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Articular cartilage injury (ACI) remains one of the key challenges in regenerative medicine, as current treatment strategies do not result in ideal regeneration of hyaline-like cartilage. Enhancing endogenous repair via microRNAs (miRNAs) shows promise as a regenerative therapy. miRNA-140 and miRNA-455 are two key and promising candidates for regulating the chondrogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). In this study, we innovatively synthesized a multifunctional tetrahedral framework in which a nucleic acid (tFNA)-based targeting miRNA codelivery system, named A-T-M, was used. With tFNAs as vehicles, miR-140 and miR-455 were connected to and modified on tFNAs, while Apt19S (a DNA aptamer targeting MSCs) was directly integrated into the nanocomplex. The relevant results showed that A-T-M efficiently delivered miR-140 and miR-455 into MSCs and subsequently regulated MSC chondrogenic differentiation through corresponding mechanisms. Interestingly, a synergistic effect between miR-140 and miR-455 was revealed. Furthermore, A-T-M successfully enhanced the endogenous repair capacity of articular cartilage in vivo and effectively inhibited hypertrophic chondrocyte formation. A-T-M provides a new perspective and strategy for the regeneration of articular cartilage, showing strong clinical application value in the future treatment of ACI.

The size of mineral grain has a significant impact on the initiation and propagation of microcracks within rocks. In this study, fine-, medium-, and coarse-grained granites were used to investigate microcrack evolution and characteristic stress under uniaxial compression using the acoustic emission (AE), digital image correlation (DIC), and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements. The experimental results show that the characteristic stress of each granite decreased considerably with increasing grain sizes. The inflection points of the b-value occurred earlier with an increase in grain sizes, indicating that the larger grains promote the generation and propagation of microcracks. The distribution characteristics of the average frequency (AF) and the ratio of rise time to amplitude (RA) indicate that the proportion of shear microcracks increases with increasing grain size. The NMR results indicate that the porosity and the proportion of large pores increased with increasing grain size, which may intensify the microcrack evolution. Moreover, analysis of the DIC and AE event rates suggests that the high-displacement regions could serve as a criterion for the degree of microcrack propagation. The study found that granites with larger grains had a higher proportion of high-displacement regions, which can lead to larger-scale cracking or even spalling. These findings are not only beneficial to understand the pattern of microcrack evolution with different grain sizes, but also provide guidance for rock monitoring and instability assessment.

Abstract Background Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide, characterized by high morbidity, high mortality, and poor prognosis. Collagen triple helix repeat containing 1 (CTHRC1) has been shown to be highly expressed in various cancers. However, its biological functions, potential role as a biomarker, and its relationship with immune infiltrates in HNSCC remain unclear. Our principal objective was to analyze CTHRC1 expression, its prognostic implications, biological functions, and its effects on the immune system in HNSCC patients using bioinformatics analysis. Methods The expression matrix was obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). CTHRC1 expression in HNSCC was analyzed between tumor and adjacent normal tissues, different stages were compared, and its impact on clinical prognosis was assessed using Kaplan-Meier analysis. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Variation Analysis (GSVA) were employed for enrichment analysis. The Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes database (STRING) was used to analyze protein-protein interactions. Pearson correlation tests were used to investigate the association between CTHRC1 expression and immune checkpoints. The correlation between CTHRC1 and immune infiltration was investigated using CIBERSORT, TIMER, and ESTIMATE. Results Compared to adjacent normal tissues, CTHRC1 was found to be highly overexpressed in tumors. Increased expression of CTHRC1 was more evident in the advanced stage of HNSCC and predicted a poor prognosis. Most genes related to CTHRC1 in HNSCC were enriched in physiological functions of Extracellular matrix(ECM) and tumor. Furthermore, several immune checkpoints, such as TNFSF4 and CD276 have been shown to be associated with CTHRC1 expression. Notably, the level of CTHRC1 expression correlated significantly with immune infiltration levels, particularly activated macrophages in HNSCC. Conclusions High expression of CTHRC1 predicts poor prognosis and is associated with immune infiltration in HNSCC, confirming its utility as a tumor marker for HNSCC. Trial registration Not applicable. All data are from public databases and do not contain any clinical trials.

Abstract A substantial body of research has shown that introducing lexical information in Chinese Named Entity Recognition (NER) tasks can enhance the semantic and boundary information of Chinese words. However, in most methods, the introduction of lexical information occurs at the model architecture level, which cannot fully leverage the lexicon learning capability of pre-trained models. Therefore, we propose seamless integration of external Lexicon knowledge into the Transformer layer of BERT. Additionally, we have observed that in span-based recognition, adjacent spans have special spatial relationships. To capture this relationship, we extend the work after Biaffine and use Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to treat the score matrix as an image, allowing us to interact with the spatial relationships of spans. Our proposed LB-BMBC model was experimented on four publicly available Chinese NER datasets: Resume, Weibo, OntoNotes v4, and MSRA. In particular, during ablation experiments, we found that CNN can significantly improve performance.

Introduction: Penile fracture is an uncommon urological emergency resulting from tunica albuginea rupture during penile erection. It is a rare condition requiring urgent surgery. Despite immediate surgical repair, the patients' erectile functions may still be impacted by penile fracture. This study aims to investigate the efficacy of surgical repair in penile fractures and its impact on erectile function. Methods: Our cohort was composed of patients diagnosed with penile fractures and received surgical repair from September 2014 to August 2022 in Peking University First Hospital. Penile color Doppler ultrasound confirmed the diagnosis. Surgical exploration was conducted, and postoperative complications were evaluated during follow-up. Erectile function was assessed using the International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5) score. Univariate analysis was conducted employing the chi-square test, t-test, and Mann-Whitney U test to identify factors that may impact postoperative erectile function. Furthermore, multivariate analysis was conducted using logistic regression and linear regression to determine the independent risk factors influencing postoperative erectile function. Results: A total of 58 patients were enrolled in our study. The majority of injuries (69.0 %, 40/58) resulted from vigorous sexual intercourse. Most of the patients (69.0 %, 40/58) presented within 24 h. Sixteen patients (27.6 %) presented with concomitant urethral injury. The median size of the tunical tear was 1.5 (IQR, 1.0–2.0) cm. Presentation delay correlated significantly with the difference in IIEF-5 score before and after surgery, with corresponding p values of 0.028. Urethral injury correlated significantly with postoperative erectile dysfunction (ED), postoperative IIEF-5 score, and the difference in IIEF-5 score before and after surgery, with corresponding p values of 0.002, 0.004, and 0.002, respectively. Conclusions: To conclude, surgical repair of penile fracture provides good functional results with few morbidities and urethral injury may adversely affect postoperative erectile function after penile fracture repair.

Abstract Variations in chromosome number are occasionally observed among oomycetes, a group that includes many plant pathogens, but the emergence of such variations and their effects on genome and virulence evolution remain ambiguous. We generated complete telomere-to-telomere genome assemblies for Phytophthora sojae, Globisporangium ultimum, Pythium oligandrum, and G. spinosum. Reconstructing the karyotype of the most recent common ancestor in Peronosporales revealed that frequent chromosome fusion and fission drove changes in chromosome number. Centromeres enriched with Copia-like transposons may contribute to chromosome fusion and fission events. Chromosome fusion facilitated the emergence of pathogenicity genes and their adaptive evolution. Effectors tended to duplicate in the sub-telomere regions of fused chromosomes, which exhibited evolutionary features distinct to the non-fused chromosomes. By integrating ancestral genomic dynamics and structural predictions, we have identified secreted Ankyrin repeat-containing proteins (ANKs) as a novel class of effectors in P. sojae. Phylogenetic analysis and experiments further revealed that ANK is a specifically expanded effector family in oomycetes. These results revealed chromosome dynamics in oomycete plant pathogens, and provided novel insights into karyotype and effector evolution.

This paper aims to conduct tool wear experiments on cutting SiCp/Al composite materials, and methodically reveal the wear evolution of PCD tools in some detail. Based on the experiments, five-tool wear schemes are rationally developed, including free from wear, crater wear, flank wear, combined crater and flank wear, and edge blunting. The accurate equivalent homogeneous material (EHM) turning simulation model of SiCp/Al composite material is constructed and verified using AdvantEdge software. Subsequently, comprehensive studies have been conducted to analyze the effect of various tool wear patterns on the SiCp/Al cutting process. The results indicate that the crater wear of the tool is positively correlated with the radius of curvature of the chip. Additionally, the flank wear of the tool demonstrates a negative correlation with both the thickness and length of the chips. The actual cutting temperature is 11.3% lower compared to the simulated data, whereas the actual cutting forces in the X and Y directions are 16.1% and 13.7% higher, respectively. The flank wear degree of the tool and the edge blunting both remarkably influence the cutting force in the Y direction and the surface residual stress after machining. As the degree of wear increases, the cutting force in the Y direction and the surface residual stress rise, and the penetration layer of the residual stress becomes deeper, which is attributed to the significantly enhanced ploughing effect of the tool. This study provides a valuable reference for predicting the wear status of cutting tools, particularly in machining difficult-to-machine materials.

The registration of laser point clouds in complex conditions in wilderness scenes is an important aspect in the research field of autonomous vehicle navigation. It serves as the foundation for solving problems such as environment reconstruction, map construction, navigation and positioning, and pose estimation during the motion process of autonomous vehicles using laser radar sensors. Due to the sparse structured features, uneven point cloud density, and high noise levels in wilderness scenes, achieving reliable and accurate point cloud registration is challenging. In this paper, we propose a semantic-supervised sparse point cloud registration network (S3PCRNet) aiming to achieve effective registration of laser point clouds in wilderness large-scale scenes. Firstly, a local feature aggregation module is designed to extract the local structural features of the point cloud. Then, based on rotation position encoding, a randomly grouped self-attention mechanism is proposed to obtain the global features of the point cloud through learning. A semantic information weight matrix is calculated to filter out negligible points. Subsequently, a semantic fusion feature module is utilised to find reliable correspondences between point clouds. Finally, the proposed method is trained and evaluated on both the RELLIS-3D dataset and a self-made Off-road-3D dataset.

The liquid Lead-bismuth eutectic is used as the coolant for Gen-IV reactor concepts. However, due to its strong corrosive and high operating temperature, it is difficult to accurately measure the flow rate in long-term operating conditions. Venturi flowmeter is a simple structured flowmeter, which plays a very important role in the flow measurement of high-temperature liquid metals, especially since the existing flowmeters are difficult to be competent. It has the advantages of easy maintenance and stable operation. Therefore, it is necessary to study the operating conditions of the venturi flowmeter under high-temperature conditions. This work performs a series of simulations of the fluid-solid interaction between the flow liquid metal and venturi flowmeter with COMSOL software, including the dimensional sensitivity analysis of the venturi flowmeter to explore the most suitable structure and parameters for liquid heavy metal, the sensitivity analysis of the geometric parameters of the venturi tube on the varying conditions. It shows that when the contraction angle of the venturi flowmeter is 33°, the diffusion angle is 13°, the diameter of the throat is 8 mm, and the temperature of the lead-bismuth eutectic is 733.15 K, it is most suitable for the measurement in the lead-bismuth circuit.

Achieving superior ductility, microstructure, and strength simultaneously in tailor-welded blanks remains challenging. To address this, pre-aging blanks before friction stir welding was proposed. Systematic studies were conducted on the microstructure, ductility, and post-aging strength of pre-aged 2219 aluminium alloy after friction stir welding. Uniaxial tensile tests evaluated the ductility of tailor-welded blanks at room and cryogenic temperatures, along with their mechanical properties after artificial aging. Microstructural characterization and Vickers hardness measurements elucidated the strengthening mechanisms between the welded region and base material. No abnormal grain growth was observed in the welded region post pre-aging welding; instead, a finer grain structure prevailed. Ductility of the tailor-welded blanks initially increased and then decreased with increasing rotational speed. Excellent elongations, 27.8% at room temperature and 32.4% at cryogenic temperatures, were obtained at a rotational speed of 1300 rpm, reaching 91.5% of the base material. This attributed to the finer grain boundary strengthening in the welded regions. After artificial aging, a joint efficiency of 93.5% was achieved, owing to effective compensation of the reduction in precipitation strengthening caused by the welded heat input through finer grain strengthening. This approach represents a novel method for preparing ultrawide blanks for forming integral large-sized aluminum alloy components.

Humic electron mediators can facilitate the reductive dehalogenation of organohalogenated compounds by accelerating electron transfer. To investigate the effect of humic electron mediators on the microbial anaerobic reductive dechlorination of Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), three types of humic electron mediators, humin (HM), humic acid (HA), and anthraquinone-2,6-disulfonic acid (AQDS, HA analogs), were added to PCB dechlorination cultures enriched from different sources in terrestrial and marine environments (T and M cultures). The results showed that meta- and para-site dechlorination occurred in the M culture, while only meta-site dechlorination occurred in the T culture. The dechlorination process N and the dechlorination process H or H′ are presented in both cultures. HM enhanced PCB dechlorination metabolic activity in both cultures mainly by promoting meta-site dechlorination. HA showed a weak promoting effect on the M culture by promoting para-chlorine removal but inhibited the dechlorination metabolism of the terrestrial-origin culture, inhibiting meta-chlorine removal. AQDS showed inhibitory effects on both cultures by inhibiting the microbial removal of meta-chlorine. High-throughput sequencing and qPCR results suggest that HM is not a carbon source for the potential dechlorinating metabolism of Dehalococcoides but may promote reductive dechlorination by changing the community structure, and AQDS may inhibit anaerobic reductive dechlorination of PCBs by inhibiting the growth of Dehalococcoides. This study provides insights into the mechanism of enhancing PCB microbial dechlorination mediated by humic substances and plays a significant role in extending the application prospects of PCBs bioremediation technology.

In order to study the changes of spontaneous combustion characteristics of bituminous coal with different degrees of metamorphism, according to the order of metamorphism degrees from low to high, four types of bituminous coal with different degrees of metamorphism were selected: Ningxia Lingwu non-stick coal, Ningxia Lingwu gas coal, Shanxi Huozhou 1/3 coking coal and Liaoning Shenyang lean coal, and liquid nitrogen adsorption experiments, Fourier infrared spectroscopy experiments and TG-DSC simultaneous thermal analysis experiments were conducted respectively. The results showed that the specific surface area of internal pores of bituminous coal gradually increased with the increase of the degree of metamorphism, and the pore volume changed in the same trend; the proportion of active functional groups in coal samples gradually decreased, and the proportion of chemically stable functional groups gradually increased; the critical temperature T1 and ignition point temperature T4 of bituminous coal gradually increased with the increase of the degree of metamorphism, and the heat release in the combustion stage of coal samples gradually decreased. In summary, the chemical properties of bituminous coal become more stable with the increase of deterioration, and it is more difficult to spontaneously combust; the influence of active functional groups in coal samples is greater than that of pore structure.

Abstract Introduction Estrogen receptor (ER) positive patients compromise about 70% of breast cancers. Tamoxifen, an antagonist of ERα66 (the classic ER), is the most effective and the standard first-line drug. However, its efficacy is limited by the development of acquired resistance. Methods A specific inhibitor of Hsp70-Bim protein–protein interaction (PPI), S1g-2, together with an inhibitor of Hsp70-Bag3 PPI, MKT-077 and an ATP-competitive inhibitor VER155008, were used as chemical tools. Cell viability assays, co-immunoprecipitation and gene knockdown were used to investigate the role of Hsp70 in tamoxifen resistance. A xenograft model was established in which tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer (MCF-7/TAM-R) cells maintained in the presence of 5 μM tamoxifen were subcutaneously inoculated. The anti-tumor efficiency of S1g-2 was measured after a daily injection of 0.8 mg/kg for 14 days. Results It was revealed that Hsp70-Bim PPI protects ERα-positive breast cancer from tamoxifen-induced apoptosis through binding and stabilizing ERα36, rather than ERα66, resulting in sustained EGFR mRNA and protein expression. Disruption of Hsp70-Bim PPI and downregulation of ERα36 expression in tumor samples are consistent with the in vitro functions of S1g-2, resulting in about a three-fold reduction in tumor volume. Conclusions The in vivo activity and safety of S1g-2 illustrated that it is a potential strategy for Hsp70-Bim disruption to overcome tamoxifen-resistant ER-positive breast cancer.

Abstract Due to its unique structure, articular cartilage has limited abilities to undergo self-repair after injury. Additionally, the repair of articular cartilage after injury has always been a difficult problem in the field of sports medicine. Previous studies have shown that the therapeutic use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and their extracellular vesicles (EVs) has great potential for promoting cartilage repair. Recent studies have demonstrated that most transplanted stem cells undergo apoptosis in vivo, and the apoptotic EVs (ApoEVs) that are subsequently generated play crucial roles in tissue repair. Additionally, MSCs are known to exist under low-oxygen conditions in the physiological environment, and these hypoxic conditions can alter the functional and secretory properties of MSCs as well as their secretomes. This study aimed to investigate whether ApoEVs that are isolated from adipose-derived MSCs cultured under hypoxic conditions (hypoxic apoptotic EVs [H-ApoEVs]) exert greater effects on cartilage repair than those that are isolated from cells cultured under normoxic conditions. Through in vitro cell proliferation and migration experiments, we demonstrated that H-ApoEVs exerted enhanced effects on stem cell proliferation, stem cell migration, and bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDMs) M2 polarization compared to ApoEVs. Furthermore, we utilized a modified gelatine matrix/3D-printed extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffold complex as a carrier to deliver H-ApoEVs into the joint cavity, thus establishing a cartilage regeneration system. The 3D-printed ECM scaffold provided mechanical support and created a microenvironment that was conducive to cartilage regeneration, and the H-ApoEVs further enhanced the regenerative capacity of endogenous stem cells and the immunomodulatory microenvironment of the joint cavity; thus, this approach significantly promoted cartilage repair. In conclusion, this study confirmed that a ApoEVs delivery system based on a modified gelatine matrix/3D-printed ECM scaffold together with hypoxic preconditioning enhances the functionality of stem cell-derived ApoEVs and represents a promising approach for promoting cartilage regeneration. Graphical Abstract

Abstract Molecular understanding of the solid–liquid interface is challenging but essential to elucidate the role of the environment on the kinetics of electrochemical reactions. Alkali metal cations (M+), as a vital component at the interface, are found to be necessary for the initiation of carbon dioxide reduction reaction (CO2RR) on coinage metals, and the activity and selectivity of CO2RR could be further enhanced with the cation changing from Li+ to Cs+, while the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Herein, using ab initio molecular dynamics simulations with explicit solvation and enhanced sampling methods, we systematically investigate the role of M+ in CO2RR on Cu surface. A monotonically decreasing CO2 activation barrier is obtained from Li+ to Cs+, which is attributed to the different coordination abilities of M+ with *CO2. Furthermore, we show that the competing hydrogen evolution reaction must be considered simultaneously to understand the crucial role of alkali metal cations in CO2RR on Cu surfaces, where H+ is repelled from the interface and constrained by M+. Our results provide significant insights into the design of electrochemical environments and highlight the importance of explicitly including the solvation and competing reactions in theoretical simulations of CO2RR.

Smartphones with integrated sensors play an important role in people’s lives, and in advanced multi-sensor fusion navigation systems, the use of individual sensor information is crucial. Because of the different environments, the weights of the sensors will be different, which will also affect the method and results of multi-source fusion positioning. Based on the multi-source data from smartphone sensors, this study explores five types of information—Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs), cellular networks, optical sensors, and Wi-Fi sensors—characterizing the temporal, spatial, and mathematical statistical features of the data, and it constructs a multi-scale, multi-window, and context-connected scene sensing model to accurately detect the environmental scene in indoor, semi-indoor, outdoor, and semi-outdoor spaces, thus providing a good basis for multi-sensor positioning in a multi-sensor navigation system. Detecting environmental scenes provides an environmental positioning basis for multi-sensor fusion localization. This model is divided into four main parts: multi-sensor-based data mining, a multi-scale convolutional neural network (CNN), a bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) network combined with contextual information, and a meta-heuristic optimization algorithm.

Water yield (WY) service is the cornerstone of ecosystem functionality. Predicting and assessing the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) changes on WY is imperative for a nation’s food security, regional economic development, and ecological environmental protection. This study aimed to evaluate the water yield (WY) service in Henan Province, China, using high-resolution (30 m) remote sensing land use monitoring data from four study years: 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. It also utilized the PLUS model to predict the characteristics of LULC evolution and the future trends of WY service under four different development scenarios (for 2030 and 2050). The study’s results indicated the following: (1) From 1990 to 2020, the Henan Province’s WY first increased and then decreased, ranging from 398.56 × 108 m3 to 482.95 × 108 m3. The southern and southeastern parts of Henan Province were high-value WY areas, while most of its other regions were deemed low-value WY areas. (2) The different land use types were ranked in terms of their WY capacity, from strongest to weakest, as follows: unused land, cultivated land, grassland, construction land, woodland, and water. (3) The four abovementioned scenarios were ranked, from highest to lowest, based on the Henan’s total WY (in 2050) in each of them: high-quality development scenario (HDS), business-as-usual scenario (BAU), cultivated land protection scenario (CPS), and ecological protection scenario (ES). This study contributes to the advancement of ecosystem services research. Its results can provide scientific support for water resource management, sustainable regional development, and comprehensive land-use planning in Henan Province.

Obesity is a major risk factor of hypertension, therefore quantifying the contribution of obesity to hypertension is necessary. The current study aimed to investigate the changes in population-attributable fractions (PAFs) of hypertension associated with general obesity and abdominal obesity over the recent 2 decades among the US population, as well as important sub-populations. This report was performed based on national-level cross-sectional data for 46,535 adults aged 18 years and older and 20,745 children aged 8–17 from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2018. The PAFs of hypertension due to general obesity and abdominal obesity were calculated by sex, race/ethnicity, and survey year. The linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the secular trends of PAFs over the years. The prevalence of general obesity and abdominal obesity presented significantly increasing trends during the past 2 decades in the US. The PAFs of hypertension due to general obesity increased steadily from 11.9 % to 15.1 % in women with a slope of 0.38 % (95 % CI: 0.31 – 0.45 %) and from 8.4 % to 13.4 % in men with a slope of 0.46 % (95 % CI: 0.36 – 0.56 %). Similar increasing trends were also observed for the PAFs due to abdominal obesity in both women and men. Additionally, there were significantly different trends of PAFs in various races/ethnicities. Over the past 2 decades, the contributions of obesity to hypertension were gradually rising among US population, which emphasizes the importance of controlling weight to further reduce the burden of hypertension.

The organotypic retinal explant culture has been established for more than a decade and offers a range of unique advantages compared with in vivo experiments and cell cultures. However, the lack of systematic and continuous comparison between in vivo retinal development and the organotypic retinal explant culture makes this model controversial in postnatal retinal development studies. Thus, we aimed to verify the feasibility of using this model for postnatal retinal development studies by comparing it with the in vivo retina. In this study, we showed that postnatal retinal explants undergo normal development, and exhibit a consistent structure and timeline with retinas in vivo. Initially, we used SOX2 and PAX6 immunostaining to identify retinal progenitor cells. We then examined cell proliferation and migration by immunostaining with Ki-67 and doublecortin, respectively. Ki-67- and doublecortin-positive cells decreased in both in vivo and explants during postnatal retinogenesis, and exhibited a high degree of similarity in abundance and distribution between groups. Additionally, we used Ceh-10 homeodomain-containing homolog, glutamate-ammonia ligase (glutamine synthetase), neuronal nuclei, and ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 immunostaining to examine the emergence of bipolar cells, Müller glia, mature neurons, and microglia, respectively. The timing and spatial patterns of the emergence of these cell types were remarkably consistent between in vivo and explant retinas. Our study showed that the organotypic retinal explant culture model had a high degree of consistency with the progression of in vivo early postnatal retina development. The findings confirm the accuracy and credibility of this model and support its use for long-term, systematic, and continuous observation.

Abstract Breast cancer classification and segmentation play an important role in identifying and detecting benign and malignant breast lesions. However, segmentation and classification still face many challenges: 1) The characteristics of cancer itself, such as fuzzy edges, complex backgrounds, and significant changes in size, shape, and intensity distribution make accurate segment and classification challenges. 2) Existing methods ignore the potential relationship between classification and segmentation tasks, due to the classification and segmentation being treated as two separate tasks. To overcome these challenges, in this paper, a novel Semantic‐aware transformer (SaTransformer) for breast cancer classification and segmentation is proposed. Specifically, the SaTransformer enables doing the two takes simultaneously through one unified framework. Unlike existing well‐known methods, the segmentation and classification information are semantically interactive, reinforcing each other during feature representation learning and improving the ability of feature representation learning while consuming less memory and computational complexity. The SaTransformer is validated on two publicly available breast cancer datasets – BUSI and UDIAT. Experimental results and quantitative evaluations (accuracy: 97.97%, precision: 98.20%, DSC: 86.34%) demonstrate that the SaTransformer outperforms other state‐of‐the‐art methods.

Abstract Background Gastrointestinal nematodes (GINs) have seriously affected the production and earnings of animal husbandry in various countries, while some species of GINs infect humans. At present, little is known about the species and prevalence of GINs in Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau (QTP). Methods In this study, 528 fresh faecal samples were collected from typical areas in different altitudes with seven species of livestock in Qinghai, Tibet, Gansu and Yunnan Provinces. ITS‐2 rRNA gene of nematodes was employed to detect by PCR and sequencing analysis. Phylogenetic analysis of related sequences was performed using MEGA 6.0 software. Results The overall prevalence of GINs was 80.3% with 20 species of GINs detected, while Teladorsagia circumcincta was the dominant one, and four of which were zoonotic species such as Trichostrongylus colubriformis, Trichostrongylus axei, Trichostrongylus vitrinus and Oesophagostomum stephanostomum. Conclusion The study provided panoptic information on the prevalence and species diversity of GINs in QTP area, which is useful and valuable for reference of measure formulation in livestock husbandry and public health concerns. The parasites of T. circumcincta, Cylicocyclus nassatus, Strongylus edentatus, Cylicostephanus longibursatus, Telephlebia brevicauda, Cyathostomum catinatum, Mecistocirrus digitatus, Cooperia punctata, Cylicodontophorus bicoronatus, Nematodirus oiratianus and Oesophagostomum asperum were firstly reported the presence in QTP area. The study also showed that horse could be infected by T. circumcincta, goat could be infected by C. nassatus, cattle could be infected by S. edentatus and C. bicoronatus,and O. stephanostomum could infect yak, cattle and Mongolian sheep in worldwide. Nevertheless, more investigations are needed, such as microscopic examination, to accurately determine the species in the region.

The 2024 aluminum alloy is one of the high-quality lightweight materials. Friction stir welding (FSW) has shown advantages in reducing welding defects and improving welding quality in 2024 aluminum alloys. Currently, the research regarding FSW joint corrosion performance is mainly about the joint without plastic deformation. However, FSW joints often need to be formed into complex shapes by plastic deformation. The influence of plastic deformation on the corrosion performance of FSW joints is the focus of scientific research. To address this problem, the effect of high-temperature deformation on the mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of 2024 aluminum alloy joints was researched. The exfoliation corrosion test, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy were employed to analyze the corrosion mechanism and microstructure. The results show that high-temperature deformation of the weld nugget zone greatly affects the mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of the FSW joint. Compared with the 0% deformation specimen, the hardness and tensile strength of the 20% deformation FSW joint increased by 32% and 21%, respectively. The FSW joint with 20% deformation shows the best mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. The number of precipitated S’ phases of the FSW joint increases when the deformation increases to 20%, and the shape of the S’ phase is a regular round particle shape. The dislocation density of the FSW joint increases continuously during deformation, which provides a favorable nucleation location for the S’ phase.

Abstract Background Folic acid is a water-soluble B vitamin (B9), which is closely related to the body’s immune and other metabolic pathways. The folic acid synthesized by rumen microbes has been unable to meet the needs of high-yielding dairy cows. The incidence rate of subclinical mastitis in dairy herds worldwide ranged between 25%~65% with no obvious symptoms, but it significantly causes a decrease in lactation and milk quality. Therefore, this study aims at exploring the effects of folic acid supplementation on the expression profile of lncRNAs, exploring the molecular mechanism by which lncRNAs regulate immunity in subclinical mastitic dairy cows. Results The analysis identified a total of 4384 lncRNA transcripts. Subsequently, differentially expressed lncRNAs in the comparison of two groups (SF vs. SC, HF vs. HC) were identified to be 84 and 55 respectively. Furthermore, the weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) and the KEGG enrichment analysis result showed that folic acid supplementation affects inflammation and immune response-related pathways. The two groups have few pathways in common. One important lncRNA MSTRG.11108.1 and its target genes (ICAM1, CCL3, CCL4, etc.) were involved in immune-related pathways. Finally, through integrated analysis of lncRNAs with GWAS data and animal QTL database, we found that differential lncRNA and its target genes could be significantly enriched in SNPs and QTLs related to somatic cell count (SCC) and mastitis, such as MSTRG.11108.1 and its target gene ICAM1, CXCL3, GRO1. Conclusions For subclinical mastitic cows, folic acid supplementation can significantly affect the expression of immune-related pathway genes such as ICAM1 by regulating lncRNAs MSTRG.11108.1, thereby affecting related immune phenotypes. Our findings laid a ground foundation for theoretical and practical application for feeding folic acid supplementation in subclinical mastitic cows.

Abstract Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important for cell-to-cell communication in animals. EVs also play important roles in plant–microbe interactions, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, proteomic analyses of EVs from the soybean (Glycine max) root rot pathogen Phytophthora sojae identify the tetraspanin family proteins PsTET1 and PsTET3, which are recognized by Nicotiana benthamiana to trigger plant immune responses. Both proteins are required for the full virulence of P. sojae. The large extracellular loop (EC2) of PsTET3 is the key region recognized by N. benthamiana and soybean cells in a plant receptor-like kinase NbSERK3a/b dependent manner. TET proteins from oomycete and fungal plant pathogens are recognized by N. benthamiana thus inducing immune responses, whereas plant-derived TET proteins are not due to the sequence divergence of sixteen amino acids at the C-terminal of EC2. This feature allows plants to distinguish self and non-self EVs to trigger active defense responses against pathogenic eukaryotes.

Abstract Soybean rust caused by the fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi is one of the most destructive diseases to soybean production worldwide. For the rapid diagnosis and the control of soybean rust, we developed a loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay that targets a P. pachyrhizi-specific gene (Phapa_6409908) identified from a comparative genomic analysis of 61 Pucciniomycotina strains. Using a set of screened primers and the optimized reaction conditions of 62°C for 70 min, the LAMP assay can detect P. pachyrhizi while excluding other plant pathogens. The assay consistently showed high sensitivity in detecting low contents of P. pachyrhizi DNA (10 pg). We confirmed the practical application of this LAMP assay in diagnosing soybean rust using soybean leaf samples collected from fields in four cities of Sichuan Province, China, in 2020 and 2021. The developed LAMP assay provides a specific, sensitive, and rapid method for the diagnosis of soybean rust caused by P. pachyrhizi, which can assist in the prediction, prevention, and control of this major soybean disease.

To explore the effect of Caragana korshinskii Kom. (CK) on meat quality and the main fatty acids of adipose tissue, which were supposed to be modulated by the level of volatile fatty acids from the microbiota of rumen and colon in sheep, twelve Tan ewe lambs (4-month-old) were randomly divided into two groups, NC was fed with 30% concentrate and 70% alfalfa, while CK with 10% CK instead of equivalent alfalfa. After 10 days of pre-trial and 60 days of feeding trial, the lambs were slaughtered and sampled with M. longissimus dorsi, quadriceps femoris, subcutaneous fat, and the contents of rumen and colon collection. Then the analyzing was carried out aimed to determine the characters of meat physical and chemical properties as usual method, the microbiota of gastrointestinal tract by 16S rRNA sequencing, and fatty acid contents either from subcutaneous adipose tissue or from rumen and colon by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The results showed that feeding CK to Tan sheep could tend to increase mill loss, decrease water holding capacity and cooked meat percentage of quadriceps femoris. It also had the tendency effect to decrease saturated fatty acid and increase unsaturated fatty acid content in the meat. Furthermore, feeding CK could decrease the content of palmitic acid in subcutaneous adipose tissue significantly (P

Abstract Background For cancer therapy, the identification of both selective autophagy targets and small molecules that specifically regulate autophagy is greatly needed. Heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) is a recently discovered BH3 receptor that forms a protein‒protein interaction (PPI) with Bcl-2-interacting mediator of cell death (Bim). Herein, a specific inhibitor of the Hsp70-Bim PPI, S1g-2, and its analog S1, which is a Bcl-2-Bim disruptor, were used as chemical tools to explore the role of Hsp70-Bim PPI in regulating mitophagy. Methods Co-immunoprecipitation and immunofluorescence assays were used to determine protein interactions and colocalization patterns. Organelle purification and immunodetection of LC3-II/LC3-I on mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and Golgi were applied to identify specific types of autophagy. Cell-based and in vitro ubiquitination studies were used to study the role of the Hsp70-Bim PPI in parkin-mediated ubiquitination of outer mitochondrial membrane 20 (TOMM20). Results We found that after the establishment of their PPI, Hsp70 and Bim form a complex with parkin and TOMM20, which in turn facilitates parkin translocation to mitochondria, TOMM20 ubiquitination and mitophagic flux independent of Bax/Bak. Moreover, S1g-2 selectively inhibits stress-induced mitophagy without interfering with basal autophagy. Conclusions The findings highlight the dual protective function of the Hsp70-Bim PPI in regulating both mitophagy and apoptosis. S1g-2 is thus a newly discovered antitumor drug candidate that drives both mitophagy and cell death via apoptosis. Graphical Abstract

Abstract Objective To investigate the value of 3.0T MRI multi‐directional diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) combined with T2WI morphological features and lesion distribution in preoperative prediction of muscle layer invasion of bladder cancer (BC) and the correlation with postoperative Ki‐67. Materials and Methods This retrospective study enrolled patients with BC between 2019 and 2021. Patients with muscular invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) or non‐muscular invasive BC (NMIBC) were also analyzed by preoperative 3.0T MRI aFostic efficacy. Results A total of 186 patients were enrolled. About 27 patients with MIBC (35 lesions in total) and 62 with NMIBC (99 lesions in total). We found the tumor with a larger size, a wide base, and a smaller apparent dispersion coefficient (ADC) value and normalized ADC(nADC) value, without a stalk, presenting a greater risk of muscle invasion. ADC value, nADC value, maximum diameter, and stalk were independently associated with muscle invasion. Lesions located at the bladder fundus or involvement of multiple sites were independently associated with muscle invasion compared to the bladder body. In combination with morphological features, the AUCs of ADC and nADC showed accuracies of 0.925 and 0.947–0.951, respectively. TADC and nTADC showed the best diagnostic efficacy in multiple respects. KI‐67 LI was negatively correlated with ADC and nADC values. Conclusions This is the first report in which we found Multi‐directional DWI combined with T2WI in 3.0T MRI can be used to predict the muscle layer invasion of bladder cancer. ADC values reflect the muscular invasion of bladder cancer and show a moderate negative correlation with Ki‐67. It is especially suitable for bladder cancer patients with renal insufficiency or tumor recurrence.

The necrotrophic fungus Rhizoctonia cerealis is the causal agent of devastating diseases of cereal crops including wheat (Triticum aestivum). We present a high-quality genome assembly of R. cerealis Rc207, a virulent strain causing wheat sharp eyespot. The assembly (56.36 Mb) is composed of 17.87% repeat sequences and 14,433 predicted protein-encoding genes. The Rc207 genome encodes a large and diverse set of genes involved in pathogenicity, especially rich in those encoding secreted proteins, carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes), peptidases, nucleases, cytochrome P450, and secondary metabolism-associated enzymes. Most secretory protein-encoding genes, including CAZymes, peroxygenases, dehydrogenases, and cytochrome P450, were up-regulated during fungal infection of wheat. We identified 831 candidate secretory effectors and validated the functions of 10 up-regulated candidate effector proteins. Of them, nine were confirmed as necrotrophic pathogen’s effectors promoting fungal infection. Abundant potential mobile or plastic genomic regions rich in repeat sequences suggest their roles in fungal adaption and virulence-associated genomic evolution. This study provides valuable resources for further comparative and functional genomics on important fungal pathogens, and provides essential tools for development of effective disease control strategies.

In order to achieve time–frequency superresolution in comparison to the conventional Wigner distribution (WD), this study generalizes the well-known τ-Wigner distribution (τ-WD) with only one parameter τ to the multiple-parameter matrix-Wigner distribution (M-WD) with the parameter matrix M. According to operator theory, we construct Heisenberg’s inequalities on the uncertainty product in M-WD domains and formulate two kinds of attainable lower bounds dependent on M. We solve the problem of lower bound minimization and obtain the optimality condition of M, under which the M-WD achieves superior time–frequency resolution. It turns out that the M-WD breaks through the limitation of the τ-WD and gives birth to some novel distributions other than the WD that could generate the highest time–frequency resolution. As an example, the two-dimensional linear frequency-modulated signal is carried out to demonstrate the time–frequency concentration superiority of the M-WD over the short-time Fourier transform and wavelet transform.

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) offer comprehensive position, navigation, and timing (PNT) estimates worldwide. Given the growing demand for reliable location awareness in both indoor and outdoor contexts, the advent of fifth-generation mobile communication technology (5G) has enabled expansive coverage and precise positioning services. However, the power received by the signal of interest (SOI) at terminals is notably low. This can lead to significant jamming, whether intentional or unintentional, which can adversely affect positioning receivers. The diagnosis of jamming types, such as classification, assists receivers in spectrum sensing and choosing effective mitigation strategies. Traditional jamming diagnosis methodologies predominantly depend on the expertise of classification experts, often demonstrating a lack of adaptability for diverse tasks. Recently, researchers have begun utilizing convolutional neural networks to re-conceptualize a jamming diagnosis as an image classification issue, thereby augmenting recognition performance. However, in real-world scenarios, the assumptions of independent and homogeneous distributions are frequently violated. This discrepancy between the source and target distributions frequently leads to subpar model performance on the test set or an inability to procure usable evaluation samples during training. In this paper, we introduce LJCD-Net, a deep adversarial migration-based cross-domain jamming generalization diagnostic network. LJCD-Net capitalizes on a fully labeled source domain and multiple unlabeled auxiliary domains to generate shared feature representations with generalization capabilities. Initially, our paper proposes an uncertainty-guided auxiliary domain labeling weighting strategy, which estimates the multi-domain sample uncertainty to re-weight the classification loss and specify the gradient optimization direction. Subsequently, from a probabilistic distribution standpoint, the spatial constraint imposed on the cross-domain global jamming time-frequency feature distribution facilitates the optimization of collaborative objectives. These objectives include minimizing both the source domain classification loss and auxiliary domain classification loss, as well as optimizing the inter-domain marginal probability and conditional probability distribution. Experimental results demonstrate that LJCD-Net enhances the recognition accuracy and confidence compared to five other diagnostic methods.

Mouse adenoviruses (MAdV) play important roles in studying host–adenovirus interaction. However, easy-to-use reverse genetics systems are still lacking for MAdV. An infectious plasmid pKRMAV1 was constructed by ligating genomic DNA of wild-type MAdV-1 with a PCR product containing a plasmid backbone through Gibson assembly. A fragment was excised from pKRMAV1 by restriction digestion and used to generate intermediate plasmid pKMAV1-ER, which contained E3, fiber, E4, and E1 regions of MAdV-1. CMV promoter-controlled GFP expression cassette was inserted downstream of the pIX gene in pKMAV1-ER and then transferred to pKRMAV1 to generate adenoviral plasmid pKMAV1-IXCG. Replacement of transgene could be conveniently carried out between dual BstZ17I sites in pKMAV1-IXCG by restriction-assembly, and a series of adenoviral plasmids were generated. Recombinant viruses were rescued after transfecting linearized adenoviral plasmids to mouse NIH/3T3 cells. MAdV-1 viruses carrying GFP or firefly luciferase genes were characterized in gene transduction, plaque-forming, and replication in vitro or in vivo by observing the expression of reporter genes. The results indicated that replication-competent vectors presented relevant properties of wild-type MAdV-1 very well. By constructing viruses bearing exogenous fragments with increasing size, it was found that MAdV-1 could tolerate an insertion up to 3.3 kb. Collectively, a replication-competent MAdV-1 vector system was established, which simplified procedures for the change of transgene or modification of E1, fiber, E3, or E4 genes.

The stability of cement sheath under high temperature and high pressure is one of the most critical issues for the durability of geothermal well systems. In this study, a two-dimensional plane-strain finite element code was developed to investigate the coupled thermo-mechanical behaviors of the casing-cement-formation system. Different from previous linear elastic analyses, a thermoelasto-plastic constitutive model based on the thermodynamic theory was adopted for the cement sheath. It is shown that the finite element simulations using the proposed model provide a more accurate and realistic prediction of stress–strain responses of the cement sheath under high temperature. The results demonstrate that the radial stress concentration and the tensile strain concentration occur at both the cement–casing interface and the cement–formation interface, where the cement sheath is most likely to fail. High strength and low stiffness in the cement sheath and the formation are preferred for the integrity of the system. Both large thermal cycles and large differences between the internal fluid pressure and the external pressure should be avoided during operation. The new code is an alternative tool for guiding the geothermal well design. The finite element framework described herein is universal for other thermo-mechanical applications, such as energy foundations and energy tunnels.

Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of Kinesio taping (KT) combined with multi-angle isometric resistance training for cervical spondylosis. Methods Sixty-one patients were divided into two groups by random number table method. Both groups were given multi-angle isometric training, the patients in the observation group were supplemented with Kinesio taping. Before and after treatment, the symptoms of cervical spine function were evaluated in two groups by visual analogue scale (VAS), cervical dysfunction index (NDI), cervical range of motion and muscle stiffness. Results After 3 weeks of treatment, VAS, NDI scores and the cervical range of motion were significantly better than before (P

Understory vegetation contributes considerably to biodiversity and total aboveground biomass of forest ecosystems. Whereas field inventories and LiDAR data are generally used to estimate understory vegetation density, methods for large-scale and spatially continuous estimation of understory vegetation density are still lacking. For an evergreen coniferous forest area in southern China, we developed and tested an effective and practical remote sensing-driven approach for mapping understory vegetation, based on phenological differences between over and understory vegetation. Specifically, we used plant area volume density (PAVD) calculations based on GEDI data to train a support vector regression model and subsequently estimated the understory vegetation density from Sentinel-2 derived metrics. We produced maps of PAVD for the growing and non-growing season respectively, both performing well compared against independent GEDI samples (R2 = 0.89 and 0.93, p

Abstract Background Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), as important regulators, play important roles in plant growth and development. The expression and epigenetic regulation of lncRNAs remain uncharacterized generally in plant seeds, especially in the transient endosperm of the dicotyledons. Results In this study, we identified 11,840 candidate lncRNAs in 12 day-after-pollination sunflower endosperm by analyzing RNA-seq data. These lncRNAs were evenly distributed in all chromosomes and had specific features that were distinct from mRNAs including tissue-specificity expression, shorter and fewer exons. By GO analysis of protein coding genes showing strong correlation with the lncRNAs, we revealed that these lncRNAs potential function in many biological processes of seed development. Additionally, genome-wide DNA methylation analyses revealed that the level of DNA methylation at the transcription start sites was negatively correlated with gene expression levels in lncRNAs. Finally, 36 imprinted lncRNAs were identified including 32 maternally expressed lncRNAs and four paternally expressed lncRNAs. In CG and CHG context, DNA methylation levels of imprinted lncRNAs in the upstream and gene body regions were slightly lower in the endosperm than that in embryo tissues, which indicated that the maternal demethylation potentially induce the paternally bias expression of imprinted lncRNAs in sunflower endosperm. Conclusion Our findings not only identified and characterized lncRNAs on a genome-wide scale in the development of sunflower endosperm, but also provide novel insights into the parental effects and epigenetic regulation of lncRNAs in dicotyledonous seeds.

In animal models, maternal obesity is associated with development of neurodevelopmental disorder like phenotypes. Here the authors show in a macaque model that in obese dams, cell-free fetal DNA methylation, inflammatory cytokines, and metabolites correlated with infant brain DNA methylation, lipids, and metabolites.

Abstract Background The laboratory mouse was domesticated from the wild house mouse. Understanding the genetics underlying domestication in laboratory mice, especially in the widely used classical inbred mice, is vital for studies using mouse models. However, the genetic mechanism of laboratory mouse domestication remains unknown due to lack of adequate genomic sequences of wild mice. Results We analyze the genetic relationships by whole-genome resequencing of 36 wild mice and 36 inbred strains. All classical inbred mice cluster together distinctly from wild and wild-derived inbred mice. Using nucleotide diversity analysis, Fst, and XP-CLR, we identify 339 positively selected genes that are closely associated with nervous system function. Approximately one third of these positively selected genes are highly expressed in brain tissues, and genetic mouse models of 125 genes in the positively selected genes exhibit abnormal behavioral or nervous system phenotypes. These positively selected genes show a higher ratio of differential expression between wild and classical inbred mice compared with all genes, especially in the hippocampus and frontal lobe. Using a mutant mouse model, we find that the SNP rs27900929 (T>C) in gene Astn2 significantly reduces the tameness of mice and modifies the ratio of the two Astn2 (a/b) isoforms. Conclusion Our study indicates that classical inbred mice experienced high selection pressure during domestication under laboratory conditions. The analysis shows the positively selected genes are closely associated with behavior and the nervous system in mice. Tameness may be related to the Astn2 mutation and regulated by the ratio of the two Astn2 (a/b) isoforms.

Cysteine sulfinate decarboxylase (CSAD) is a rate-limiting enzyme in taurine biosynthesis. In this study, the structure and expression characteristics of the RpCSAD gene in Ruditapes philippinarum were analyzed. The pyridoxal phosphate (PLP)-dependent amino acid carboxylase structural domains and catalytic active sites of six copies of RpCSAD were highly conserved. Tissue expression analysis demonstrated that RpCSAD1 and RpCSAD3-6 was primarily expressed in the mantle tissue, and RpCSAD2 in the water tube and gonad tissue. After exposure to hyposalinity stress, the expression levels of RpCSADs were found to be upregulated in all three shell-colored groups of clams. Remarkably, there was a pronounced increase in the expression of RpCSAD1-6 observed specifically in the zebra shell-color groups. These findings strongly suggest the involvement of taurine metabolism in the response of zebra shell-color clams to low salinity stress, thereby emphasizing its critical role in the adaptation mechanisms. These findings could contribute to a better understanding the mechanisms of osmotic stress tolerance in shellfish.

Abstract The structures of anode materials significantly affect their properties in rechargeable batteries. Material nanosizing and electrode integrity are both beneficial for performance enhancement of batteries, but it is challenging to guarantee optimized nanosizing particles and high structural integrity simultaneously. Herein, a programmable assembly strategy of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) is used to construct a Sn‐based MOF superstructure precursor. After calcination under inert atmosphere, the as‐fabricated Sn3(PO4)2@phosphorus doped carbon (Sn3(PO4)2@PC‐48) well inherited the morphology of Sn‐MOF superstructure precursor. The resultant new material exhibits appreciable reversible capacity and low capacity degradation for K+ storage (144.0 mAh g−1 at 5 A g−1 with 90.1% capacity retained after 10000 cycles) and Na+ storage (202.5 mAh g−1 at 5 A g−1 with 96.0% capacity retained after 8000 cycles). Detailed characterizations, density functional theory calculations, and finite element analysis simulations reveal that the optimized electronic structure and the stress‐dispersed superstructure morphology of Sn3(PO4)2@PC promote the electronic conductivity, enhance K+/ Na+ binding ability and improve the structure stabilization efficiently. This strategy to optimize the structure of anode materials by controlling the MOF growth process offer new dimension to regulate the materials precisely in the energy field.

The J-TEXT capability is enhanced compared to two years ago with several upgrades of its diagnostics and the increase of electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) power to 1 MW. With the application of electron cyclotron wave (ECW), the ECW assisted plasma startup is achieved; the tearing mode is suppressed; the toroidal injection of 300 kW ECW drives around 24 kA current; fast electrons are generated with toroidal injected ECW and the runaway current conversion efficiency increases with ECRH power. The mode coupling between 2/1 and 3/1 modes are extensively studied. The coupled 2/1 and 3/1 modes usually lead to major disruption. Their coupling can be either suppressed or avoided by external resonant magnetic perturbation fields and hence avoids the major disruption. It is also found that the 2/1 threshold of external field is significantly reduced by a pre-excited 3/1 mode, which can be either a locked island or an external kink mode. The disruption control is studied by developing prediction methods capable of cross tokamak application and by new mitigation methods, such as the biased electrode or electromagnetic pellet injector. The high-density operation and related disruptions are studied from various aspects. Approaching the density limit, the collapse of the edge shear layer is observed and such collapse can be prevented by applying edge biasing, leading to an increased density limit. The density limit is also observed to increase, if the plasma is operated in the poloidal divertor configuration or the plasma purity is increased by increasing the pre-filled gas pressure or ECRH power during the start-up phase.

The metabolic network plays a crucial role in regulating bacterial metabolism and growth, but it is subject to inherent molecular stochasticity. Previous studies have utilized flux balance analysis and the maximum entropy method to predict metabolic fluxes and growth rates, while the underlying principles governing bacterial metabolism and growth, especially the criticality hypothesis, remain unclear. In this study, we employ a maximum entropy approach to investigate the universality in various constraint-based metabolic networks of Escherichia coli. Our findings reveal the existence of universal scaling relations across different nutritional environments and metabolic network models, similarly to the universality observed in physics. By analyzing single-cell data, we confirm that metabolism of E. coli operates close to the state with maximum Fisher information, which serves as a signature of criticality. This critical state provides functional advantages such as high sensitivity and long-range correlation. Moreover, we demonstrate that a metabolic system operating at criticality takes a compromise solution between growth and adaptation, thereby serving as a survival strategy in fluctuating environments.

Hormones are important signaling molecules controlling physiological homeostasis. ELISA kits are commonly used to measure hormones; however, few ELISA kits are multiplex, not all species-specific ELISA kits are commercially available, and ELISA kits typically require a significant volume of biological fluids. Pigs resemble humans in digestive physiology, making them an excellent model in preclinical research of nutrition and metabolism. In this study, we developed and validated a simple liquid–liquid extraction procedure and LC-MS/MS method for the simultaneous quantification of insulin, cortisol, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) (7-37) and (7-36), acyl and des-acyl ghrelin, and carboxylated osteocalcin in pig serum. The proposed method is specific, highly sensitive (LOQ in ng/mL and pg/mL), reasonably accurate (more than 76.2% of all quality control samples within 20% error from nominal values), and precise (intra-day CV ≤ 10% and inter-day CV ≤ 23.1%). The recoveries of all analytes and corresponding internal standards ranged from 83.7 to 116.0%. The method also requires a low serum volume of 50–100 μL, which is invaluable when sample volume is limited. These methods could be easily extended for use in other mammalian species.

SiCp/Al composite materials are widely used in various industries such as the aerospace and the electronics industries, primarily due to their excellent material properties. However, their machinability is significantly weakened due to their unique characteristics. Consequently, efficient and precise machining technology for SiCp/Al composite materials has become a crucial research area. By conducting a comprehensive analysis of the relevant research literature from both domestic and international sources, this study examines the processing mechanism, as well as the turning, milling, drilling, grinding, special machining, and hybrid machining characteristics, of SiCp/Al composite materials. Moreover, it summarizes the latest research progress in composite material processing while identifying the existing problems and shortcomings in this area. The aim of this review is to enhance the machinability of SiCp/Al composite materials and promote high-quality and efficient processing methods.

Hyperspectral image (HSIs) denoising is a preprocessing step that plays a crucial role in many applications used in Earth observation missions. Low-rank tensor representation can be utilized to restore mixed-noise HSIs, such as those affected by mixed Gaussian, impulse, stripe, and deadline noises. Although there is a considerable body of research on spatial and spectral prior knowledge concerning subspace, the correlation between the spectral continuity and the nonlocal sparsity of the spectral and spatial factors is not yet fully understood. To address this deficiency, in the present study, we determined the correlation between these factors using a cascaded technique, and we describe in this paper the double-factor tensor cascaded-rank (DFTCR) minimization method that was used. The information existing in the nonlocal sparsity property of the spatial factor was employed to promote a geometrical feature representation, and a tensor cascaded-rank minimization approach was introduced as a nonlocal self-similarity to promote restoration quality. The continuity between the difference and nonlocal gradient sparsity constraints of the spectral factor was also introduced to learn the basis. Furthermore, to estimate the solutions of the proposed model, we developed an algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The performance of the DFTCR method was tested by a comparison with eleven established denoising methods for HSIs. The results showed that the proposed DFTCR method exhibited superior performance in the removal of mixed noise from HSIs.

Objective The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of 4-month intensive feeding on the meat quality, fatty acid profile, flavor, and growth performance of grazing Hulunbuir sheep (HBS). Methods The HBS were selected 4-months after birth in a pasture rearing system as the experimental animals (n = 44, female, average body weight 23.8±2.2 kg) then divided equally into pasture-based grazing fattening (PAS) and concentrate-included intensive fattening (CON) groups for another 4-month finishing. When finished fattening, all animals were slaughtered to collect musculus longissimus dorsi subcutaneous adipose tissue and to investigate the influences on meat quality, fatty acid profile, flavor and growth performance. Results The results showed lambs in CON group got significantly higher live weight, hot carcass weight, and dressing percentage. The CON group had significantly higher value of redness (a*), lightness (L*) and water holding capacity (p

Abstract Introduction To describe our initial experience with ileal ureteral replacement (IUR) for the management of ureteral avulsion (UA) during ureteroscopic lithotripsy. Methods Between September 2010 and April 2021, ten patients received ileal ureteral replacement for ureteral avulsion during ureteroscopic lithotripsy. Anterograde urography and computed tomography urography (CTU) were applied to evaluate the lesion. Follow-up was performed with magnetic resonance urography and renal ultrasound as well as clinical assessment of symptoms. We retrospectively analysed the clinical data of ten patients treated with ileal ureteral replacement for the treatment of ureteral avulsion. Results Four patients underwent open ileal ureteral replacement, two underwent laparoscopic ileal ureteral replacement, and four underwent robotic-assisted ileal ureteral replacement. The mean operative time (OT) was 310 min (range 191–530). The mean estimated blood loss (EBL) was 193 mL (range 10–1000). The mean length of the ileal graft was 21 cm (range 12–25). The median postoperative hospital time was 13 days (range 7–19). All surgeries were effectively completed, and no case required open conversion in laparoscopic and robotic-assisted surgeries. There was no obvious hydronephrosis according to contrast-enhanced computed tomography 3-dimensional reconstruction images without serious complications or progressive hydronephrosis during a median follow-up duration of 51 months (range 5–131), and the success rate was 100%. Conclusions Our initial results and experience showed that ileal ureteral replacement for the management of ureteral avulsion during ureteroscopic lithotripsy is safe and feasible.

Abstract The past decade has witnessed a rapid growth of graphene plasmonics and their applications in different fields. Compared with conventional plasmonic materials, graphene enables highly confined plasmons with much longer lifetimes. Moreover, graphene plasmons work in an extended wavelength range, i.e., mid-infrared and terahertz regime, overlapping with the fingerprints of most organic and biomolecules, and have broadened their applications towards plasmonic biological and chemical sensors. In this review, we discuss intrinsic plasmonic properties of graphene and strategies both for tuning graphene plasmons as well as achieving higher performance by integrating graphene with plasmonic nanostructures. Next, we survey applications of graphene and graphene-hybrid materials in biosensors, chemical sensors, optical sensors, and sensors in other fields. Lastly, we conclude this review by providing a brief outlook and challenges of the field. Through this review, we aim to provide an overall picture of graphene plasmonic sensing and to suggest future trends of development of graphene plasmonics.