dataset of the same area acquired by the non-civilian Yaogan-29 satellite with the same methods and evaluated the results. The experimental results indicated that the interferometric data of the Gaofen-3 satellite can achieve an accuracy of higher than 4 m of interferometric height measurement. Therefore, it will have broad prospects in the domestic InSAR application. Our research provides a certain value for the reference of the development of InSAR sensors in China. more...

The O2(a1Δg) emission near 1.27 μm provides an important means to remotely sense the thermal characteristics, dynamical features, and compositional structures of the upper atmosphere because of its photochemistry and spectroscopic properties. In this work, an emission−absorption transfer model for limb measurements was developed to calculate the radiation and scattering spectral brightness by means of a line-by-line approach. The nonlocal thermal equilibrium (non-LTE) model was taken into account for accurate calculation of the O2(a1Δg) emission by incorporating the latest rate constants and spectral parameters. The spherical adding and doubling methods were used in the multiple scattering model. Representative emission and absorption line shapes of the O 2 ( a 1 Δ g , υ ′ = 0 ) → O 2 ( X Σ g 3 , υ ″ = 0 ) band and their spectral behavior varying with altitude were examined. The effects of solar zenith angle, surface albedo, and aerosol loading on the line shapes were also studied. This paper emphasizes the advantage of using infrared atmospheric band for remote sensing of the atmosphere from 20 up to 120 km, a significant region where the strongest coupling between the lower and upper atmosphere occurs. more...

Wind and temperature observation in near space has been playing an increasingly important role in atmospheric physics and space science. This paper reports on the near-space wind and temperature sensing interferometer (NWTSI), which employs a wide-angle Michelson interferometer to observe O2(a1Δg) dayglow near 1.27 μm from a limb-viewing satellite, and presents the instrument modeling and observation simulations from the stratosphere to the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The characteristics of atmospheric limb-radiance spectra and line selection rules are described. The observational strategy of using two sets of three emission lines with a line-strength difference of one order of magnitude is proved to be suitable for extending altitude coverage. The forward modeling and measurement simulation of the expected NWTSI observations are provided, and the measurement uncertainty of the wind and temperature is discussed. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the limb-view weight work together to affect the precision of the wind and temperature measurements. The simulated results indicate a wind measurement precision of 1 to 3 m/s and a temperature precision of 1 to 3 K over an altitude range from 40 to 80 km, which meets the observing requirement in measurement precision for near-space detection. more...

Co-registration is one of the most important steps in interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data processing. The standard offset-measurement method based on cross-correlating uniformly distributed patches takes no account of specific geometric transformation between images or characteristics of ground scatterers. Hence, it is inefficient and difficult to obtain satisfying co-registration results for image pairs with relatively big distortion or large incoherent areas. Given this, an improved co-registration strategy is proposed in this paper which takes both the geometric features and image content into consideration. Firstly, some geometric transformations including scale, flip, rotation, and shear between images were eliminated based on the geometrical information, and the initial co-registration polynomial was obtained. Then the registration points were automatically detected by integrating the signal-to-clutter-ratio (SCR) thresholds and the amplitude information, and a further co-registration process was performed to refine the polynomial. Several comparison experiments were carried out using 2 TerraSAR-X data from the Hong Kong airport and 21 PALSAR data from the Donghai Bridge. Experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method brings accuracy and efficiency improvements for co-registration and processing abilities in the cases of big distortion between images or large incoherent areas in the images. For most co-registrations, the proposed method can enhance the reliability and applicability of co-registration and thus promote the automation to a higher level. more...