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ObjectiveParkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in the world, and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and PD are influenced by common genetic and environmental factors. Mitochondrial dysfunction and inflammation are common pathogenic mechanisms of both diseases. However, the close association between PD and T2DM and the specific relationship between them are not yet clear. This study aimed to reveal the specific connection between the two diseases by establishing a mouse model of comorbid PD and T2DM, as well as a Bv2 cell model.MethodsC57BL/6 mouse were used to construct a model of PD with T2DM using streptozotocin and rotenone, while Bv2 cells were used to simulate the microenvironment of PD and T2DM using rotenone and palmitate. Behavioral tests were conducted to assess any differences in motor and cognitive functions in mouse. Immunohistochemistry was used to analyze the number of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra region of mouse. Western blotting was used to detect the expression levels of TH, P-NFκB, NFκB, Cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS), and Stimulator of interferon genes (STING) proteins in the substantia nigra region of mouse and Bv2 cells. qRT-PCR was used to analyze the expression levels of IL1β, IL6, and TNF-α. Seahorse technology was used to assess mitochondrial function in Bv2 cells.Results:T2DM exacerbated the motor and cognitive symptoms in mouse with PD. This effect may be mediated by disrupting mitochondrial function in microglial cells, leading to damaged mtDNA leakage into the cytoplasm, subsequently activating the cGAS-STING pathway and downstream P-NFκB/NFκB proteins, triggering an inflammatory response in microglial cells. Microglial cells release inflammatory factors such as IL1β, IL6, and TNF-α, exacerbating neuronal damage caused by PD.ConclusionOur study results suggest that T2DM may exacerbate the progression of PD by damaging mitochondrial function, and activating microglial cell inflammation. The detrimental effects on Parkinson’s disease may be achieved through the activating of the cGAS-STING protein pathway.

The urban park system (UPS) is an essential determinant of a city’s vitality and construction quality, playing an important role in the process of the high-quality construction of new urbanization. To explore the coupling and coordination relationship between UPSs and urbanization, a multidimensional evaluation system for urbanization and UPSs is constructed for 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2020, and the indexes are calculated using the entropy weight method. Then, a coupling coordination degree (CCD) model and relative development degree (RDD) model are used to comprehensively analyze the spatiotemporal evolutionary pattern in the coupling coordination between systems from a systematic perspective to a holistic perspective. On this basis, the spatial clustering of the CCD is identified by spatial autocorrelation methods. The research results indicate the following: (1) The urbanization indexes and UPS index both improved over the research period and both exhibit a significantly higher index in eastern provinces than in other regions. (2) The CCD between systems generally improved to a higher level overall. The spatiotemporal patterns indicate that the CCD showed a trend of deepening development from the edge to the middle. (3) Regarding the RDD, there was a widespread lack of synergy between UPSs and urbanization systems. In 2020, most provinces showed that the development of UPSs lagged behind urbanization. (4) The cold and hot spots of spatial clustering revealed a spatial evolution and migration trend, albeit to a limited extent. The cold spots were always distributed in the west with a gradually shrinking scope, while the hot spots were concentrated in the east, with their scope gradually expanding.

To better understand the phased changes, development direction and planning challenges of urban green space (UGS) in response to the urbanization process and changing urban development goals, this study examines the spatiotemporal variations, landscape patterns and driving forces of UGSs in Changchun from 1990 to 2020. The results indicate that the evolution of UGSs may be largely categorized into three stages, considerable decline, balance between increase and decrease, and surge increase, accompanied by obvious changes to the landscape. Several factors have contributed to these changes, including natural, urbanization and changing greening policies. Early urbanization resulted in the encroachment and fragmentation of a considerable amount of UGS; however, as urban building priorities have changed, UGS planning has increasingly gained attention. In the third decade of the research period, UGSs greatly expanded, demonstrating some achievements in the construction of UGSs under the background of ecological civilization. Knowledge of the dynamics of UGSs provides a reference for urban greening planning, which also helps cities respond to the call for land “ecological use, ecological security and green development” during the urbanization process in China and similar countries.

Identification and assessment of heavy-metal (HM) contamination in soil–crop systems are prerequisites for treating contamination of cultivated land. Traditional assessment methods focus primarily on total soil HM concentrations, whereas the assessment of HMs that occur in available forms or are accumulated by crops is increasingly considered essential for evaluating land contamination. Until now, there has been a lack of methods to adequately quantify the contamination status of soil–crop agroecosystems. We propose a ‘trinity’ assessment method covering total, available, and accumulated HMs involving a catastrophe-progression method and fusion algorithm. A typical urban–rural transition zone in NE China was selected for demonstration of the method and to identify HM spatial patterns associated with the impact of urbanization using GIS-based bivariate Moran's I analysis. Results indicate a spatial mismatch between total, available, and accumulated HM concentrations. Traditional methods indicate that soil–crop systems generally have less contamination and lower risk levels, whereas contaminated areas defined more holistically by the trinity method have a decreasing urban–rural trend. Furthermore, the bivariate Moran's I analysis indicates that land-use conflicts cause spatial clustering of HM contamination in cultivated lands where urbanization and industrialization have led to HM accumulation. Cluster patterns are significantly associated with the transition from urban to rural areas. These findings suggest that the trinity soil–crop system provides a practical tool for the quantitative assessment of the HM contamination status of peri-urban agriculture in major grain-producing areas, aiding the development of managerial strategies to prevent the occurrence of ecological hazards.

Scientific functional zone planning is the key to achieving long-term development goals for cities. The rapid development of remote sensing technology allows for the identification of urban functional zones, which is important since they serve as basic spatial units for urban planning and functioning. The accuracy of three methods—kernel density estimation, term frequency-inverse document frequency, and deep learning—for detecting urban functional zones was investigated using the Gaode points of interest, high-resolution satellite images, and OpenStreetMap. Kuancheng District was divided into twenty-one functional types (five single functional types and twenty mixed ones). The results showed that an approach using deep learning had a higher accuracy than the other two methods for delineating four out of five functions (excluding the commercial function) when compared with a field survey. The field survey showed that Kuancheng District was progressing towards completing the goals of the Land-Use Plan of the Central City of Changchun (2011–2020). Based on these findings, we illustrate the feasibility of identifying urban functional areas and lay out a framework for transforming them. Our results can guide the adjustment of the urban spatial structure and provide a reference basis for the scientific and reasonable development of urban land-use planning.

Abstract Regenerative heart valve prostheses are essential for treating valvular heart disease, which requested interactive materials that can adapt to the tissue remodeling process. Such materials typically involves intricate designs with multiple active components, limiting their translational potential. This study introduces a facile method to engineer interactive materials for heart valve regeneration using 1,1’-thiocarbonyldiimidazole (TCDI) chemistry. TCDI crosslinking forms cleavable thiourea and thiocarbamate linkages which could gradually release H2S during degradation, therefore regulates the immune microenvironment and accelerates tissue remodeling. By employing this approach, a double network hydrogel was formed on decellularized heart valves (DHVs), showcasing robust anti-calcification and anti-thrombosis properties post fatigue testing. Post-implantation, the DHVs could adaptively degrade during recellularization, releasing H2S to further support tissue regeneration. Therefore, the comprehensive endothelial cell coverage and notable extracellular matrix remodeling could be clearly observed. This accessible and integrated strategy effectively overcomes various limitations of bioprosthetic valves, showing promise as an attractive approach for immune modulation of biomaterials.

Introduction Metabolic dysfunction associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) is a prevalent condition in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Isthmin-1 (ISM1) is an adipokine that promotes glucose uptake and improves glucose tolerance and hepatic steatosis. Although ISM1 has been shown to be associated with T2DM, its role in patients with MAFLD and metabolic syndrome (MetS) remains insufficiently examined. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum ISM1 and MAFLD in patients with T2DM and the potential involvement of MetS in this association.Research design and methods A total of 250 participants were divided into four groups: 60 patients with T2DM and MAFLD, 60 with newly diagnosed T2DM, 60 with MAFLD, and 70 healthy controls. Serum ISM1 levels were measured using ELISA. The distribution of ISM1 concentration in the combined data was divided into quartiles, and the Cochran-Armitage trend test was performed to estimate the significant trends across increasing quartiles.Results Compared with the controls, patients with coexisting MAFLD, MetS, and T2DM exhibited significantly elevated serum ISM1 concentrations. Serum ISM1 levels in the overweight/obese group were also higher than those in the lean group. Serum ISM1 levels were positively correlated with body mass index (BMI), uric acid, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting insulin, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance and negatively associated with age and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). BMI, TC, and HDL-C were independently associated with serum ISM1 concentration. The relative risks for MAFLD, T2DM, and T2DM with MAFLD increased significantly with higher ISM1 quartiles. Furthermore, a positive correlation was observed between serum ISM1 levels and the number of MetS components, with the elevated plasma levels of ISM1 escalating the risk of developing MetS to some extent.Conclusions The combination of ISM1 with TG and UA was identified as the best predictive factor for diagnosing MAFLD and MetS, potentially due to their contribution to aggravating the metabolic state.

Soft adhesive systems (SASs), which consist of a soft adhesive layer and/or soft adherends, have been extensively applied in advanced fields such as biomedicine, flexible electronics, and soft robotics. Understanding the fatigue failure of SASs is crucial for ensuring their structural safety and functional stability, as they are often subjected to fatigue loading. This paper systematically reviews the fatigue failure of SASs, aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding and contribute to the study of fatigue failure mechanisms and lifetime prediction of SASs. The review starts by introducing classical research methods for fatigue failure of adhesive systems, with a focus on total fatigue lifetime and fatigue crack growth (FCG). After summarizing the complexity of fatigue failure in SASs, it provides an overview of fatigue research for the three types of SASs: “soft interface”, “soft adherend”, and “soft-soft” adhesive systems. Then, the relations between the fatigue failure and energy dissipation of various SASs are specifically discussed noting that significant energy dissipation accompanying the cyclic deformation of SASs during fatigue loading can substantially affect the final fatigue failure of SASs. Finally, the current unresolved issues and challenges in this field are presented.

Abstract Background Percutaneous left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) has been rapidly evolving since FDA’s approval in 2015 and has become more of a same-day-discharge procedure. Cancer patient with atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF) population can benefit from the procedure but the in-hospital outcomes and readmission data were rarely studied. Objectives We investigated the utilization, in-hospital and readmission outcomes in cancer patients with AF who underwent LAAO. Methods Data were derived from the National Inpatient Sample and National Readmissions Database from 2016 to 2019. Patients with primary diagnosis of AF admitted for LAAO (ICD-10 code 02L73DK) were grouped by cancer as a secondary diagnosis. We assessed in-hospital mortality, length of stay, total hospital charges, and complications. Thirty-day readmission rates were compared. Results LAAO was performed in 60,380 patients with AF and 3% were cancer patients. There were no differences in in-hospital mortality and total hospital charges; however, cancer patients tended to have longer hospital stay (1.59 ± 0.11 vs. 1.32 ± 0.02, p = 0.013). Among complications, cancer patients had higher rates in open or percutaneous pericardial drainage (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.38; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.19–4.76) and major bleeding events (aOR 7.07; 95% CI 1.82–27.38). There was no statistical significance of 30-day readmission rates between patients with and without cancer (10.0% vs. 9.1%, p = 0.34). The most common readmission reason in cancer patients was gastrointestinal bleeding. Conclusions LAAO is a promising procedure in cancer patients complicated by AF with contraindication to anticoagulation. Readmission rate is comparable between patients with and without cancer.

Phosphotungstic acid (HPW) can retain water in proton exchange membranes to increase proton conductivity; however, its water-soluble nature limits further application. In this work, we combined HPW and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) via sintering to prepare water-insoluble hybrids (HWN), where HPW was chemically linked to g-C3N4 to fix HPW. Then, HWN fillers were added to a sulfonated polyether ether ketone (SPEEK) matrix to prepare composite membranes. The conductivity of the composite membrane with 10 wt% HWN is up to 0.066 S cm−1 at room temperature, which is 53% higher than that of the SPEEK control membrane (0.043 S cm−1). The composite membrane also showed stable proton conductivity after being immersed in water for 2000 h. Therefore, our study demonstrates that preparing water-insoluble nanofillers containing HPW components through sintering is a promising approach.

Polypropylene (PP) is regarded as a recyclable material for high-voltage direct current (HVDC) cable insulation due to its high melting point and electrical resistivity. This work focuses on the effect of the β-nucleating agent content on the electrical tree growth characteristics in isotactic PP (iPP) insulation. The results demonstrate that adding β-nucleating agents promotes the growth of β-crystals while limiting the α-crystal content. The crystallinity improves with the reduction in the average size of spherulites due to the addition of a β-nucleating agent with 0.1 wt% content. Electrical tree experiments show that the electrical tree growth rate declines as the nucleating agent content rises from 0 to 0.1 wt%. Meanwhile, the expansion coefficient increases with higher nucleating agent content. Continuous increases in the nucleate agent content result in the upward growth rate of electrical trees. When the nucleating agent content is below 0.1 wt%, the α–β-crystal interface introduced by the agent suppresses carrier migration and limits impact ionization, leading to the slower growth rate of the electrical tree. Further addition of the nucleate agent induces a β–β-crystal interface with weak coupling in carriers. It is concluded that β-nucleating agent-modified PP with 0.1 wt% content has potential application in HVDC cable insulation.

Electrical treeing is an inevitable phenomenon during the operation of cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) cables installed in the underground and humid environment, which is the direct reason for insulation failure. This work focuses on the issue of electrical trees in XLPE insulation and growth stage recognition of treeing stage. The partial discharge (PD) characteristics during different tree growth modes were recorded in the form of $\varphi $ -q-n patterns. A growth model of electrical trees considering PD process was investigated. The discharge energy was computed, and the relationship between PD characteristics and growth modes of electrical trees was analyzed. A recognition method of the growth stages of electrical trees was given. It was found that PD is mainly distributed in the rising stage of applied voltage, which is the typical characteristic of internal discharge. Tree growth speed depends on the discharge energy that periodically changes during treeing. The increase in PD energy promotes the growth of electrical trees. The growth stage of electrical trees in the rapid growth mode can be recognized by the sparse representation with a recognition accuracy of 90%.

The task of the detection of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is of great significance to social communication security. Infrared detection technology has the advantage of not being interfered with by environmental and other factors and can detect UAVs in complex environments. Since infrared detection equipment is expensive and data collection is difficult, there are few existing UAV-based infrared images, making it difficult to train deep neural networks; in addition, there are background clutter and noise in infrared images, such as heavy clouds, buildings, etc. The signal-to-clutter ratio is low, and the signal-to-noise ratio is low. Therefore, it is difficult to achieve the UAV detection task using traditional methods. The above challenges make infrared UAV detection a difficult task. In order to solve the above problems, this work drew upon the visual processing mechanism of the human brain to propose an effective framework for UAV detection in infrared images. The framework first determines the relevant parameters of the continuous-coupled neural network (CCNN) through the image’s standard deviation, mean, etc. Then, it inputs the image into the CCNN, groups the pixels through iteration, then obtains the segmentation result through expansion and erosion, and finally, obtains the final result through the minimum circumscribed rectangle. The experimental results showed that, compared with the existing most-advanced brain-inspired image-understanding methods, this framework has the best intersection over union (IoU) (the intersection over union is the overlapping area between the predicted segmentation and the label divided by the joint area between the predicted segmentation and the label) in UAV infrared images, with an average of 74.79% (up to 97.01%), and can effectively realize the task of UAV detection.

Abstract Polarity‐reversal voltage in high‐voltage direct current transmission system would cause serious electric field distortion, accelerating charge injection. The effect of polarity reversal on charge transport characteristics in silicone rubber (SiR)/silicon carbide (SiC) composites with nonlinear conductivity at different temperatures is studied. The charge transport characteristics of silicone rubber/silicon carbide composites under unipolarity voltage and polarity‐reversal voltage at 30°C, 70°C and 90°C are obtained by the isothermal surface potential decay method, and the carrier mobility and trap characteristics of the composites are further calculated. Studies have shown that a large amount of hetero‐charge remains in silicone rubber materials under polarity‐reversal voltage, which in turn leads to intensive charge neutralisation and severe electric field distortion. The silicon carbide doped composites exhibit excellent performance in suppressing the accumulation of residual charges and weakening the charge neutralisation under polarity‐reversal voltage. In addition, high temperature enhances the conductivity of silicone rubber/silicon carbide composites and reduces the accumulation of residual charges, which restrains the distortion of the local electric field under polarity‐reversal voltage. This research shows that the application of non‐linear conductivity material is an effective measure to solve the problem of cable insulation under polarity‐reversal voltage.

Computing independent variable sets for polynomial ideals plays an important role in solving high-dimensional polynomial equations. The computation of a Gröbner basis for an ideal, with respect to a block lexicographical order in classic methods, is huge, and then an improved algorithm is given. Based on the quasi-Gröbner basis of the extended ideal, a criterion of assigning independent variables is gained. According to the criteria, a maximal independent variable set for a polynomial ideal can be computed by assigning indeterminates gradually. The key point of the algorithm is to reduce dimensions so that the unit of computation is one variable instead of a set, which turns a multivariate problem into a single-variable problem and turns the computation of rational function field into that of the fundamental number field. Hence, the computation complexity is reduced. The algorithm has been analysed by an example, and the results reveal that the algorithm is correct and effective.

Composites with nonlinear conductivity have been applied to modify the direct current (dc) electrical field distribution and accelerate the space charge dissipation in polymeric insulation. This paper focuses on the effect of nonlinear conductivity on the charge transport under an impulse superimposed on a dc voltage. The surface charge accumulation and dissipation properties of the zinc oxide (ZnO)/silicone rubber (SiR) composites under an impulse superimposed on a dc voltage are investigated by a 2-D surface potential decay test. The results prove that the homopolar impulse superimposed on the dc voltage intensifies the surface charge accumulation, leading to an increase in both the surface charge and area. Under a heteropolar impulse superimposed on a dc voltage, neutralization occurs first, and then, the heterocharges accumulate on the surface. The vertical charge transport to the ground and the horizontal movement on the surface are the two factors concerning the surface charge dissipation. The larger surface charge caused by a higher impulse voltage leads to an increase in the nonlinear conductivity, which accelerates the dissipation of the surface charge, and this effect becomes more obvious in composites with higher ZnO content. However, there is a special case, in which the positive surface charge dissipates slower in 15-wt% ZnO/SiR composites than in the undoped sample. It is deduced that the positive charges are more difficult to transport in the ZnO/SiR composites than the negative charges due to the charge transport mechanism of the n-type ZnO semiconductors with a back-to-back Schottky barrier of the grain boundary.

The characteristics of medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) include strong invasiveness, early lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. MTC is aggresive only less than anaplastic carcinoma in all thyroid malignancies. Serum calcitonin is the most sensitive tumor marker for detecting MTC, which correlates with tumor size. However, it is difficult to diagnose some MTC patients with tumor diameter greater than 1 cm and serum calcitonin negative. This review focuses on recent advances in study on MTC with diameter greater than 1 cm and serum calcitonin negative.