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Glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) wastes may be mechanically processed into small strips called "macro fibres," which were used as short reinforcement fibres to produce macro fibre reinforced concrete (MFRC). The addition of such macro fibres into concrete has proven to be effective in enhancing the flexural strength and toughness of concrete, but it also slightly reduces the compressive strength of concrete. This paper presents a study on the behaviour of CFRP-confined MFRC. A total of 84 CFRP-confined MFRC cylinders were prepared and tested in axial compression. The test parameters included the CFRP confinement stiffness, macro fibre content, and fibre length. The test results show that the compressive strength and ultimate axial strain can be significantly enhanced through the use of CFRP confinement. The ultimate axial strain of CFRP-confined concrete with macro fibres is slightly higher than that without macro fibres. The test results were compared with two well-known stress-strain models for FRP-confined concrete, including Teng et al.'s design-oriented model and Jiang and Teng's analysis-oriented model. A comparative analysis showed that both models slightly underestimate the compressive strength and slightly overestimate the ultimate axial strain for CFRP-confined MFRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the huge investment made in developing government applications (APPs), it is essential for them to achieve the levels of performance needed to ensure service quality and meet public needs. Although public loyalty is crucial to the success of government APPs, few studies have analyzed the characteristics of service quality or the continuous use of government APPs and their associations. The present study has developed a theoretical model to show how government APPs service quality promotes continuance intention. A questionnaire survey of 388 government APP-users in China and a structural equation model have been used to verify this theoretical model. The empirical results show that overall service quality has an indirect positive impact on government APPs users' continuance intention through expectation confirmation, perceived usefulness, and user satisfaction. This study enriches our understanding of service quality and government APPs continuance intention, while also exploring government APPs development, design, and promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study introduces a novel multivariate stochastic process simulation algorithm to generate fluctuating wind velocity time histories of the vehicle–bridge united system. The Kaimal spectrum and wind spectrum relative to a moving point were applied to the bridge and the vehicle (train) in operation, respectively. The wind time series of the vehicle–bridge united system were generated simultaneously by considering the correlation between the moving point fixed on a vehicle in operation and the static points on a bridge. This algorithm is of high computational efficiency, as it takes advantage of explicit decomposition for the coherence function matrix and frequency truncation method. Based on an error estimation, this simulation method is proven to be accurate. Numerical examples of a vehicle running on a simply supported continuous beam bridge with the speeds of 20, 40, 60 and 80 m/s were performed. The result shows that the auto-/cross-correlation functions and auto-spectrum of the simulated wind samples are in good agreement with the targets. The proposed method can facilitate the analysis of wind–vehicle–bridge aerodynamic response with high efficiency and accuracy, and avoids the discontinuity problem of wind time history of the moving point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, with the development of deep‐learning, the performance of multiple object tracking (MOT) algorithm based on deep neural networks has been greatly improved. However, it is still a difficult problem to successfully solve the tracking misalignment caused by occlusion and complex tracking scenes. Most of the work focusses on designing a sophisticated network, only little work focusses on data association. Actually, data association is very helpful in MOT. In this study, data association in tracking is taken as the main research task, and the authors introduce quadratic graph matching into MOT. Considering the objects in each frame as a graph, we can model the data association between two frames as a quadratic graph matching problem. And then it is transformed into a convex quadratic optimisation problem. Introducing high‐order structure features into the matching function effectively solves some tracking problems. The data association is designed into the tracking model as an overall solution. Experiments show that the proposed data association algorithm performs favourably against several state‐of‐the‐art data association methods and can be used in any tracking‐by‐detection method. Our code is publicly available from https://github.com/gjy0514/G_Model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are various matrices to represent parallel mechanisms. It is essential to design a kind of approach to not only denote the parallel structures but also disclose the joint directions. In this paper, a novel methodology called the kinematic joint matrix (KJM) is proposed. It possesses the mapping relations with parallel manipulators with three kinds of kinematic joints. The size of such matrix is smaller when compared with that of topology matrix. A series of two to six degrees-of-freedom parallel architectures is denoted by the KJM. A convenient approach using a special block diagram is introduced to distinguish various kinds of kinematic joint matrices. In addition, detailed comparisons between KJM and topology matrix are investigated. Three regulations are proposed for the latter to be applicable to parallel mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of gold exploration, low sensitivity and poor reproducibility are the main problems that hinder the application of LIBS technology. In this paper, an experimental system for lateral collection of spectra with sample temperature control was built, and temperature experiments were carried out on pure gold and artificial specimens with different gold contents to study the influence of the LIBS signal of Au by using the matrix temperature. The experimental results of the pure gold samples demonstrated that increasing the matrix temperature could significantly improve the LIBS signal intensity and signal repeatability. In the artificial specimen experiments, the same enhancement of the LIBS signal quality by increasing the matrix temperature was observed, with a 280% increase in signal intensity, 20% increase in the signal to noise ratio (SNR), and 260% decrease in the limit of detection (LOD) at 973 K. Further theoretical calculations prove that the signal quality is improved by the increase in ablation and electron density through the increase in matrix temperature, while the high temperature environment provides a stable environment for the plasma. Therefore, increasing the matrix temperature can effectively improve the detection limit of Au as well as the signal reproducibility, which is of great significance to the application and development of LIBS in gold exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Herein, we report a new strategy of Ba micro‐alloying to enhance the anode properties of the Mg‐air primary battery anode materials. The influence of Ba micro‐alloying on electrochemical behavior, corrosion resistance, and discharge properties of Mg‐6Al anodes in Mg‐air batteries was specifically investigated. Ba micro‐alloying markedly improved the corrosion resistance of Mg‐6Al alloys, which was due to the grain refinement and the inhibition of the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction. However, when Ba content reached 0.7 wt.%, the coarse Al13Ba7 phase accelerated the galvanic corrosion and increased the corrosion rate. Moreover, the Mg‐6Al‐0.4Ba anode had the optimal discharge capacity and anode efficiency at 20 mA cm−2 with 893.66 mAh g−1 and 39.36%, respectively, which was 22.1% and 22.4% higher than that of the Mg‐6Al anode. The enrichment of discharge properties was attributed to the refinement of grains and the improvement of the self‐corrosion resistance. In addition, Ba micro‐alloying improved the absorption capacity of the anode, which was conducive to the self‐exfoliation of the discharge products. The Novelty Statement: This paper prepared the Mg‐6Al‐xBa anodes by Ba micro‐alloying to enhance the discharge properties. The generation of Al13Ba7 phase and the refinement of grains caused by Ba addition reduced the corrosion rate and increased the discharge capacity and anodic efficiency of Mg‐6Al alloy. Thus, Ba micro‐alloying can improve the corrosion resistance and discharge performance of Mg‐6Al alloy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, a novel mycovirus, tentatively designated as "Botryosphaeria dothidea fusarivirus 2" (BdFV2), was discovered in Botryosphaeria dothidea strain JZ-3. The complete genome sequence is 6,271 nucleotides (nt) in length, excluding the poly(A) tail, and contains two putative open reading frames (ORFs). The larger ORF1 encodes a polypeptide of 1,552 amino acids (aa) with conserved RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) domains and a viral helicase domain. The ORF1-encoded polypeptide shares 19.47–78.70% sequence identity with those of other fusariviruses and shares the highest sequence identity (78.70%) with the corresponding protein aa sequences of Neofusicoccum luteum fusarivirus 1 (NlFV1) isolate CBS110299. The small ORF2 encodes a hypothetical protein with 479 aa, which is predicted to contain a chromosome segregation protein SMC domain of unknown function. Sequence alignments and phylogenetic analysis indicated that BdFV2 is a distinct member of the recently established family Fusariviridae. BdFV2 appears to be a novel fusarivirus infecting a pathogenic B. dothidea strain that causes pear ring rot disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the great success of deep learning in computer vision, the application of convolution neural network (CNN) in seismic facies classification is growing rapidly. However, most of the previous works based on pure state-of-the-art CNN architectures still suffer from coarse segmentation results. In this article, we study the challenges of seismic facies classification and propose a stronger baseline. More specifically, we propose a simple yet effective unsupervised approach named spatial pyramid sampling (SPS) to choose representative samples for training to reduce the labeling costs. Next, we propose a multimodal fusion (M2F) module to extract and fuse the edge and frequency information from selected seismic images to build a stable multimodal representation. Finally, we propose a local-to-global (L2G) module, which improves the recognition power by capturing the local relationship between pixels and enhancing the global context representation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a superior performance with less labeled training data, especially for small categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To study the mechanism by which miR-21 regulates the differentiation and function of Th17/Treg cells in sepsis. Methods. A rat model with sepsis was made by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). Then, some of the septic rats were transfected with miR-21 mimic or inhibitor by liposome. At 48 hours, lymphocytes and plasma from septic rats were isolated for further experimental detection. The expression of miR-21 in lymphocytes was detected by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR); the differentiation of Th17/Treg cells was counted by flow cytometry; lymphocyte apoptosis was observed by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay. The caspase-3/9 proteins were tested by Western blot; IL-10 and IL-17 were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results. Compared with the sepsis group (SP group), the Th17 cells increased significantly, the Treg cells decreased significantly, the apoptosis rate of lymphocytes decreased significantly, the mRNA and proteins of caspase-3/9 decreased significantly, the IL-17 decreased, and the IL-10 increased in the sepsis group transfected with miR-21 (SP + miR-21 mimic group). After transfection of miR-21 inhibitor, the results were almost opposite to those of SP + miR-21 mimic group. Conclusions. The differentiation and function of Th17/Treg cells were regulated by miR-21 in sepsis through caspase pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-performance, multi-functional eugenol-based epoxy resin (EBER) was successfully prepared. The mechanical property, photochromism and fluorescence of EBER were investigated by tensile test, cyclic tensile test, ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectrophotometer and fluorescence spectrometer. The results of tensile test and cyclic tensile test revealed that EBER has good mechanical property, even when it is compared with commercial epoxy resin. The UV − vis spectra displayed that EBER has photochromic functionality. After EBER was exposed to UV, the color of it will change from yellow to green, so the curing condition can be observed according to its color. The fluorescence spectrum exhibited that EBER has fluorescence. In the dark and under UV, EBER will display a jade-green fluorescence, which can help people observe the condition of the adhesive clearly. More importantly, this photochromic fluorescent EBER was prepared from raw materials without dye and fluorescent agent, thereby can solve a lot of problems. This work provides a new idea and method for preparing high-performance, multi-functional bio-based epoxy resin, and has a potential application in bronze ware repairment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lonicerae Japonicae Flos (LJF) and Lonicerae Flos (LF) were once used as the same herb in China, but they were distinguished by Chinese Pharmacopoeia in 2005 in terms of their medicinal history, plant morphology, medicinal properties and chemical constituents. However, their functions, flavor, and meridian tropism are the same according to the Chinese pharmacopoeia 2020 edition, making researchers and customers confused. This review aimed to provide a comparative analysis of LJF and LF in order to provide a rational application in future research. The information was gathered from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), SciFinder, Google Scholar, PubMed, Web of Science, and Chinese Masters and Doctoral Dissertations (all chosen articles were reviewed attentively from 1980.1 to 2023.8). Till now, 507 chemical compounds have been isolated and identified in LJF, while 223 ones (79 overlapped compounds) are found in LF, including organic acids and derivatives, flavonoids, triterpenoids, iridoids, and essential oil components, et c. In addition, the pharmacological activities of LJF and LF, especially for their anti-influenza efficacy and mechanism, and their difference in terms of pharmacokinetic parameters, toxicology, and clinical applications were also summarized. The current work offers comparative information between LJF and LF in terms of botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry, ethnopharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicology, and pharmacology, especially their anti-influenza activities. Despite the same clinical applications and similar chemical components in LJF and LF, differentiated components were still existed, resulting in differentiated pharmacological activities and pharmacokinetics parameters. Moreover, the research about anti-influenza mechanism and functional substances of LJF and LF is dramatically limited, restricting their clinical applications. In addition, few studies have investigated the metabolism feature of LF in vivo , which is one of the important bases for revealing the pharmacological mechanism of LF. At the same time, the toxicity of LJF and LF is not fully studied, and the toxic compounds of LJF and LF need to be screened out in order to standardize the drug use and improve their rational applications. [Display omitted] • The traditional uses and pharmacology, etc. of LJF and LF were summarized. • 651 compounds and their chemical structures, from LJF and LF, were collected. • The anti-influenza efficacy and mechanism of LJF and LF were summarized. • 115 traditional and clinical prescriptions containing LJF or LF were sorted out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of the Internet of Things increases the demand for wearable devices. Compared with traditional chemical batteries, flexible thermoelectric technology contributes a solution for solving the power supply of wearable electronics. Here, we prepared n-type Bi2Te3 and p-type Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 flexible thermoelectric films by the magnetron sputtering method, where the thermoelectric performance and their microstructures are systematically studied. The carrier concentration and mobility are optimized by adjusting the deposition temperature, eventually improving the thermoelectric performance and achieving the room-temperature power factors of 3.2 and 6.1 μW cm−1 K−2 for Bi2Te3 and Bi0.5Sb1.5Te3 films, respectively. Furthermore, after being bent 900 times with a radius of 5 mm, the resistance of these films barely increases, demonstrating the great potential for applications in wearable electronics. In order to further evaluate the practicability, these films are used to design a flexible thermoelectric generator, in which output performance improves with the increase in the temperature difference. The power density is up to ∼218.8 μW cm−2 at temperature differences of ∼41 K. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As COVID-19 continues to spread globally, traditional emergency management measures are facing many practical limitations. The application of big data analysis technology provides an opportunity for local governments to conduct the COVID-19 epidemic emergency management more scientifically. The present study, based on emergency management lifecycle theory, includes a comprehensive analysis of the application framework of China's SARS epidemic emergency management lacked the support of big data technology in 2003. In contrast, this study first proposes a more agile and efficient application framework, supported by big data technology, for the COVID-19 epidemic emergency management and then analyses the differences between the two frameworks.Methods: This study takes Hainan Province, China as its case study by using a file content analysis and semistructured interviews to systematically comprehend the strategy and mechanism of Hainan's application of big data technology in its COVID-19 epidemic emergency management.Results: Hainan Province adopted big data technology during the four stages, i.e., migration, preparedness, response, and recovery, of its COVID-19 epidemic emergency management. Hainan Province developed advanced big data management mechanisms and technologies for practical epidemic emergency management, thereby verifying the feasibility and value of the big data technology application framework we propose.Conclusions: This study provides empirical evidence for certain aspects of the theory, mechanism, and technology for local governments in different countries and regions to apply, in a precise, agile, and evidence-based manner, big data technology in their formulations of comprehensive COVID-19 epidemic emergency management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyacrylonitrile/Ti3C2Tx MXene/silver nanoparticles fiber membranes with different silver nanoparticles contents and thickness of porous structure have been successfully prepared by electrospinning. Through the measurement of terahertz time domain spectrum, the shielding effect of the fiber membrane with 1% silver nanoparticles content can reach up to 12 dB. Moreover, the thickness of the spinning fiber membranes is controlled by adjusting the spinning time, so as to better analyze the influence of the thickness of the shielding performance in terahertz band. We attribute this excellent phenomenon to porous structure of the spun fiber membrane and combination of Ti3C2Tx MXene with few-layers and silver nanoparticles to increase the absorption and conductivity of the fiber membrane, thereby enhancing the shielding effect in terahertz range. Meanwhile, the prepared polyacrylonitrile/Ti3C2Tx MXene/silver nanoparticles fiber membranes show good stability and little change in terahertz shielding effect after high temperature annealing. This may provide potential ideas about the development of high-performance terahertz shielding materials, which are of great significance of terahertz electromagnetic shielding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here, we describe a novel mycovirus, tentatively designated as "Botryosphaeria dothidea mitovirus 3" (BdMV3), isolated from Botryosphaeria dothidea strain FJ, which causes pear ring rot disease in Fujian Province, China. The complete genome nucleotide sequence of BdMV3 is 2538 nt in length and contains a single 2070-nt open reading frame (ORF) encoding a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of 689 amino acids (aa) using the fungal mitochondrial genetic code. BLASTp analysis revealed that the RdRp of BdMV3 shares 28.91%–69.36% sequence identity (query sequence coverage more than 90%) with those of members of the genus Mitovirus, with the highest sequence identity of 69.36% and 68.79% to the corresponding RdRp aa sequences of Rhizoctonia solani mitovirus 10 and Macrophomina phaseolina mitovirus 4, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on RdRp aa sequences indicated that BdMV3 is a new member of the genus Mitovirus in the family Mitoviridae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An aerobic, Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped bacterium with flagellum, designated L22T, was isolated from sediment of Hulun Lake, Inner Mongolia, China. The organism was found to grow optimally at 30° C in a medium containing 0–0.75% (w/v) NaCl at pH 7.5. The major fatty acid identified was summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c). The dominant polar lipids were phosphomonoester, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylcholine. The main respiratory quinone was Q-10. The draft genome sequence of strain L22T consisted of 4354,788 bp. The G + C content of genomic DNA was 69.8 mol %. The 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain L22T was affiliated with the genus Methylobrevis within the family Pleomorphomonadaceae, being most closely related to Methylobrevis pamukkalensis JCM 30229T with 95.9% 16S rRNA gene sequences similarity. The AAI, ANI and dDDH values between strain L22T and M. pamukkalensis JCM 30229T were 72.5%, 80.7% and 22.7%. Based on taxonomic results in this study, we proposed that strain L22T a novel species in the genus Methylobrevis of the family Pleomorphomonadaceae, for which the name Methylobrevis albus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is L22T (=KCTC 72858T=MCCC 1H00432T). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The roles of Al 11 Sm 3 and Al 2 Sm phases on microstructure evolution, mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of the Mg-5Sm-xAl system was investigated. The results showed that adding Al to Mg–5Sm binary alloy brought two Al–Sm phases, Al 11 Sm 3 and Al 2 Sm, which had two distinct roles regarding the microstructure evolution, mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of the Mg-Sm-Al alloy. Al 11 Sm 3 produced a strong galvanic couple with the Mg matrix, and significantly accelerated the corrosion. The Al 2 Sm particles promoted heterogeneous nucleation and refined the grains, which increased the tensile strength and ductility. Both types of Al–Sm particles provided strengthening effect for the alloy. With higher Al contents, Al 2 Sm formed an Al oxide protective surface layer and increased corrosion resistance. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degradation of pyrazinamide (PZA) by electron beam irradiation (EBI) was studied. It was found that the degradation of PZA was efficient with the removal rate of 99% for 0.2 mM PZA under 5 kGy, and the degradation kinetics followed pseudo-first-order kinetics. The presence of CO32−, HCO3−, NO3−, and fulvic acid inhibited the degradation of PZA. The addition of H2O2 or K2S2O8 effectively enhanced the degradation and mineralization of PZA. The scavenger experiments and quantum chemical calculations showed that ·OH was the primary reactive species in the degradation. The identification of intermediates and quantum chemical calculations illustrated the mechanism of degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of the popularisation of high‐resolution images, detecting objects in these images quickly and accurately has attracted increasing attention in recent studies. Current convolutional neural networks (CNN)‐based detection methods have limitations in detecting small objects owing to the interference of scale variation. In this work, we propose an improved generic framework based on YOLOv3. Equipped with multiresolution supervision for training and multiresolution aggregation for inference, this method can deal with the challenge of scale variation in high‐resolution images. At first, we move up the multiscale prediction position and add a dilated convolution module on YOLOv3 to improve the accuracy of detection, especially for small objects. Then, we present a coarse to fine method to reduce the detection time. Experiments on a COCO dataset show that our approach achieves 2.8% better accuracy compared with the previous YOLOv3. On a Dataset for Object deTection in Aerial images dataset (a high‐resolution remote sensing dataset), our approach outperformed the YOLOv3 by nearly three percentage points in mean average precision. Moreover, it is up to three times faster as well and two times smaller than the previous YOLOv3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video prediction is challenging, due to the pixel-level precision requirement and the difficulty in capturing scene dynamics. Most approaches tackle the problems by pixel-level reconstruction objectives and two decomposed branches, which still suffer from blurry generations or dramatic degradations in long-term prediction. In this paper, we propose a Motion-Aware Feature Enhancement (MAFE) network for video prediction to produce realistic future frames and achieve relatively long-term predictions. First, a Channel-wise and Spatial Attention (CSA) module is designed to extract motion-aware features, which enhances the contribution of important motion details during encoding, and subsequently improves the discriminability of attention map for the frame refinement. Second, a Motion Perceptual Loss (MPL) is proposed to guide the learning of temporal cues, which benefits to robust long-term video prediction. Extensive experiments on three human activity video datasets: KTH, Human3.6M, and PennAction demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed video prediction model compared with the state-of-the-art approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The p-type Mg 3 Sb 2 /Sb hybrid thermoelectric films were successfully fabricated by the magnetron sputtering method. • The optimized films achieve a high power factor of 43.21 μV m−1 K−2 at ∼195 °C and show a good stability, where Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity rarely decreased after one month of exposure to air. • The output voltage of deposited films reaches ∼0.9 mV at Δ T of 31 ℃, and the output power is basically consistent in the periodic cycle measurement. Mg 3 Sb 2 -based bulk materials show great potential in both waste-heat recovery and cooling applications because of their excellent thermoelectric performance. But for the Mg 3 Sb 2 -based thermoelectric films, few efforts are devoted to it. Here, the p-type Mg 3 Sb 2 -based thermoelectric films have been successfully fabricated using the radio frequency magnetic sputtering method, which are composed of Mg 3 Sb 2 and Sb phases. Interestingly, the ratio of Mg 3 Sb 2 and Sb phases can be regulated by adjusting deposition temperature, where thermoelectric performance can be optimized, obtaining high power factor of 43.21 μV m−1 K−2 at 195 ℃. Furthermore, both Seebeck coefficient and electrical conductivity of Mg 3 Sb 2 films are rarely decreased even after one month of exposure to air, demonstrating good stability. In order to further evaluate practicability, the output powers of Mg 3 Sb 2 /Sb films are measured at different temperature differences (Δ T), where an output voltage of ∼0.9 mV is achieved at Δ T of 31 ℃. In particular, the output power is basically consistent in the periodic cycle measurement, further implying a good stability. This work can provide a new thinking, enlightening more researchers to focus on the Mg 3 Sb 2 -based low-dimensional materials, and promoting its applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The interventions for hemorrhoid increase access to rectal cancer screening and thus might reduce cancer death. We aimed to examine the impact of hemorrhoid on survival outcomes in rectal cancer. Methods. We identified 510 patients with stage I to III rectal cancer from a prospectively collected database. Patients were divided into hemorrhoid and non-hemorrhoid group. The primary endpoints were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Results. Hemorrhoid group had significantly more stage I-II diseases in comparison to nonhemorrhoid group (71.1% vs. 55.9%, P = 0.049). The hemorrhoid group had significantly better DFS and OS compared to nonhemorrhoid group, the hazard ratios (HRs) of which were 0.39 (95% CI 0.17-0.88, P = 0.018) and 0.33 (95% CI 0.12-0.92, P = 0.034), respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that hemorrhoid was independently associated with DFS [adjusted HR 0.43 (95% CI 0.17-0.95, P = 0.045)]. A nomogram for predicting DFS outcome was generated based on hemorrhoid history, with a concordance index of 0.71 (95% CI 0.66-0.75, P < 0.001). Conclusions. There may exist a screening effect and survival benefit from hemorrhoid in rectal cancer, which supports the significance of rectal cancer screening in lowering its mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The interventions for hemorrhoid increase access to rectal cancer screening and thus might reduce cancer death. We aimed to examine the impact of hemorrhoid on survival outcomes in rectal cancer. Methods. We identified 510 patients with stage I to III rectal cancer from a prospectively collected database. Patients were divided into hemorrhoid and non-hemorrhoid group. The primary endpoints were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Results. Hemorrhoid group had significantly more stage I-II diseases in comparison to nonhemorrhoid group (71.1% vs. 55.9%, P = 0.049). The hemorrhoid group had significantly better DFS and OS compared to nonhemorrhoid group, the hazard ratios (HRs) of which were 0.39 (95% CI 0.17-0.88, P = 0.018) and 0.33 (95% CI 0.12-0.92, P = 0.034), respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that hemorrhoid was independently associated with DFS [adjusted HR 0.43 (95% CI 0.17-0.95, P = 0.045)]. A nomogram for predicting DFS outcome was generated based on hemorrhoid history, with a concordance index of 0.71 (95% CI 0.66-0.75, P < 0.001). Conclusions. There may exist a screening effect and survival benefit from hemorrhoid in rectal cancer, which supports the significance of rectal cancer screening in lowering its mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have successfully fabricated Ti-based MXenes flakes, Ti3C2Tx, by chemical etching, then prepared it as an organic dispersion and finally spin-coated it on polyimide plastic substrate for terahertz wave shielding. The shielding effectivity of the 12 μm ultra-thin film can reach up to 17 dB measured by the terahertz time-domain spectra. We can attribute the excellent phenomenon to the intrinsic absorption of triple-layered Ti3C2, due to the similar double-peak type refraction curves, which have been respectively observed from the experimental samples and the simulation ones. High conductivity and strong THz absorption indicate the Ti3C2Tx MXene is the absorptive electromagnetic shielding material. Comparing with other kinds of THz shielding materials, the Ti-based MXenes might be a potential candidate for the next generation of ultra-thin and lightweight THz shielding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To observe the inflammatory response, differentiation of Th17/Treg subsets and apoptosis of lymphocytes, by regulating miR-126 in lymphocytes of septic rats. After using cecal ligation and puncture to establish sepsis model, miR-126 mimic and miR-126 inhibitor were used to transfect lymphocytes of septic rats in vitro and in vivo. ELISA was used to detect TNF-α, IL-6, IL-17, and IL-10, the differentiation of Th17 and Treg was measured by flow cytometry, and apoptosis of lymphocytes was observed by fluorescence microscope; the changes of caspase signaling pathway were detected by immunofluorescence, PCR, and Western blotting. The result show that the expression of miR-126 increased in sepsis. After overexpression of miR-126, the release of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-17 decreased; the release of IL-10 increased; T lymphocyte subsets differentiated toward Treg; caspase signaling pathway weakened; and lymphocyte of apoptosis decreased compared with sepsis group. While, after inhibition of miR-126, the release of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-17 increased; the release of IL-10 decreased; T lymphocyte subsets differentiated toward TH17; caspase signaling pathway enhanced; and lymphocyte of apoptosis increased compared with sepsis group. Taken together, regulation of miR-126 can alter the inflammatory response, differentiation of T lymphocyte subsets, and apoptosis of lymphocytes in septic rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) is an important fruit tree species worldwide. Apple fruits are favored by consumers because of their antioxidative, anti‐inflammatory, and antitumor effects as well as their protective effects against cardiovascular diseases and other health benefits. There is considerable interest in red‐fleshed apple fruits among breeders because of their high flavonoid and anthocyanin contents. However, the flavonoids extracted from red‐fleshed apple fruits must still be functionally characterized, especially regarding their protective effects against certain pathologies. In this study, the flavonoid components and contents in the extracts prepared from red‐fleshed apple cultivar "Meihong" were determined. Additionally, the in vitro antioxidant activities and protective effects of the extracts against CCl4‐induced acute liver injury were investigated. The red‐fleshed apple flesh flavonoid extract (RAFF) exhibited strong in vitro antioxidant activities. Compared with the model control mice treated with CCl4, the mice pretreated with high (800 mg/kg·bw), middle (400 mg/kg·bw), and low (200 mg/kg·bw) RAFF doses had significantly lower CCl4‐induced serum aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, and alkaline phosphatase activities. Moreover, the RAFF pretreatment also significantly decreased the liver malondialdehyde activity and prevented the CCl4‐induced decrease in liver superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase, catalase, and reduced glutathione levels. Furthermore, a histopathological examination revealed that RAFF inhibited the inflammatory cell infiltration and cell boundary loss caused by CCl4 in the liver. Thus, RAFF is a natural antioxidant with significant antioxidative activities and liver protective effects. The results of this study may be relevant for enhancing the application of the red‐fleshed apple fruit extract as a food additive. Practical Application: We took the self‐selected red‐fleshed apple cultivar "Meihong" as the unique research material, and the active ingredients of its flavonoid extract, in vitro antioxidant activity and hepatoprotective effect were analyzed. It is of great significance to promote the development of the red‐fleshed apple industry, and also provides an important reference for the development of natural antioxidants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) gain success for recommendation, but still face great challenges of data sparseness and negative sampling in implicit feedback-based recommendation. In particular, they ignore the unique graph structure for information propagation and thus fail to fully explore the potentials of GCN. To tackle the problem, we propose a GCN-based self-training approach, called STL, which exploits the learning results in the training procedure, and the potential relations in the embedding space of GCN. First, to handle the data sparsity, we modify the interaction graph structure by adding edges linking a selected part of users and their potential positive items. Second, we adaptively expand the set of positive samples that are used in the pairwise loss function, which not only supplements the dataset but also avoids sampling noises. Further, similarity of structural neighbors on graph is used to mine hard negative sample for improving the sample quality. Experiments on three representative GCN-based recommenders and four widely used public datasets show that STL alleviates the problem of data sparsity, thereby improving recommendation performance compared to normal training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Camellia oleifera oil (COO) is a high-quality woody edible oil, and the oilseed pretreatment is an important part of the oil processing in the edible oil production. This study investigated the effect of superheated steam (SHS) pretreatment on the phenolics and the corresponding antioxidant properties of COO. Results showed that SHS pretreatment time and temperature had significant impact on oil yield and the phenolic content of different forms of camellia seeds (P ＜0.05). SHS pretreatment at 150 °C and 180 °C increased the free phenolics (FP) content, and the antioxidant properties of FP and conjugated phenolics (CP) in COO after SHS pretreatment under optimal condition. Then, the effect of SHS on two phenolic substances with high contents of COO, di- O -methylquercetin and 4-chloro-2-hydroxybenzoic acid was studied. SHS pretreatment had a positive effect on COO, and it may increase its biological activity and reduce its irritation. In addition, four phenolics that were significantly associated with the antioxidant properties of camellia phenolics were found. This study can provide new ideas and directions for oilseed pretreatment. • Innovative use of SHS for camellia seed pretreatment. • SHS pretreatment increased oil yield and FP content of COO. • SHS pretreatment increased the antioxidant capacity of COO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on two internal organizational factors in college football teams (team powerfulness and team reputation) and their combined relationship on game attendance. Authors aim to validate new data published by Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and NCAA websites; and to develop a new conceptual model to examine the interaction effect of team powerfulness and team reputation on game attendance. Design/methodology/approach: This study relies on secondary data collected from the WSJ's "College Football's Grid of Shame" publication and the NCAA official website. Data for 123 US college football teams are collected representing 13 conferences for seasons 2010–2014. Multi-level regressions are utilized for statistical analyses. Findings: Results reveal that not only team's powerfulness is required for more public attendance to games, but also team reputation strengthens this relationship. In other words, team reputation plays an important role in increasing games' attendance. Team reputation alone does not bring more attendees to games. Originality/value: This paper studies the relevance of team reputation in the field of sports management. This paper argues that in order to achieve superior financial benefits in college football games, it is important to properly manage team powerfulness and its legal and ethical behavior. In this way, a positive reputation can leverage game attendance to a larger extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 65‐day growth trial was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) on growth performance, tissue adipocytokine levels and lipid metabolism of grass carp. Seven isonitrogenous and isolipidic diets were formulated as follows: 0 (control), 5 (CLA5), 10 (CLA10), 15 (CLA15), 20 (CLA20), 25 (CLA25) and 30 (CLA30) g/kg CLA. Results showed that incorporating as low as 25 g/kg CLA in the diet significantly decreased the growth of grass carp. The liver lipid content in fish fed with CLA15 to CLA30 significantly decreased. The leptin and resistin levels in liver of fish fed with CLA5 to CLA30 diets significantly increased. The mRNA expression levels of fatty acid synthase (FAS) and triacylglycerol lipase (TGL) in liver of fish fed with CLA5 to CLA30 and CLA10 to CLA30 diets also significantly decreased, respectively. In summary, the lipid‐lowering effects in grass carp liver were induced by the supplementation of 15–20 g/kg CLA, but its growth remained unaffected. Moreover, the lipid‐lowering effects of CLA on grass carp could also be modulated both by adipocytokine levels and by the expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism in tissues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Allergic rhinitis (AR), a common chronic inflammatory disease in the upper airways. The prevalence of AR in children seems to be increasing recently, and the most significant causes of the increase are thought to be changes in environmental factors, especially air pollution. However, we could not find any meta-analysis on the risk of air pollution exposure on the prevalence of AR in childhood. The aim of this research was to carry out a meta-analysis on the results of recent studies (21 s t century) to present valid information about exposure to air pollution and risk of prevalence of childhood AR. Methods PubMed, Science, Google Scholar, Elsevier and MDPI web database were searched up to January 1, 2000 to February 28, 2018. Including of air pollution and AR in childhood related to the observation of literature. Meta-analysis, study quality assessment, heterogeneity analysis and publication bias test were using Stata-MP 14.1 and Review Manager version 5.3 software. Results 13 studies will be included in the meta-analysis (8 cross-sectional studies, 5 cohort studies). Exposure to NO 2 (OR Europe  = 1.031, 95%CI [1.002,1.060], P = 0.033; OR Asia  = 1.236, 95%CI [1.099,1.390], P = 0.000; OR overall  = 1.138, 95%CI [1.052,1.231], P = 0.001); Exposure to SO 2 (OR Europe  = 1.148, 95%CI [1.030,1.279], P = 0.012; OR Asia  = 1.044, 95%CI [0.954,1.142], P = 0.352; OR overall  = 1.085, 95%CI [1.013,1.163], P = 0.020); Exposure to PM 10 (OR Europe  = 1.190, 95%CI [1.092,1.297], P = 0.000; OR Asia  = 1.075, 95%CI [0.995,1.161], P = 0.066; OR overall  = 1.125, 95%CI [1.062,1.191], P = 0.000); Exposure to PM 2.5 (OR Europe  = 1.195, 95%CI [1.050,1.360], P = 0.007; OR Asia  = 1.163, 95%CI [1.074,1.260], P = 0.000; OR overall  = 1.172, 95%CI [1.095,1.254], P = 0.000). Conclusions Exposed to air pollution probable is a risk of prevalence of childhood AR. And the prevalence of AR will be increase when exposed to NO 2 , SO 2 , PM 10 and PM 2.5 , but maybe the relationship between SO 2 /PM 10 and prevalence of AR are not closely in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, a typical Sb mine was selected to explore the microbial community composition and assembly driven by the cocontamination of As/Sb with geographic distance. Our results showed that environmental parameters, especially pH, TOC, nitrate, total and bioavailable As/Sb contents largely affected the microbial community diversity and composition. The total and bioavailable As/Sb levels were significantly positively correlated with the relative abundance of Zavarzinella , Thermosporothrix and Holophaga , while the pH presented a significant negative correlation with the three genera, potentially implying they are important taxonomic groups in acid-mining soils. The cooccurrence network analysis indicated the environmental stress dominated by pH and As/Sb co-contamination affected the microbial modularity and interaction. Meanwhile, Homogeneous selection (HoS, 26.4–49.3%), and drift and others (DR, 27.1∼40.2%) were the most important assembly processes for soil bacterial, and the importance of HoS decreased and the DR increased with geographic distance to the contamination source respectively. Soil pH, nutrient availability, total and bioavailable As/Sb contents significantly affected the HoS and DR processes. This study provides theoretical support for microbial remediation in metal(loid)-contaminated soils. [Display omitted] • As/Sb levels and biogeography both affect microbial diversity and composition. • As/Sb levels and biogeography mediate microbial interaction and cooccurrence pattern. • As/Sb levels and biogeography regulate microbial assembly processes and functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Methods Results Conclusion This study aimed to assess the association between vitamin D and sleep health and to investigate whether depression could mediate this relationship.A cross-sectional analysis was performed using the 2005–2014 US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data. The logistic regression models were conducted to evaluate association of serum vitamin D concentrations with sleep health and depression. Mediation analyses were conducted to investigate the mediated effects of depression on the association of vitamin D with sleep health.In multivariate logistic models, vitamin D was found to be negatively associated with an increased risk of poor sleep health, with an odds ratio (OR) of vitamin D deficiency versus sufficiency was 1.256 (95% CI = 1.084–1.455). Additionally, univariate logistic models showed that vitamin D was also negatively associated with depression risk (vitamin D deficiency vs. sufficiency: OR = 1.699, 95% CI = (1.373–2.103). Further mediation analyses showed that the association of vitamin D with sleep health was mediated by depression, with the mediating effects of depression accounted for 44.56% of the total effects.Vitamin D affects sleep health directly and indirectly through depression. The results suggest that interventions increasing intake of vitamin D should be prioritized to promote sleep health of persons with or at risk of depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The Chinese government hopes to achieve the goal of benefiting citizens by building a National Integrated Online Government Service Platform (NIOGSP). However, citizens' low adoption of the platform makes it difficult for the government to achieve its goal. Research on the influencing factors of citizen adoption of NIOGSP can help the government fully understand the concerns and needs of its citizens and take targeted measures to increase citizen adoption. Design/methodology/approach: First, this research builds a model of the citizen adoption process, including attention, retention and motivation, based on an observational learning model. Next, research variables are determined based on social cognitive theory, literature review and real-world needs. Finally, based on the questionnaire survey and structural equation model, the influencing factors of each stage of the citizen adoption process model are studied and the relationship between the three stages of the model is verified. Findings: Results show that perceived usefulness (PU) and self-efficacy (SE) positively affect attention. SE positively affects retention, while perceived privacy (PP) negatively affects retention. PU, social influence, PP and anxiety positively affect motivation. Originality/value: The conclusion of this study can provide reference for governments in various countries to establish and improve online one-stop government. In addition, this study verifies the citizen adoption process model and finds that there is no obvious causal relationship between attention and retention, but both have positive effects on motivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide arsenic (As) contamination in soils induces pollution of surface and ground waters, reduces crop quality and yield, and threatens human health. Biochar-based material has been proposed as ameliorants for contaminated soils. Here soil incubations were conducted to investigate the effects of biochar, red mud and red mud-modified biochar on the pH, total organic carbon content, sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3)-extractable As concentration and microbial community composition of As-contaminated soils. Results show red mud-modified biochar reduces the concentration of NaHCO3-extractable As by 27%, whereas this concentration increases by 23% using biochar alone and 6% using red mud alone. Similar trends are observed for HCl-extractable As. The red mud and red mud-modified biochar treatments increased the relative abundance of Proteobacteria and its affiliated genera, such as Kaistobacter, Rhodanobacter and Rhodoplanes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 50% of Chinese mangroves were lost between 1950 and 2000 to habitat destruction, prompting an urge for conservation. To assess the importance of the protected Maowei Gulf mangrove estuary for fish population assemblage in the Beibu Gulf (China), we studied species composition and abundance of juvenile fish (including larvae) from July 2012 to June 2013. A total of 11 691 specimens were collected, which belonged to 24 species and 15 families. Six perciform species constituted 93% of the total sample. Pseudogobius javanicus (53.29%) was the dominant species from August to November, Omobranchus elegans (28.49%) from April to July, non-identified species in December and January, and Liza carinata in February and March. A number of commercially important fish species were also identified. Abundance was the highest in summer/early autumn (max 162.4 in Sep), and lowest in winter/early spring (Mar = 4.5). Diversity (H’) and richness (Dma) indices (both max. in May: 1.67 and 1.95 respectively) were generally positively correlated with tide and temperature, and negatively with salinity. Seasonal variations play a more important role in the fish assemblage structure than tidal rhythm, with differences particularly pronounced between colder and warmer months. Despite the prominent seasonal differences in abiotic factors, this study indicates that Maowei mangroves provide habitat and food for juvenile fish throughout the year and thus are indispensable for the fish diversity in the Beibu Gulf. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Genomic imprinting is one of the well-known epigenetic factors causing the association between traits and genes and has generally been examined by detecting parent-of-origin effects of alleles. A lot of methods have been proposed to test for parent-of-origin effects on autosomes based on nuclear families and general pedigrees. Although these parent-of-origin effects tests on autosomes have been available for more than 15 years, there has been no statistical test developed to test for parent-of-origin effects on X chromosome, until the parental-asymmetry test on X chromosome (XPAT) and its extensions were recently proposed. However, these methods on X chromosome are only applicable to nuclear families and thus are not suitable for general pedigrees. Results: In this article, we propose the pedigree parental-asymmetry test on X chromosome (XPPAT) statistic to test for parent-of-origin effects in the presence of association, which can accommodate general pedigrees. When there are missing genotypes in some pedigrees, we further develop the Monte Carlo pedigree parental-asymmetry test on X chromosome (XMCPPAT) to test for parent-of-origin effects, by inferring the missing genotypes given the observed genotypes based on a Monte Carlo estimation. An extensive simulation study has been carried out to investigate the type I error rates and the powers of the proposed tests. Our simulation results show that the proposed methods control the size well under the null hypothesis of no parent-of-origin effects. Moreover, XMCPPAT substantially outperforms the existing tests and has a much higher power than XPPAT which only uses complete nuclear families (with both parents) from pedigrees. We also apply the proposed methods to analyze rheumatoid arthritis data for their practical use. Conclusions: The proposed XPPAT and XMCPPAT test statistics are valid and powerful in detecting parent-of-origin effects on X chromosome for qualitative traits based on general pedigrees and thus are recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doxorubicin (DOX) is first-line chemotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but the effect is not satisfactory. The resistance of HCC cells to DOX is the main reason leading to treatment failure. Therefore, it is necessary to study the mechanism of DOX resistance in HCC. In this study, expression of connexin (Cx)32 was significantly decreased in HCC tissues compared with corresponding paracancerous tissues, and activity of the Src/focal adhesion kinase (FAK) signaling pathway was significantly enhanced. Expression of Cx32 was closely associated with activity of the Src/FAK signaling pathway, Cx32, and the Src/FAK signaling pathway was also correlated with degree of HCC differentiation. In DOX-resistant HepG2 cells, compared with DOX-sensitive HepG2 cells, expression of Cx32 was significantly reduced and activity of the Src/FAK pathway increased. After silencing Cx32 in HepG2 cells, activity of the Src/FAK pathway increased and sensitivity to DOX decreased. In contrast, overexpression of Cx32 in HepG2/DOX cells decreased activity of the Src/FAK pathway and increased sensitivity to DOX. Dasatinib and KX2-391, inhibitors of the Src/FAK pathway, significantly increased the sensitivity of HepG2/DOX cells to DOX. The results suggest that Src/FAK is a downstream regulator of Cx32 and Cx32 regulates the sensitivity of HCC cells to DOX via the Src/FAK signaling pathway. Our study demonstrates a potential mechanism of DOX resistance in HCC cells and supports that Cx32–Src/FAK is an important target for reversing drug resistance of HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arterial catheterization is challenging in obese patients. The present study tested the hypothesis that ultrasound guidance with acoustic shadowing improves the success rate of radial artery catheterization in obese patients. 240 obese patients were enrolled and were randomly assigned to three groups: control group, single developing line group, or double developing lines group. Patients underwent radial artery catheterization guided by acoustic shadowing ultrasound with none, single or double developing lines. The primary outcome was the first-attempt success rate. The secondary outcomes included the procedure time and complication rate. In the single or double developing lines group, the success rate of radial artery catheterization at the first attempt was higher than in the control group (control vs. single vs. double, 71% vs. 90% vs. 91%, P = 0.001). Besides, the single and double developing lines groups had a shorter procedure time to success at the first attempt and a lower overall complication (vasospasm and hematoma) rate than the control group (procedure time: control vs. single vs. double, 63 s vs. 54 s vs. 40 s, P < 0.001; overall complication rate: control vs. single vs. double, 29% vs. 10% vs. 9%, P = 0.001). There was no significant difference in the first-attempt success rate, the procedure time to success within the first attempt, or overall complications' rate between the single and double developing lines groups. Single and double developing lines improve first-attempt success rate and reduced the overall complications' rate of ultrasound-guided radial artery catheterization in obese patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil particle size fractions (PSFs) are important for arsenic (As) partitioning, migration, and speciation transformation. However, information is lacking about the environmental fate of As and its distribution on different PSFs. In the present study, two types of soils from mining areas were divided into four PSFs, including coarse sand (2–0.25 mm), fine sand (0.25–0.05 mm), silt (0.05–0.002 mm), and clay (< 0.002 mm) fractions. The results showed that As was enriched in the coarse sand, which was primarily affected by the content of organic carbon (OC), followed by iron (Fe), aluminum (Al), and manganese (Mn) (hydr)oxides. The elevated total As (TAs), As(III), organic As, Fe(II), and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations were mainly originated from the clay fraction. The intensified humification degree of DOM and promoted bacterial metabolism related to As/iron bioreduction were also exhibited in the clay fractions. The dynamics of As fractions in soils indicated the potential formation of secondary minerals and re-adsorption of As in the PSFs. The highest abundances of arrA , arsC, arsM , and Geo genes were found in the clay fraction, implying that the clay fraction potentially released more As, including As(III) and organic As. Results from the correlation analysis showed that elevated DOC concentrations promoted the catabolic responses of iron-reducing microorganisms and triggered microbial As detoxification. Overall, this study provides valuable information and guidance for the remediation of As-contaminated soils. [Display omitted] • Arsenic (As) was enriched in coarse sand and primarily controlled by organic carbon. • The elevated As(III) concentrations were mainly originated from clay fractions. • The DOC concentrations and functional genes abundance mediated As release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four rice genotypes, two hybrid and two indica, were selected to investigate the effects of silicate (Si) application on arsenic (As) accumulation and speciation in rice and As fractionation in soil. There were significant differences in root, straw and grain biomass among genotypes (p < 0.05), and Si application significantly increased root (p < 0.05) and grain biomass (p < 0.001). Silicate addition reduced the proportion of As associated with well-crystallized hydrous oxides of Fe and Al and residual phases, whilst increasing the proportions of specifically-sorbed As and As associated with amorphous and poorly-crystalline Fe and Al hydrous oxides. Furthermore, the results indicated that the fraction proportions of non-specifically sorbed, specifically-sorbed, and associated with amorphous and poorly-crystalline hydrous oxides of Fe and Al in rhizosphere soils, were greater than non-rhizosphere soils. Silicate application had a significant effect decreasing total As concentrations in root (p < 0.005), straw (p < 0.05) and husk (p < 0.001) of rice plants. The effect of Si on reducing As accumulation in rice leaves was revealed by SXRF. Indica genotypes transported and accumulated less As than hybrid genotypes. Both percentage and concentration of iAs were lower in indica genotype XFY-9 than in hybrid genotype XWX-12. Silicate reduced iAs and DMA by 21% and 58% in grain (polished) respectively. DMA may have a greater translocation capacity from straw to grain (polished) than inorganic As. The study provides the potential for understanding As uptake mechanisms in rice and mitigating the health risks posed by As contamination in paddy fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of regular and tunable rigid-flexible crosslinking networks have been prepared to investigate shape memory effects. The tunable rigid-flexible epoxy resins (TRFEPs) were synthesized by ultraviolet light thiol-ene click chemistry. The FTIR and H NMR measurements indicated that TRFEPs were successfully synthesized. The thermal, thermomechanical, mechanical, and shape memory properties of all regular crosslinking networks were systematically investigated by DSC, DMA, tensile test, and quantitative shape memory evaluation method, respectively. It was found that with the flexibility of the crosslinking networks increasing, T , T , E′ (25 °C), shape recovery rate, and tensile stress decreased and elongation at break increased. Besides, DMA measurements showed that the regular network had relatively narrow glass transition zone. The tunable rigid-flexible crosslinking networks exhibited a ductile plastic fracture feature with the occurrence of yielding phenomenon and had relatively high tensile strength (20-44 MPa). Quantitative shape memory evaluation disclosed that the regular crosslinking networks exhibited excellent shape memory performance with high shape memory fixity (>97 %) and shape memory recovery (>99 %). Especially, it was discovered that the regularity of network was the primary effect factor and the flexibility was the subordinate effect factor on the shape recovery rate. Excellent shape memory properties and great mechanical properties make the materials good candidates for space deployable structure materials and wide applications in other important fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) is generally required for association analysis using case-control design on autosomes; otherwise, the size may be inflated. There has been an increasing interest of exploring the association between diseases and markers on X chromosome and the effect of the departure from HWE on association analysis on X chromosome. Note that there are two hypotheses of interest regarding the X chromosome: (i) the frequencies of the same allele at a locus in males and females are equal and (ii) the inbreeding coefficient in females is zero (without excess homozygosity). Thus, excess homozygosity and significantly different minor allele frequencies between males and females are used to filter X-linked variants. There are two existing methods to test for (i) and (ii), respectively. However, their size and powers have not been studied yet. Further, there is no existing method to simultaneously detect both hypotheses till now. Therefore, in this article, we propose a novel likelihood ratio test for both (i) and (ii) on X chromosome. To further investigate the underlying reason why the null hypothesis is statistically rejected, we also develop two likelihood ratio tests for detecting (i) and (ii), respectively. Moreover, we explore the effect of population stratification on the proposed tests. From our simulation study, the size of the test for (i) is close to the nominal significance level. However, the size of the excess homozygosity test and the test for both (i) and (ii) is conservative. So, we propose parametric bootstrap techniques to evaluate their validity and performance. Simulation results show that the proposed methods with bootstrap techniques control the size well under the respective null hypothesis. Power comparison demonstrates that the methods with bootstrap techniques are more powerful than those without bootstrap procedure and the existing methods. The application of the proposed methods to a rheumatoid arthritis dataset indicates their utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic (As) contamination of paddy soils has adversely affected the health of millions of people those consuming rice for staple food. The present study was aimed at investigating the effects of silicon (Si) fertilization on As uptake, speciation in rice plants with different radial oxygen loss (ROL). Six genotypes were planted in pot soils under greenhouse conditions until late tillering state. The results showed that the rates of ROL were higher in hybrid rice genotypes varying from 19.76 to 27 μmol O 2 g −1 root dry weight h −1 than that in conventional indica rice genotypes varying from 9.55 to 15.41 μmol O 2 g −1 root dry weight h −1 . Si addition significantly increased straw biomass ( p < 0.005), but with no significant effects on root biomass. Si fertilization significantly reduced shoot and root total As concentrations ( p < 0.001) in six genotypes grown in 40 mg As/kg soil. Si addition decreased the inorganic As in shoots of ‘Xiangfengyou-9’ with lower ROL and ‘Xiangwanxian-12’ with higher ROL by 31% and 25% respectively and had the tendency to increase DMA concentrations. It is potential to reduce As contamination of rice efficiently by combining Si fertilization and selecting genotypes with high radial oxygen loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a density functional theory study on the thermal bistability of a number of photochromic diarylethenes, with emphasis on the free energy barrier of the ground-state ring-opening process. We found that the free energy barrier is correlated with the geometrical and vibrational character of the transition state, in particular the distance between the two reactive carbon atoms, the out-of-plane angles of the methyl groups at the reactive carbon atoms, and the imaginary vibrational frequency. Based on these relationships we propose a linear fitting expression for the free energy barrier in terms of the three aforementioned transition-state quantities and obtained a correlation coefficient of R² = 0.971. In this way quantum chemical calculations may provide insight and structure-property relationships, which can be applied in the development of novel photochromic materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A hybrid robot with partial decoupled 3T2R movements is presented. • The complete dynamic model considering external forces is derived. • Two novel inertia-related indices are proposed. • Four dynamic performances of two parallel robots are assessed and compared. The performance measurements for the parallel manipulator can be divided into kinematic and dynamic indexes. The kinematic estimations have been well explored and contributed in the parallel structure selection, singularity avoidance and dimension synthesis. The dynamic performance assessments will also have significant contributions for parallel robots. In this research, the complete inverse dynamic model is formulated via the Lagrangian approach and verified by the simulation results. Two novel dynamic indices are proposed to explore the coupled inertia features among different kinematic limbs. The multiple dynamic indices are analyzed and compared on two translational parallel mechanisms with similar joint configurations. A feasible controller is provided to track the desired trajectory of the mobile platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China emerged from the first wave of COVID-19 in a short period of time and returned to normal economic and living order nationwide, making China's entry into the post-COVID-19 epidemic period since April 2020. However, the COVID-19 epidemic had a great impact on young adults' psychological status and may continue into the post-epidemic period. The enormous economic, employment and entrepreneurship pressures of this period may exacerbate this negative impact. This study investigated the depression status of the young adults and put forward the suggestions on how to strengthen the psychological crisis intervention and social security to cultivate the resilience of the young adults after major public health emergencies. This study conducted a questionnaire survey to identify the prevalence of depressive symptoms and explore the associated factors of depressive symptoms among 1069 young adults in X City, Hubei province in September 2020. And the multistage stratified random sampling method was used for sampling. Depressive symptoms were measured using the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10). Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis were adopted for statistical analysis. 1069 respondents (67.68% male; mean age = 28.87 ± 4.18 years; age range = 18–35 years) were included in final analyses. About 25.9% of the respondents reported depressive symptoms (CES-D-10 score = 7.28 ± 3.85). Age, marital status, employment status, monthly disposable income, the cognition, experience and social relationship of the COVID-19 epidemic, and regional discrimination were significantly associated with depressive symptoms. Being male (P = 0.025), age of 25–29 years (P = 0.011), having a household size with 4–5 (P = 0.01) and more than 8 (P = 0.012) family members, a little pessimism about the prospect of COVID-19 epidemic prevention and control (P = 0.044), often (P = 0.018) or always (P = 0.009) participation in anti-epidemic volunteer work were likely to lead to depressive symptoms. In the post-COVID-19 epidemic period, the psychological status of young people is generally stable, but some of them are depressed. Life, work and mental stress affect the generation of depressive symptoms among the young adults. • The COVID-19 epidemic had a negative impact on young adults' psychological status and continue into the post-epidemic period. • The enormous economic, employment and entrepreneurship pressures of post-epidemic period exacerbate this impact. • 25.9% of young adults at the earliest epidemic center reported depressive symptoms during the post-COVID-19 epidemic period. • The cognition, experience, and social relationships of the COVID-19 epidemic are associated to depressive symptoms. • The young adults with male and heavier family responsibilities stress are more likely to develop depressive symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Combine the LIBS and the extended depth of field 3D reconstruction method into one system, efficiently obtain LIBS signal and measure the amount of ablated mass. • Optimize the algorithm to obtain higher precision 3D reconstruction results, and the repeatability of LIBS signal was improved by correcting the ablation amount. To efficiently monitor the laser ablation volume, the extended depth of field imaging microscope three-dimensional measurement technology and Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technology are combined into one system. By means of the sequence images acquisition, images matching, filtering, focusing evaluation, multi-image fusion and 3D reconstruction, a measurement can be realized shortly after the laser ablation and LIBS signal acquisition, and some primacy experiments show that this method has enough performance to discriminate the volume of laser ablation craters. The combined system was used to evaluate LIBS signals and ablative crater volumes, and it was shown that there is a positive correlation between the volume of laser ablation craters and LIBS line intensity, and the repeatability of LIBS signal can be improved by correcting LIBS signal with ablation volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a gated photochromic behavior of an unsymmetrical dithienylethene derivative, which is intrinsically inert to photoisomerization in organic solvents and which is activated by addition of Cu2+ ions or water. The mechanism behind the gated photochromic property is interpreted by theoretical simulations, suggesting that the energy levels of frontier molecular orbitals are altered by the interaction of the Schiff base moiety with Cu2+ ions or water molecules. Potential applications of such gated photochromic materials have been exemplified not only by the reversible interchange between the photoactive and photoinactive states triggered by Cu2+ ions and EDTA, but also by the construction of a keypad with sequence-dependent input signals at the molecular level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]