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Abstract Background Chondroblastoma (CBL) of the femoral head is a rare disease, typically encountered in the epiphysis of long bones, with its occurrence in the femoral head being particularly uncommon. The unique location and aggressive nature of this tumor pose substantial challenges in its treatment, leading to ongoing controversies regarding the therapeutic approaches. In this study, we introduce a technique of curettage without surgical dislocation as a treatment option for CBL in this challenging location. Methods A total of 6 children diagnosed with chondroblastoma of the femoral head underwent a surgical procedure consisting of curettage, the application of anhydrous alcohol as an adjuvant therapy, followed by bone grafting. The epiphyseal plate status of the femoral head was classified as open, closing, or closed. To evaluate the children's postoperative functional outcome, the Musculoskeletal Tumour Society (MSTS) scoring system was utilized. Additionally, the Lodwick classification was employed to assess the extent of bone destruction. Furthermore, the kappa coefficient was calculated to quantify the level of inter-observers agreement in assessing the status of the epiphyseal plate. Results The epiphyseal plate status was closing in two patients and closed in four patients. According to the Lodwick classification, one patient was classified as IA, one as IB, and four as IC. The mean MSTS score was 28. Notably, one patient developed a femoral neck fracture three months post-curettage. Conclusions Curettage without surgical dislocation, combined with the use of anhydrous alcohol as an adjuvant therapy, followed by bone grafting, constitutes an effective treatment technique for femoral head chondroblastoma.

Abstract Background Cardiovascular events secondary to stroke–collectively classified as stroke-heart syndrome–greatly impair the patient’s prognosis, however its underlying mechanism has yet to be determined. To investigate the mechanism of central neuroinflammation and its effects on stroke-heart syndrome, a temperature-ultrasound responsive brain-targeted drug delivery system, DATS/MION-LPE, was synthesized to specifically study neuroinflammation in the mouse middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model. Results The specific polymer of DATS/MION-LPE can close the nanoparticle pores at 37 °C, restricting drug release in the circulation. After the nanoparticles were targeted to brains, the polymer can be cleaved under external ultrasound irradiation, reopening the nanoparticle pores and allowing drug release, therefore directly managing the neuroinflammation. After a stroke, a significant cerebral inflammation occurred, with elevated IL-1β and pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome. Accordingly, significantly increased histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) and decreased sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) were observed. An antagonistic relationship between HDAC6 and SIRT1 was found, which can jointly regulate the cerebral NLRP3 expression. The systemic IL-1β and ATP levels were increased after the stroke, accompanied by a significant heart injury including contractile dysfunction, elevated IL-1β levels, and oxidative stress. Meanwhile, neuroinflammation can trigger sympathetic nervous overexcitation with associated heart damage. DATS/MION-LPE can targetedly effect on ischemic brain, exhibiting cerebral and cardiac protective effects including downregulated cerebral NLRP3 and HDAC6 expressions, upregulated SIRT1 expressions in brain, reduced IL-1β and ATP in circulation, and alleviated cardiac impairment. Conclusion This study introduced the key role of neuroinflammation in stroke-heart syndrome and first investigated the crucial HDAC6/SIRT1-NLRP3 circuit in this process. Heart injury secondary to stroke is mediated by neuroinflammation induced systemic inflammatory responses and sympathoexcitation. DATS/MION-LPE is a unique tool and effective therapeutic agent, which provides new insights into combinational heart and cardiac protection. Graphical Abstract

Abstract N 6-methyladenosine (m6A) represents the most prevalent internal and reversible modification on RNAs. Different cell types display their unique m6A profiles, which are determined by the functions of m6A writers and erasers. M6A modifications lead to different outcomes such as decay, stabilization, or transport of the RNAs. The m6A-encoded epigenetic information is interpreted by m6A readers and their interacting proteins. M6A readers are essential for different biological processes, and the defects in m6A readers have been discovered in diverse diseases. Here, we review the latest advances in the roles of m6A readers in development and diseases. These recent studies not only highlight the importance of m6A readers in regulating cell fate transitions, but also point to the potential application of drugs targeting m6A readers in diseases.

For orally administered drugs, palatability is key in ensuring patient acceptability and treatment compliance. Therefore, understanding children's taste sensitivity and preferences can support formulators in making paediatric medicines more acceptable. Presently, we explore if the application of computer-vision techniques to videos of children's reaction to gustatory taste strips can provide an objective assessment of palatability. Children aged 4 to 11 years old tasted four different flavoured strips: no taste, bitter, sweet, and sour. Data was collected at home, under the supervision of a guardian, with responses recorded using the Aparito Atom app and smartphone camera. Participants scored each strip on a 5-point hedonic scale. Facial landmarks were identified in the videos, and quantitative measures, such as changes around the eyes, nose, and mouth, were extracted to train models to classify strip taste and score. We received 197 videos and 256 self-reported scores from 64 participants. The hedonic scale elicited expected results: children like sweetness, dislike bitterness and have varying opinions for sourness. The findings revealed the complexity and variability of facial reactions and highlighted specific measures, such as eyebrow and mouth corner elevations, as significant indicators of palatability. This study capturing children's objective reactions to taste sensations holds promise in identifying palatable drug formulations and assessing patient acceptability of paediatric medicines. Moreover, collecting data in the home setting allows for natural behaviour, with minimal burden for participants.

As the most prevalent and reversible internal epigenetic modification in eukaryotic mRNAs, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) post-transcriptionally regulates the processing and metabolism of mRNAs involved in diverse biological processes. m6A modification is regulated by m6A writers, erasers, and readers. Emerging evidence suggests that m6A modification plays essential roles in modulating the cell-fate transition of embryonic stem cells. Mechanistic investigation of embryonic stem cell maintenance and differentiation is critical for understanding early embryonic development, which is also the premise for the application of embryonic stem cells in regenerative medicine. This review highlights the current knowledge of m6A modification and its essential regulatory contribution to the cell fate transition of mouse and human embryonic stem cells.

Abstract Introduction As a result of the insufficient ocular anatomical parameters used to customize implantable collamer lens (ICL), many patients still cannot achieve a suitable vault after ICL implantation surgery. This study analyzed the characteristics of a new anatomical parameter crystalline lens rise (CLR) in a population with high myopia and explored the influence of CLR on the vault after ICL implantation. Methods Patients (298 eyes) with high myopia who underwent ICL implantation were enrolled to study CLR characteristics. Postoperatively, patients (159 eyes) were divided into five groups according to the value of CLR (A, CLR ≤ − 150; B, − 150 0 μm, of which 20 eyes (6.71%) had a CLR ≥ 300 μm. In 159 eyes, the CLR was negatively correlated with the vault at 1 day (R = − 0.497, P 0.05). Conclusion The CLR had a normal distribution in the high myopia population, and 13.42% of the CLR values were extreme (CLR ≤ − 150 μm or CLR ≥ 300 μm). A larger ICL diameter than that recommended by the manufacturer should be considered when the CLR is ≥ 300 μm and a smaller ICL diameter should be considered when the CLR is ≤ − 150 μm.

Abstract Crowdfunding provides a novel and potential way for innovative but risky new ventures to fund their new product development (NPD) projects. To help potential investors evaluate the projects and enhance the credibility of disclosure, founders are struggling with how to phrase the project description. The rapidly growing cleantech crowdfunding projects provide an ideal context to study this issue. We collected information on cleantech crowdfunding projects and matched non-cleantech crowdfunding projects from Kickstarter. The sample period extends from January 2013 to October 2018. Using signaling research as a theoretical lens and a dictionary-based, computerized text mining method, we found that founders of high-quality cleantech crowdfunding projects could create a reliable signal of quality by providing a project description with a less ambiguous tone and thus boost the success of crowdfunding. Moreover, the signaling effectiveness of a less ambiguous tone is more pronounced in cleantech crowdfunding than in matched non-cleantech crowdfunding, suggesting that the marginal benefit of using a less ambiguous tone is larger when the industry information environment is noisier. Further evidence shows that the signaling effectiveness of a less ambiguous tone in cleantech crowdfunding could be strengthened by backers’ endorsements. Our findings imply that tone ambiguity in project descriptions is related to founders’ information-concealing behavior. Potential investors could search ambiguous words in project descriptions and just allocate their limited attention into projects with a low percentage of ambiguous words to avoid information overload. Founders of high-quality projects could boost crowdfunding success by using a less ambiguous tone to describe their projects. The marginal effect is larger when there is greater uncertainty about project prospects.

Background Falls pose a serious health risk for the elderly, particular for those who are living alone. The utilization of WiFi-based fall detection, employing Channel State Information (CSI), emerges as a promising solution due to its non-intrusive nature and privacy preservation. Despite these advantages, the challenge lies in optimizing cross-individual performance for CSI-based methods. Objective This study aimed to develop a resilient real-time fall detection system across individuals utilizing CSI, named TCS-Fall. This method was designed to offer continuous monitoring of activities over an extended timeframe, ensuring accurate and prompt detection of falls. Methods Extensive CSI data on 1800 falls and 2400 daily activities was collected from 20 volunteers. The grouped coefficient of variation of CSI amplitudes were utilized as input features. These features capture signal fluctuations and are input to a convolutional neural network classifier. Cross-individual performance was extensively evaluated using various train/test participant splits. Additionally, a user-friendly CSI data collection and detection tool was developed using PyQT. To achieve real-time performance, data parsing and pre-processing computations were optimized using Numba's just-in-time compilation. Results The proposed TCS-Fall method achieved excellent performance in cross-individual fall detection. On the test set, AUC reached 0.999, no error warning ratio score reached 0. 955 and correct warning ratio score reached of 0.975 when trained with data from only two volunteers. Performance can be further improved to 1.00 when 10 volunteers were included in training data. The optimized data parsing/pre-processing achieved over 20× speedup compared to previous method. The PyQT tool parsed and detected the fall within 100 ms. Conclusions TCS-Fall method enables excellent real-time cross-individual fall detection utilizing WiFi CSI, promising swift alerts and timely assistance to elderly. Additionally, the optimized data processing led to a significant speedup. These results highlight the potential of our approach in enhancing real-time fall detection systems.

Abstract The direct current (DC)‐link voltage control of the flywheel energy storage system plays an important role in realizing high‐quality grid connection. With the traditional proportional‐integral control, the DC‐link voltage cannot track its reference value quickly and smoothly when the flywheel energy storage system switches from the charging stage to other working stages. Therefore, a DC‐link voltage control strategy for the flywheel energy storage system based on active disturbance rejection control is proposed in this paper to deal with this issue. The DC‐link voltage and its differential value are considered as the state variables in this strategy. The internal and external disturbances, such as load power, switching loss, and parameter uncertainty, are regarded as an expanded state. By inputting the voltage error and the observed disturbance into the nonlinear state feedback control law, the rapidity and anti‐interference of the DC‐link voltage control are ensured under different States of Charge of the flywheel energy storage system. Then, the coefficient freezing method is used to analyze the effects of the disturbance observation bandwidth by nonlinear gain and pole position changes. The DC‐link voltage can track the reference value over a wider frequency range of disturbances. By configuring the appropriate observer structure parameters, the disturbance observation bandwidth under the nonlinear function gain variation is always higher than the expected bandwidth. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is verified by simulation results at last.

In the realm of computer vision, object detection holds significant importance and has demonstrated commendable performance across various scenarios. However, it typically requires favorable visibility conditions within the scene. Therefore, it is imperative to explore methodologies for conducting object detection under low-visibility circumstances. With its balanced combination of speed and accuracy, the state-of-the-art YOLOv8 framework has been recognized as one of the top algorithms for object detection, demonstrating outstanding performance results across a range of standard datasets. Nonetheless, current YOLO-series detection algorithms still face a significant challenge in detecting objects under low-light conditions. This is primarily due to the significant degradation in performance when detectors trained on illuminated data are applied to low-light datasets with limited visibility. To tackle this problem, we suggest a new model named Grouping Offset and Isolated GiraffeDet Target Detection-YOLO based on the YOLOv8 architecture. The proposed model demonstrates exceptional performance under low-light conditions. We employ the repGFPN feature pyramid network in the design of the feature fusion layer neck to enhance hierarchical fusion and deepen the integration of low-light information. Furthermore, we refine the repGFPN feature fusion layer by introducing a sampling map offset to address its limitations in terms of weight and efficiency, thereby better adapting it to real-time applications in low-light environments and emphasizing the potential features of such scenes. Additionally, we utilize group convolution to isolate interference information from detected object edges, resulting in improved detection performance and model efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate that our GOI-YOLO reduces the parameter count by 11% compared to YOLOv8 while decreasing computational requirements by 28%. This optimization significantly enhances real-time performance while achieving a competitive increase of 2.1% in Map50 and 0.6% in Map95 on the ExDark dataset.

The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has the potential to serve as a high-entropy energy harvester, enabling the self-powered operation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. True random number generator (TRNG) is a common feature of encryption used in IoT data communication, ensuring the security of transmitted information. The benefits of multiplexing TENG and TRNG in resource-constrained IoT devices are substantial. However, current designs are limited by the usage scenarios and throughput of the TRNG. Specifically, we propose a structurally and environmentally friendly design based on the contact–separation structure, integrating heat fluctuation and charge decay as entropy sources. Furthermore, filtering and differential algorithms are recommended for data processing based on TENG characteristics to enhance randomness. Finally, a TENG-based TRNG is fabricated, and its performance is verified. Test results demonstrate a random number throughput of 25 Mbps with a randomness test pass rate approaching 99%, demonstrating suitability for resource-constrained IoT applications.

Underground gas storage (UGS) is a beneficial economic method of compensating for the imbalance between natural gas supply and demand. This paper addresses the problem of a lack of research on the two-phase distribution pattern and seepage law during the water–gas alternated flooding in gas storage reservoirs. The study constructed a three-dimensional digital core of the aquifer reservoir based on Computed Tomography (CT) scanning technology, and extracted the connecting pore structure to establish the tetrahedral mesh model. A two-phase microscopic seepage model was established based on the Volume of Fluid (VOF)method, and microscopic gas and gas–liquid two-phase unsaturated microscopic seepage simulation was carried out. The results show that the effective reservoir capacity increases with the increase in the number of alternated flooding cycles. The irreducible water is mainly distributed in the dead-end of the pore space and small pore throats, and the residual gas is mainly distributed as a band in the gas–water interface and the dead-end of the pore space of the previous round. The reservoir capacity can be increased by appropriately increasing the intensity of injection and extracting and decreasing the pressure of the reservoir.

BackgroundHydatid disease is caused by Echinococcus parasites and can affect various tissues and organs in the body. The disease is characterized by the presence of hydatid cysts, which contain specific antigens that interact with the host’s immune system. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are pluripotent stem cells that can regulate immunity through the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) containing microRNAs (miRNAs).MethodsIn this study, hydatid antigens were isolated from sheep livers and mice peritoneal cavities. MSCs derived from mouse bone marrow were treated with different hydatid antigens, and EVs were isolated and characterized from the conditioned medium of MSCs. Small RNA library construction, miRNA target prediction, and differential expression analysis were conducted to identify differentially expressed miRNAs. Functional enrichment and network construction were performed to explore the biological functions of the target genes. Real-time PCR and Western blotting were used for miRNA and gene expression verification, while ELISA assays quantified TNF, IL-1, IL-6, IL-4, and IL-10 levels in cell supernatants.ResultsThe study successfully isolated hydatid antigens and characterized MSC-derived EVs, demonstrating the impact of antigen concentration on MSC viability. Key differentially expressed miRNAs, such as miR-146a and miR-9-5p, were identified, with functional analyses revealing significant pathways like Endocytosis and MAPK signaling associated with these miRNAs’ target genes. The miRNA-HUB gene regulatory network identified crucial miRNAs and HUB genes, such as Traf1 and Tnf, indicating roles in immune modulation and osteogenic differentiation. Protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis highlighted central HUB genes like Akt1 and Bcl2. ALP activity assays confirmed the influence of antigens on osteogenic differentiation, with reduced ALP activity observed. Expression analysis validated altered miRNA and chemokine expression post-antigen stimulation, with ELISA analysis showing a significant reduction in CXCL1 expression in response to antigen exposure.ConclusionThis study provides insights into the role of MSC-derived EVs in regulating parasite immunity. The findings suggest that hydatid antigens can modulate the expression of miRNAs in MSC-derived EVs, leading to changes in chemokine expression and osteogenic capacity. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the immunomodulatory mechanisms involved in hydatid disease and provide potential therapeutic targets for the development of new treatment strategies.

With the rapid development of the world economy, IGBT has been widely used in motor drive and electric energy conversion. In order to timely detect the fatigue damage of IGBT, it is necessary to monitor the junction temperature of IGBT. In order to realize the fast calculation of IGBT junction temperature, a finite element method of IGBT temperature field reduction is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the finite element calculation process of IGBT temperature field is introduced and the linear equations of finite element calculation of temperature field are derived. Temperature field data of different working conditions are obtained by finite element simulation to form the sample space. Then the covariance matrix of the sample space is constructed, whose proper orthogonal decomposition and modal extraction are carried out. Reasonable basis vector space is selected to complete the low dimensional expression of temperature vector inside and outside the sample space. Finally, the reduced-order model of temperature field finite element is obtained and solved. The results of the reduced order model are compared with those of the finite element method, and the performance of the reduced-order model is evaluated from two aspects of accuracy and rapidity.

Pollen is a major source of proteins and lipids for bumblebees. The nutritional content of pollen may differ from source plants, ultimately affecting colony development. This study investigated the foraging preferences of Bombus terrestris in regard to four pollen species, i.e., oilseed rape, wild apricot, sunflower, and buckwheat, under laboratory conditions. The results show that B. terrestris diversified their preference for pollens; the bumblebees mostly preferred wild apricot pollen, whereas sunflower pollen was the least preferred. The colonies fed on a mixed four-pollen diet, with a protein–lipid ratio of 4.55–4.86, exhibited better development in terms of the number of offspring, individual body size and colony weight. The colonies fed with buckwheat and sunflower pollens produced a significantly lower number of workers and failed to produce queen and male offspring. Moreover, wild apricot pollen had the richest protein content (23.9 g/100 g) of the four pollen species, whereas oilseed rape pollen had the highest lipid content (6.7 g/100 g), as revealed by the P:L ratios of wild apricot, sunflower, buckwheat, and oilseed rape, which were 6.76, 5.52, 3.50, and 3.37, respectively. Generally, B. terrestris showed feeding preferences regarding different pollens and a mixture of pollens, which ultimately resulted in differences in colony development. The findings of this study provide important baseline information to researchers and developers of nutritive pollen diets for bumblebees.

Most packages for the analysis of fMRI-based functional connectivity (FC) and genomic data are used with a programming language interface, lacking an easy-to-navigate GUI frontend. This exacerbates two problems found in these types of data: demographic confounds and quality control in the face of high dimensionality of features. The reason is that it is too slow and cumbersome to use a programming interface to create all the necessary visualizations required to identify all correlations, confounding effects, or quality control problems in a dataset. FC in particular usually contains tens of thousands of features per subject, and can only be summarized and efficiently explored using visualizations. To remedy this situation, we have developed ImageNomer, a data visualization and analysis tool that allows inspection of both subject-level and cohort-level demographic, genomic, and imaging features. The software is Python-based, runs in a self-contained Docker image, and contains a browser-based GUI frontend. We demonstrate the usefulness of ImageNomer by identifying an unexpected race confound when predicting achievement scores in the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (PNC) dataset, which contains multitask fMRI and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data of healthy adolescents. In the past, many studies have attempted to use FC to identify achievement-related features in fMRI. Using ImageNomer to visualize trends in achievement scores between races, we find a clear potential for confounding effects if race can be predicted using FC. Using correlation analysis in the ImageNomer software, we show that FCs correlated with Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT) score are in fact more highly correlated with race. Investigating further, we find that whereas both FC and SNP (genomic) features can account for 10–15% of WRAT score variation, this predictive ability disappears when controlling for race. We also use ImageNomer to investigate race-FC correlation in the Bipolar and Schizophrenia Network for Intermediate Phenotypes (BSNIP) dataset. In this work, we demonstrate the advantage of our ImageNomer GUI tool in data exploration and confound detection. Additionally, this work identifies race as a strong confound in FC data and casts doubt on the possibility of finding unbiased achievement-related features in fMRI and SNP data of healthy adolescents.

Summary: In most economically underdeveloped areas, scattered farming and human‒livestock cohabitation are common. However, production of bioaerosols and their potential harm in these areas have not been previously researched. In this study, bioaerosol characteristics were analyzed in scattered farming areas in rural Northwest China. The highest bacteria, fungi, and Enterobacteria concentrations were 125609 ± 467 CFU/m³, 25175 ± 10305 CFU/m³, and 4167 ± 592 CFU/m³, respectively. Most bioaerosols had particle sizes >3.3 μm. A total of 71 bacterial genera and 16 fungal genera of potential pathogens were identified, including zoonotic potential pathogenic genera. Moreover, our findings showed that the scattered farming pattern of human‒animal cohabitation can affect the indoor air environment in the surrounding area, leading to chronic respiratory diseases in the occupants. Therefore, relevant government departments and farmers should enhance their awareness of bioaerosol risks and consider measures that may be taken to reduce them.

Abstract Background This study aimed to investigate the proportion of prehypertension cases progressing to hypertension among Chinese middle-aged and elderly populations over a 2-year period and related influencing factors. Methods Data were obtained from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, and 2,845 individuals who were ≥ 45 years old and prehypertensive at baseline were followed from 2013–2015. Structured questionnaires were administered, and blood pressure (BP) and anthropometric measurements were performed by trained personnel. Multiple logistic regression analysis was done to investigate factors associated with prehypertension progressing to hypertension. Results Over the 2-year follow-up, 28.5% experienced progression of prehypertension to hypertension; this occurred more frequently in men than women (29.7% vs. 27.1%). Among men, older age (55–64 years: adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.414, 95% confidence interval [CI]:1.032–1.938; 65–74 years: aOR = 1.633, 95%CI: 1.132–2.355; ≥ 75 years: aOR = 2.974, 95%CI: 1.748–5.060), obesity (aOR = 1.634, 95%CI: 1.022–2.611), and number of chronic diseases (1: aOR = 1.366, 95%CI: 1.004–1.859; ≥ 2: aOR = 1.568, 95%CI: 1.134–2.169) were risk factors for progression to hypertension whereas being married/cohabiting (aOR = 0.642, 95% CI: 0.418–0.985) was a protective factor. Among women, risk factors included older age (55–64 years: aOR = 1.755, 95%CI: 1.256–2.450; 65–74 years: aOR = 2.430, 95%CI: 1.605–3.678; ≥ 75 years: aOR = 2.037, 95% CI: 1.038–3.995), married/cohabiting (aOR = 1.662, 95%CI: 1.052–2.626), obesity (aOR = 1.874, 95%CI: 1.229–2.857), and longer naps (≥ 30 and

In recent years, Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) have gained considerable attention for their unique role in detecting and monitoring the underwater environment. However, due to the long propagation time, high bit error rate, and limited bandwidth of underwater acoustic systems, the design of media access control (MAC) protocols is extremely complex, especially for the power consumption of UASNs. Therefore, this paper proposes an energy-efficient MAC protocol for three-dimensional UASNs with time synchronization and power control (TDTSPC-MAC). The proposed protocol is a hybrid access scheme for three-dimensional UASN using techniques such as time synchronization, power control, clustering, layering, and sleep mechanisms. Moreover, the TDTSPC-MAC protocol uses the hierarchical concept and distributed clustering algorithm to divide the three-dimensional space, and combines time synchronization and power control strategies to avoid collisions. Besides, energy consumption is reduced through monitoring and sleep mode. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed TDTSPC-MAC protocol has reasonable data transmission delay time, throughput, energy consumption, and other performance.

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) poses major health risks worldwide. Most studies have focused on carbapenem resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli; however, the occurrence and transmission of carbapenem-resistant Citrobacter spp. (CRCS) are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the occurrence and potential transmission patterns of CRCS in different functional areas of an urban wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and connecting rivers during one-year monitoring in Shandong Province, China. In total, 14 CRCS were detected in 376 environmental samples, including those from the WWTP inlet (n = 7), WWTP anaerobic tank (n = 2), and rivers (n = 5). Citrobacter braakii (n = 6) was the dominant subtype among 14 CRCS isolates, followed by Citrobacter freundii (n = 5), Citrobacter sedlakii (n = 2), and Citrobacter werkmanii (n = 1). All CRCS were resistant to imipenem, meropenem, ampicillin, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, and ciprofloxacin. Plasmid analysis showed that the blaKPC-2 gene was located on IncN and IncFII (Yp) plasmids, whereas the blaNDM gene was located on IncX3 and IncN2 plasmids. Clonal transmission of CRCS harboring carbapenem genes occurred between the WWTP and connecting rivers on a temporal or spatial scale. High genomic relatedness of NDM-5-producing C. sedlakii was identified between river water and WWTP aerosol, suggesting a potential exposure risk of CRCS for workers and surrounding residents near the WWTP. Furthermore, NDM-5-producing C. sedlakii isolated from rivers was related to C. sedlakii isolated from soil and well water in different regions of China, indicating that NDM-5-producing C. sedlakii may be widespread in China. These findings indicate that rare healthcare-associated pathogens such as CRCS can contribute to widespread carbapenem production in the environment; thus, CRCS should be continuously monitored.

Ma et al. profile the dynamic landscape of m6A during pancreatic differentiation, and identify ALKBH5 as an essential m6A regulator supporting pancreatic differentiation, indicating a role for m6A-mediated mRNA metabolism in cell-fate specification.

Time-series forecasting has a wide range of application scenarios. Predicting particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or less (PM2.5) in the future is a vital type of time-series forecasting task where valid forecasting would provide an important reference for public decisions. The current state-of-the-art general time-series model, TimesNet, has achieved a level of performance well above the mainstream level on most benchmarks. Attributing this success to an ability to disentangle intraperiod and interperiod temporal variations, we propose TimesNet-PM2.5. To make this model more powerful for concrete PM2.5 prediction tasks, task-oriented improvements to its structure have been added to enhance its ability to predict specific time spots through better interpretability and meaningful visualizations. On the one hand, this paper rigorously investigates the impact of various meteorological indicators on PM2.5 levels, examining their primary influencing factors from both local and global perspectives. On the other hand, using visualization techniques, we validate the capability of representation learning in time-series forecasting and performance on the forecasting task of the TimesNet-PM2.5. Experimentally, TimesNet-PM2.5 demonstrates an improvement over the original TimesNet. Specifically, the Mean Squared Error (MSE) improved by 8.8% for 1-h forecasting and by 22.5% for 24-h forecasting.

BackgroundThe biobank is an extraordinary aid to research and scientific progress. Public involvement in biobanks, necessary for their development, is limited due to inadequate knowledge of biobanking and concerns about sample donation. This study explores the effectiveness of different publicity methods in improving participants' willingness to donate, and assesses public motivations and concerns. It aims to identify an efficient method of improving participants' awareness of biobanking and promoting sample donation.MethodsA structured 20-item questionnaire was formulated to evaluate participants' knowledge of and attitudes toward biobanks and sample donation. In total, 1,500 questionnaires were disseminated to three groups of 500 participants who received, respectively, picture-based promotional material, text-based promotional material, or who attended a biobank-related lecture. Of these, 945 completed questionnaires were received. All the participants completed the questionnaires twice, before and after the corresponding publicity education.ResultsAfter each of the three methods of publicity based on text, pictures and a lecture, respondents' willingness to donate samples was significantly increased (P < 0.001), the lecture being more effective than the other two methods (P = 0.001). Participants with a medical background were more willing to donate biospecimens after publicity than those without medical backgrounds (P < 0.005) but had common motivations for donation including altruism and aiding medical research. The main concern hindering respondents' willingness to donate was the security of personal information.ConclusionDifferent types of biobank-related publicity based on text material, pictorial material and a lecture all improved respondents' willingness to donate and reduced concerns regarding sample donation. Medical background was a critical factor affecting attitudes toward sample donation after publicity. The results of this study suggest strategies that may popularize biobanks and enhance sample donation, further promoting the development of biobanks.

The UASNs are widely used in underwater communications and monitoring, and many applications require accurate information regarding the position of nodes. However, intentional attacks against devices or information transmission may exist in the network, and the localization process is periodic, so it is necessary to quickly address attacks and optimize the network structure. This paper proposed an anchor node self-adaptive adjustment localization scheme (ASAL), in which the anchor node can adjust the state and depth of its participation. Two filters were used to adjust the states of referable nodes. The first filter was based on the distance difference of reverse information transmission after direct localization based on anchor nodes. The second was based on the error of the anchor node’s reverse localization after network localization was completed. In addition, a depth-adjustment mechanism of anchor nodes was proposed to optimize the network structure, the virtual force vector was introduced to describe the cost of depth adjustment, and the whale optimization algorithm was used to converge to the depth with the minimum total cost. The simulation results showed that the scheme can ensure localization accuracy and coverage in attack scenarios and reduce localization energy consumption.

Abstract Humus layer has an important effect on the diversity and spatial distribution of microbes. However, the role of partitioning of humus layer microhabitats for soil microbial diversity has been poorly documented. In this study, 120 soil samples were collected from a 5‐ha forest dynamic monitoring sample plot in a deciduous broad‐leaved forest. Clustering analysis was used to delineate microhabitats by humus layer. We explored diversity and community composition of soil fungi and bacteria using Illumina sequencing of the ITS rRNA gene and 16S rRNA gene region on the MiSeq platform. We investigated the diversity, species composition, and the microhabitat preferences of fungi and bacteria and then analyzed the effects of environmental factors on soil fungi and bacteria. Our results showed that the diversity, species composition, and the indicator species of the fungal and bacterial community varied among different humus layer microhabitats. In network analysis, the specialization indexes showed that 16.20%/22.30% of the fungal/bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) had the characteristics of distribution specialization for humus layer microhabitats. Mantel test showed that the main environmental drivers of fungi and bacteria were not consistent among the four microhabitats. Our findings indicated that the distribution of soil microbes among humus layer microhabitats is not random, but specialized. We furthermore found that there were differences in the relationship between soil microbes and environment among microhabitats defined by humus layer. Together, these findings suggest the importance of partitioning of humus layer microhabitats in maintaining local diversity in a soil microbial community.

BackgroundControlled hypotension technique was usually used to reduce intraoperative bleeding, and it could improve visualization of the surgical field during total knee arthroplasty (TKA). However, inappropriate controlled hypotension, through reducing cerebral blood flow or cerebral perfusion pressure, may cause postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), so it is important to identify the appropriate level of controlled hypotension. Objective: To investigate the effects of different levels of controlled hypotension on regional cerebral oxygen saturation and postoperative cognitive function in patients undergoing TKA.MethodsPatients meeting inclusion criteria were enrolled through preoperative visits and basic information was obtained. The patients were randomly divided into three groups: Group A, MAP was maintained at 90–100% of the baseline; Group B, MAP was maintained at 80–90% of the baseline; Group C, MAP was maintained at 70–80% of the baseline. The MAP, HR, and rSO2 were observed and recorded during the operation. The C-reactive protein (CRP), hemoglobin (Hb) and MMSE score at 1, 3, and 7 days after operation were recorded. SPSS25.0 was used for data analysis.ResultWhen the MAP had a decrease among the three groups, rSO2 did not decrease significantly, and none of the patients experienced POCD which was measured by MMSE. And there was no correlation between the decline in rSO2 and that in MAP.ConclusionNo POCD was experienced in the three groups, and we recommend that the controlled hypotensive target indicated by MAP was maintained at 70–80% of the baseline which not only decreases intraoperative bleeding and improve the quality of the surgical field, but also is still within safe levels.

Human dentin, as an important calcified tissue in the body, plays significant roles in withstanding masticatory forces and has a complex hierarchical organization. Understanding the composition and ultrastructure of dentin is critical for elucidating mechanisms of biomineralization under healthy and pathological states. Here, atomic force microscope infrared spectroscopy (AFM-IR) and AFM-based amplitude modulation-frequency modulation (AM-FM) techniques were utilized to detect the heterogeneity in chemical composition and mechanical properties between peritubular and intertubular dentin at the nanoscale. AFM-IR spectra collected from peritubular and intertubular dentin contained similar vibrational bands in the amide regions (I, II and III), suggesting that collagen may exist in both structures. A distinctive band at 1336 cm−1 indicative of SO stretching vibrations was detected only in peritubular dentin. AFM-IR imaging showed an uneven distribution of chemical components at different locations, confirming the heterogeneity of dentin. The Young’s modulus of peritubular dentin was higher, and was associated to a higher mineral content. This study demonstrated distinctive chemical and mechanical properties of peritubular dentin, implying the different development and mineralization processes between peritubular and intertubular dentin. AFM-IR is useful to provide compositional information on the heterogeneity of human dentin, helping to understand the mineral deposition mechanisms of dentin. Keywords: Infrared spectroscopy, Human dentin, Atomic force microscopy, Amplitude modulation, Frequency modulation, Young’s modulus

Abstract Objectives This study conducted a meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness, stability, and safety of mild therapeutic hypothermia (TH) induced by endovascular cooling (EC) and surface cooling (SC) and its effect on ICU, survival rate, and neurological function integrity in adult CA patients. Methods We developed inclusion criteria, intervention protocols, results, and data collection. The results included outcomes during target temperature management as well as ICU stay, survival rate, and neurological functional integrity. The characteristics of the included population and each study were analyzed. Results Four thousand nine hundred thirteen participants met the inclusion criteria. Those receiving EC had a better cooling efficiency (cooling rates MD = 0.31[0.13, 0.50], p

Within the development of the deep convolutional neural network, the great achievements had been made in the single-image super-resolution (SISR) task. However, the higher performance always comes with the deeper layers which also brings larger numbers of network operations and parameters that make it hard to implement in practice. In our work, a lightly super-resolution, named Mobile Share- Source Network (MSSN), is purposed to address these practical issues. In MSSN, a high-efficiency block, the mobile adaptive weighted residual unit, is designed to fulfill the need for the reduction in both parameters and the Mult-Adds while maintaining the performance with importing the deep separable convolution. Moreover, it brings into the Adaptive Weighted Share-Source Skip Connection, getting abundant information from the shallow layer which helps reconstruct better images. The experimental results show that our network has fewer numbers of parameters and operations than the state-of-the-art lightweight network while maintaining high reconstruction quality comparing with many state-of-the-art super-resolution methods in terms of both peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index metrics (SSIM).

PurposeThis study is to assess the diagnostic value of noninvasive regional myocardial work (MW) by echocardiography for detecting the functional status of coronary stenosis using fractional flow reserve (FFR) as a standard criterion.MethodsA total of 84 consecutive patients were included in this study, among which 92 vessels were identified with ≥50% stenosis confirmed by invasive coronary angiography. Patients were investigated by invasive FFR and transthoracic echocardiography. Regional MW indices including myocardial work index (MWI), myocardial constructive work (MCW), myocardial wasted work, and myocardial work efficiency were calculated.ResultsMWI and MCW were significantly impaired in the FFR ≤ 0.75 group compared with the FFR > 0.75 group (both p < 0.01). There were significant positive associations between MWI and MCW with FFR. In total group, MWI

The pathogenesis and etiology of various ocular tumors remain largely unclear, limiting the development of diagnostic and treatment approaches for such tumors. Tissue samples from patients are also valuable resource to elucidate mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis. Here we present the early phase setup of an ocular tumor biobank at Xiangya Hospital. Blood and tissue samples along with associated clinical data were obtained from patients who underwent surgery in the Department of Ophthalmology of Xiangya Hospital from December 1, 2018 to January 31, 2020. Standardized operating protocols were developed for the collection, transportation, processing and preservation of ocular tumor samples. A total of 92 clinical cases suffered from 21 types of eye tumors and several undiagnosed eye diseases were covered. A total of 846 samples were preserved in the ocular tumor biobank, including 356 blood samples (42.1%), 324 plasma samples (38.3%), and 166 tissue samples (19.6%). Using the clinical data, we analyzed the prevalence of malignant ocular tumors in association with variables of age, gender, tumors' location and size, and presenting complaints of lump and proptosis. The factors predictive of malignant ocular tumors, included gender (B = 1.599; P = 0.025) and the symptom of proptosis (B = −2.534; P = 0.001). Overall, the setup of clinically-based ophthalmologic biobank could support pathological and translational research into ocular tumors.

In all types of new arch bridge structures, the requirements of the foundation are becoming more and more strict. Under the action of horizontal thrust, the distribution of the internal forces of the pile group in which inclined piles participate in an arch foundation is complicated. In this regard, the horizontal forces of each pile in a pile group and the horizontal bearing performance of each pile in a pile group under the action of total thrust are investigated by establishing a pile group foundation model and a p-y curve difference equation. After an in-depth analysis of the simulation results, it is found that the load distribution calculated by the finite element method is very close to that calculated by the p-y curve method, both in terms of curve shape and numerical value, indicating that the pile top load distribution is close to the actual situation. In addition, the maximum shear force of each pile body occurs at the top of the pile, and the maximum bending moment occurs at the point 1/5 away from the top of the pile. Finally, the nonlinear analysis of the p-y curve method can be well applied to the calculation of bridge pile foundations.

As a new freshwater aquaculture product, triploid loaches (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus) are characterized by fast growth, high-quality meat, high edibility, high resistance to disease, and sterility. In this study, a natural tetraploid loach (4n = 100) (♀) was crossed with a diploid loach (2n = 50) (♂), thus creating the hybrid triploid loach (3n = 75). The histological observations of triploid offspring and diploid controls at 4 days post-hatching (dph), 15dph, 22dph, and 50dph showed that most of the hybrid triploid loaches were abortive in the early gonad differentiation process. To explore its fertility mechanism, through transcriptome analyses of triploid offspring and diploid controls at four periods, 10 differentially expressed genes related to the early fertility mechanism were identified: amh, hormad1, rec8, h2b, plvap, zp3, h2a, nrb0b1, ddx4, and esr2. According to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses of DEGs, two pathways were identified that are closely related to the early fertility mechanism at 50dph: the estrogen signaling pathway and steroid biosynthesis. The findings laid a foundation for further exploration of their molecular inhibition mechanism in hybrid triploid loaches.

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major risk factor causing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development, but the molecular mechanisms are not fully elucidated. It has been reported that virus infection induces ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase-phosphodiesterase 2 (ENPP2) expression, the latter participates in tumor progression. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether HBV induced HCC malignancy via ENPP2.Methods: HCC patient clinical data were collected and prognosis was analyzed. Transient transfection and stable ectopic expression of the HBV genome were established in hepatoma cell lines. Immunohistochemical staining, RT-qPCR, western blot, and ELISA assays were used to detect the expression and secretion of ENPP2. Finally, CCK-8, colony formation, and migration assays as well as a subcutaneous xenograft mouse model were used to investigate the influence of HBV infection, ENPP2 expression, and activated hepatic stellate cells (aHSCs) on HCC progression in vitro and in vivo.Results: The data from cancer databases indicated that the level of ENPP2 was significant higher in HCC compared within normal liver tissues. Clinical relevance analysis using 158 HCC patients displayed that ENPP2 expression was positively correlated with poor overall survival and disease-free survival. Statistical analysis revealed that compared to HBV-negative HCC tissues, HBV-positive tissues expressed a higher level of ENPP2. In vitro, HBV upregulated ENPP2 expression and secretion in hepatoma cells and promoted hepatoma cell proliferation, colony formation, and migration via enhancement of ENPP2; downregulation of ENPP2 expression or inhibition of its function suppressed HCC progression. In addition, aHSCs strengthened hepatoma cell proliferation, migration in vitro, and promoted tumorigenesis synergistically with HBV in vivo; a loss-function assay further verified that ENPP2 is essential for HBV/aHSC-induced HCC progression.Conclusion: HBV enhanced the expression and secretion of ENPP2 in hepatoma cells, combined with aHSCs to promote HCC progression via ENPP2.

Aspect-level sentiment classification (ASC) is a research hotspot in natural language processing, which aims to infer the sentiment polarity of a particular aspect in an opinion sentence. There are three main influence factors in the aspect-level sentiment classification: the semantic information of the context; the interaction information of the context and aspect; the position information between the aspect and the context. Some researchers have proposed way to solve aspect-level sentiment classification. However, previous work mainly used the average vector of the aspect to calculate the attention score of the context, which introduced the influence of noise words. Moreover, these attention-based approaches simply used relative positions to calculate positional information for contextual and aspect terms and did not provided better semantic information. Based on these above questions, in this paper, we propose the PSRTN model. Firstly, obtaining the position-aware influence propagate between words and aspects by Gaussian kernel and generating the influence vector for each context word. Secondly, capturing global and local information of the context by the R-Transformer, and using the self-attention mechanism to obtain the keywords in the aspect. Finally, context representation of a particular aspect is generated for classification. In order to evaluate the validity of the model, we conduct experiments on SemEval2014 and Twitter. The results show that the accuracy of the PSRTN model can reach 83.8%, 80.9%, and 75.1% on three data sets, respectively.

Lung metastasis, the most frequent metastatic pattern in hepatocellular carcinoma, is an important contributor to poor prognosis. However, the mechanisms responsible for lung metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma remain unknown. Aiming to explore these mechanisms, weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) was firstly used to find hub genes related to lung metastasis. Then, we obtained 67 genes related to lung metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma which were mainly related to ribosomal pathways and functions, and a protein interaction network analysis identified that fibrillarin (FBL) might be an important hub gene. Furthermore, we found that FBL is highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma and that its high expression increases the rate of lung metastasis and indicates a poor prognosis. Knockdown of FBL could significantly reduce proliferation and stemness as well as inhibiting the migration and invasion of hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Moreover, we found that FBL might be involved in the regulation of MYC and E2F pathways in hepatocellular carcinoma. Finally, we demonstrated that the knockdown of FBL could suppress hepatocellular carcinoma cell growth in vivo. In conclusion, ribosome-biogenesis-related proteins, especially Fibrillarin, play important roles in lung metastasis from hepatocellular carcinoma.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic health condition. MicroRNAs (miRs) are critical in chondrocyte apoptosis in OA. We aimed to investigate the mechanism of miR-130b in OA progression. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) and chondrocytes were first extracted. Chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs was carried out and verified. Chondrocytes were stimulated with interleukin (IL)-1β to imitate OA condition in vitro. The effect of miR-130b on the viability, inflammation, apoptosis, and extracellular matrix of OA chondrocytes was studied. The target gene of miR-130b was predicted and verified. Rescue experiments were performed to further study the underlying downstream mechanism of miR-130b in OA. miR-130b first increased and drastically reduced during chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs and in OA chondrocytes, respectively, while IL-1β stimulation resulted in increased miR-130b expression in chondrocytes. miR-130b inhibitor promoted chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs and chondrocyte growth and inhibited the levels of inflammatory factors. miR-130b targeted SOX9. Overexpression of SOX9 facilitated BMSC chondrogenic differentiation and chondrocyte growth, while siRNA-SOX9 contributed to the opposite trends. Silencing of SOX9 significantly attenuated the pro-chondrogenic effects of miR-130b inhibitor on BMSCs. Overall, miR-130b inhibitor induced chondrogenic differentiation of BMSCs and chondrocyte growth by targeting SOX9.

Background and Objectives: The Yellow River is the sixth longest river in the world, and it is considered the mother river of China. Biodiversity conservation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River is an urgent concern due to the impact of topography, sediment deposition, and human activities. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the diversity of plant communities in wetlands along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River from the perspectives of the natural environment and human disturbance. Materials and Methods: In this study, 830 plots were set up in seven nature reserves in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River to investigate wetland plant diversity. The distribution characteristics of plant diversity and the effects of environmental and human activities on plant diversity were analyzed. Results: (1) A total of 184 plant species belonging to 52 families and 135 genera were found in the seven nature reserves. Network analysis showed that the connectance index was 0.3018. (2) Betadisper analysis followed by ANOVA revealed differences in the community composition of the wetland plants (F = 21.123, p < 0.001) in the different nature reserves. (3) Analysis of variation partitioning indicated that the effects of pure environmental factors (elevation, precipitation, evaporation, and temperature) on the beta diversity of the wetland plants in the nature reserves was the strongest (15.45% and 17.08%, respectively), followed by the effects of pure human disturbance factors (population density, industrial output value, and agricultural output value) (15.13% and 16.71%, respectively). Conclusions: Variations occurred in the assemblage characteristics of the wetland plants in the different Yellow River wetland nature reserves. The wetland species exhibited strong associations with the reserves in the Yellow River wetland in Henan Province. Elevation, longitude, precipitation, and evaporation were important factors that affected the diversity of wetland plants in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River in China. The findings provide insights into plant biodiversity conservation in riverine wetlands.

The temporal partitioning hypothesis refers to the promotion of stable species’ coexistence by reducing the likelihood of competitive exclusion, such as when species are active at different months of the year. However, the studies confirming the mechanisms of species’ coexistence focus on spatial scale, and temporal partitioning hypothesis for species’ coexistence remains underexplored. Fungal sporophores that are sensitive to seasonality change are ideal candidates for studying the role of temporal differentiation hypothesis in species’ coexistence. In this study, a field survey of fungal sporocarps was conducted from May to October, and the entity and abundance of different species of fungal sporocarps in a 5-hectare forest dynamic plot in a temperate, deciduous broad-leaved forest were recorded. The results showed that the emergence of fungal sporocarps based on month was highly specialized and uneven. The torus-translation test showed that 56 species exhibited ecological habitat preferences for different months (47/100, 47%). The distribution of soil fungal sporocarps (35/75, 46.67%) based on months showed higher specialization compared with that of rotten-wood fungal sporocarps (9/22, 40.90%). The findings suggest the importance of temporal partitioning in maintaining local diversity in the fungal community.

Graft reconstruction of the mandible is an important approach that aims at improving the appearance and functionality of defected mandibles. The traditional implant materials are generally bioinert, non-degradable, and that they lack favorable pore structures for cell proliferation, which limit their clinical application. In this study, we used boron-containing bioactive glass which was combined with a three-dimensional (3D) printing technology to construct an osteoinductive implant scaffold, according to the imaging instructions of CT scan on bone defects. Here, the boron-containing bioglass scaffold (B-BGs) was prepared through sol-gel processing and a 3D print technique. Different boron content of borosilicate bioglass was prepared by incorporating B2O3 (molar: 19.4 and 38.8%) into 58S bioglass to replace parts of SiO2. For fabricated mandible implants through three-dimensional 3D printing of B-BGs (size: 8 × 2 mm; pore size: 250 μm) modified with borosilicate bioglass powder and sodium alginate. Notably, the compressive strength of the B-BGs was about 3.8 Mpa, which supported mandibular activity. Subsequently, the excellent biocompatibility of B-BGs was confirmed using cytotoxicity in vitro studies. Finally, data from in vivo experiments demonstrated that the B-BGs could promote bone regeneration and they could almost get completely degraded within 4 weeks. Our results showed that the boron-containing bioglass could repair mandibular defects.

Port supply chains play a very important role in the process of economic globalization. Lack of trust of the mechanism is the main factor in restricting the development of port supply chains. Blockchains have great potential to solve the trust problem among all participants using port supply chains, which can reduce costs and improve efficiency. As the bridge between blockchains and port supply chains, smart contracts reconstruct the business process of blockchain-empowered port supply chains. In this article, we present an architecture of a consortium blockchain-empowered port supply chain system, and propose a system verification framework for the smart contracts of port supply chains with probabilistic behaviors. The smart contracts are modeled as DTMCs (Discrete-Time Markov Chains), which are automatically transformed through the BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) description of the smart contracts. The requirements are specified by PCTL (Probabilistic Computation Tree Logic). Moreover, we implement the customs clearance process of the Shanghai Yangshan Port based on blockchain Hyperledger Fabric, and reconstruct the clearance process with smart contracts. We use it to demonstrate the effectiveness of this framework, and identify the smart contracts that do not meet the expected needs of users.

Abstract As the number of satellite emergency imaging tasks grows, the main goal of satellites becomes putting forward solutions and meeting users’ demands in a relatively short time. This study aims to investigate the problem of emergency task planning for agile satellites. Through the analysis of the problem and its constraints, a model of emergency task autonomous planning was implemented. According to the characteristics of emergency tasks, a strategy to deal with the tasks of different emergency levels and various quantities was proposed. We put forward three algorithms for quick insertion of emergency tasks, i.e., emergency task insertion algorithm (ETIA), general emergency task insertion algorithm (GETIA), and general emergency task planning &insertion algorithm (GETPIA). The experimental result showed that the strategy and algorithms can not only respond quickly to observation tasks but also produce effective planning programs to ensure the successful completion of observation tasks.

The phenotypic sex of fish is usually plastic. Low-temperature treatment induces the masculinization of Takifugu rubripes, resulting in pseudo-males (PM) with the physiological sex of a male (M) and genetic sex of a female (F). For a comparison of gonadal transcriptomes, we collected gonads from three groups of T. rubripes (F, M, and PM) for high-throughput transcriptome sequencing. The results provided 467,640,218 raw reads (70.15 Gb) and a total of 436,151,088 clean reads (65.43 Gb), with an average length of 150 bp. Only 79 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between F and PM, whereas 12,041 and 11,528 DEGs were identified between F and M, and PM and M, respectively. According to the functional annotation of DEGs, 13 DEGs related to gonadal development were screened (LOC101066759, dgat1, limk1, fbxl3, col6a3, fgfr3, dusp22b, svil, abhd17b, srgap3, tmem88b, bud4, and mustn10) which might participate in formating PM. A quantitative PCR of the DEGs confirmed the reliability of the RNA-seq. Our results provide an important contribution to the genome sequence resources for T. rubripes and insight into the molecular mechanism of masculinization in a cultured fish subject to low-temperature treatment.

Sestrin (SESN) is known as a cysteine sulfinic acid reductase. Recently, nonredox functions of SESN in metabolic regulation and antitumor property have been recognized. While mechanisms underlying the expression of SESN are not fully understood. Here we report that insulin markedly increased SESN2 level in HepG2 cells through mTOR activation. To determine whether insulin affects SESN2 degradation, we assessed SESN2 turnover by applying the protein synthesis inhibitor, cycloheximide (CHX), and found that following insulin treatment SESN2 protein levels were reduced significantly slower than non-insulin-treated cells. Furthermore, the proteasomal inhibitor, MG132, dramatically increased SESN2 protein and its ubiquitination level while in the presence of MG132 insulin did not further increase SESN2 content, suggesting that insulin increases SESN2 content mainly via inhibiting its proteasomal degradation. We then explored the potential feedback role of SESN2 in insulin signaling by SESN2 siRNA knockdown in HepG2 cells. Following SESN2 knockdown insulin-stimulated PKB phosphorylation was enhanced and accompanied by reduced PTEN content. Taken together, our study suggests that insulin upregulates SESN2 content via the PI3K/mTOR signaling pathway and this effect is attributed to decreased SESN2 degradation. Furthermore, SESN2 via modulating PTEN plays a negative feedback role in insulin signaling.