Spatial distribution and assembly processes of bacterial communities in riverine and coastal ecosystems of a rapidly urbanizing megacity in China.

Rapid urbanization has precipitated significant anthropogenic pollution (nutrients and pathogens) in urban rivers and their receiving systems, which consequentially disrupted the compositions and assembly of bacterial community within these ecosystems. However, there remains scarce information regarding the composition and assembly of both planktonic and benthic bacterial communities as well as pathogen distribution in such environments. In this study, full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing was conducted to investigate the bacterial community composition, interactions, and assembly processes as well as the distribution of potential pathogens along a riverine-coastal continuum in Shenzhen megacity, China. The results indicated that both riverine and coastal bacterial communities were predominantly composed of Gammaproteobacteria (24.8 ± 12.6 %), Alphaproteobacteria (16.1 ± 9.8 %), and Bacteroidota (14.3 ± 8.6 %), while sedimentary bacterial communities exhibited significantly higher diversity compared to their planktonic counterparts. Bacterial community patterns exhibited significant divergences across different habitats, and a significant distance-decay relationship of bacterial community similarity was particularly observed within the urban river ecosystem. Moreover, the urban river ecosystem displayed a more complex bacterial co-occurrence network than the coastal ecosystem, and a low ratio of negative:positive cohesion suggested the inherent instability of these networks. Homogeneous selection and dispersal limitation emerged as the predominant influences on planktonic and sedimentary bacterial communities, respectively. Pathogenic genera such as Vibrio, Bacteroides, and Acinetobacter, known for their roles in foodborne diseases or wound infection, were also identified. Collectively, these findings provided critical insights into bacterial community dynamics and their implications for ecosystem management and pathogen risk control in riverine and coastal environments impacted by rapid urbanization.

From Bi-Level to One-Level: A Framework for Structural Attacks to Graph Anomaly Detection.

The success of graph neural networks stimulates the prosperity of graph mining and the corresponding downstream tasks including graph anomaly detection (GAD). However, it has been explored that those graph mining methods are vulnerable to structural manipulations on relational data. That is, the attacker can maliciously perturb the graph structures to assist the target nodes in evading anomaly detection. In this article, we explore the structural vulnerability of two typical GAD systems: unsupervised FeXtra-based GAD and supervised graph convolutional network (GCN)-based GAD. Specifically, structural poisoning attacks against GAD are formulated as complex bi-level optimization problems. Our first major contribution is then to transform the bi-level problem into one-level leveraging different regression methods. Furthermore, we propose a new way of utilizing gradient information to optimize the one-level optimization problem in the discrete domain. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed attack algorithm BinarizedAttack .

Distribution and typologies of anthropogenic seafloor litter in the Pearl River Estuary and adjacent coastal waters, China.

Marine litter pollution poses a significant threat to offshore ecosystems, eliciting widespread concern. We investigated seafloor litter patterns in the Pearl River Estuary and adjacent coastal waters of China in 2023 via bottom trawl survey. Average number and weight densities were found to be 154.34 ± 30.95 n/km2 and 2384.63 ± 923.98 g/km2, respectively. Plastic was the most abundant material by number density (79.07 %), and rubber the highest by weight density (22.93 %). Overall number density varied from 40.50 ± 22.50 to 221.13 ± 52.44 n/km2, with the highest in Daya Bay and the lowest in Guanghai Bay. Weight density varied from 189.93 ± 71.94 to 5386.70 ± 3050.30 g/km2, with the highest in Qiao Island and the lowest in Honghai Bay. The main source was plastic bags and wrappers. The Pearl River Delta and Daya Bay were identified as seafloor litter distribution hotspots. Controlling plastic waste input is crucial for reducing seafloor litter in the Pearl River Estuary.

Fe3O4-modified FeCl3/graphite intercalation compound confinement architecture for unleashing the high-performance anode potential of lithium-ion batteries.

The ferric trichloride (FeCl3)-intercalated graphite intercalation compound (GIC) has high reversible capacity and bulk density, making it a promising anode material for lithium ion batteries. However, its practical application has been limited by the poor cycle performance due to chloride dissolution and shuttling issues. Herein, FeCl3-GIC is used as the precursor material to synthesize a nano-Fe3O4-modified intercalation material by a solvothermal method. The Fe3O4 moiety at the edge of FeCl3-GIC provides a robust chemical anchoring effect on the chlorides. Together with the two-dimensional graphite layer, it forms a confinement space, which effectively immobilizes soluble chlorides. Attributed to the distinctive structural design, the Fe3O4-FeCl3/GIC 25% C electrode offers a high reversible capacity of 691.4 mA h g-1 at 1000 mA g-1 after 400 cycles. At 2000 and 5000 mA g-1, the reversible specific capacity of the Fe3O4-FeCl3/GIC 25% C electrode is 345.6 and 218.3 mA h g-1, respectively. This work presents an innovative method to improve the lifespan of GIC.

Outdoor walking, genetic predisposition, and the risk of incident osteoporosis among older adults: A prospective large population-based cohort study.

This large-scale prospective study showed that a significant association between longer duration of daily outdoor walking and reduced osteoporosis risk was found among older adults, particularly among those with a low genetic predisposition to osteoporosis, which highlighted the importance of outdoor walking as a simple, cost-effective adjunct for preventing osteoporosis. PURPOSE: The available cross-sectional data and small-scale studies indicate that outdoor walking benefits bone metabolism. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of comprehensive prospective research investigating the enduring correlation between outdoor walking and osteoporosis. This study aims to conduct a prospective analysis of the correlation between outdoor walking and osteoporosis while also examining potential variations influenced by genetic susceptibility to osteoporosis. METHODS: 24,700 older adults without osteoporosis at baseline were enrolled. These individuals were followed up until December 31, 2021, during which data on outdoor walking was gathered. The genetic risk score for osteoporosis was comprised of 14 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. RESULTS: 4,586 cases of osteoporosis were identified throughout a median follow-up period of 37.3 months. Those who walked outside for > 30 but ≤ 60 min per day had a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.83 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.72-0.95) for incident osteoporosis, whereas those who walked outside for > 60 min per day had an HR of 0.60 (95% CI: 0.39-0.92). We found that osteoporosis risk exhibited a declining trend in individuals with low genetic risk. Individuals walking outside for > 60 min per day tended to have the lowest overall osteoporosis risk among those with high genetic risk. CONCLUSIONS: A significant negative correlation exists between an extended period of daily outdoor walking and osteoporosis incidence risk. This correlation is particularly pronounced among individuals with low genetic risk. The results above underscore the significance of outdoor walking as a simple and economical adjunct to public health programs to prevent osteoporosis.

Strengthening-Durable Trade-Off and Self-Healing, Recyclable Shape Memory Polyurethanes Enabled by Dynamic Boron-Urethane Bonds.

Addressing the demand for integrating strength and durability reinforcement in shape memory polyurethane (SMPU) for diverse applications remains a significant challenge. Here we synthesized a series of SMPUs with ultra-high strength, self-healing and recyclability, and excellent shape memory properties through introducing dynamic boron-urethane bonds. The introducing of boric acid (BA) to polyurethane leading to the formation of dynamic covalent bonds (DCB) boron-urethane, that confer a robust cross-linking structure on the SMPUs led to the formation of ordered stable hydrogen-bonding network within the SMPUs. The flexible crosslinking with DCB represents a novel strategy for balancing the trade-off between strength and durability, with their strengths reaching up to 82.2 MPa while also addressing the issue of durability in prolonged usage through the provision of self-healing and recyclability. The self-healing and recyclability of SMPU were demonstrated through rapid dynamic exchange reaction of boron-urethane bonds, systematically investigated by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). This study sheds light on the essential role of such PU with self-healing and recyclability, contributing to the extension of the PU's service life. The findings of this work provide a general strategy for overcoming traditional trade-offs in preparing SMPUs with both high strength and good durability. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Tertiary Lymphoid Structures Gene Signature Predicts Prognosis and Immune Infiltration Analysis in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Objectives: This study aims to assess the prognostic implications of gene signature of the tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and scrutinize the influence of TLS on immune infiltration. Methods: Patients with HNSCC from the Cancer Genome Atlas were categorized into high/low TLS signature groups based on the predetermined TLS signature threshold. The association of the TLS signature with the immune microenvironment, driver gene mutation status, and tumor mutational load was systematically analyzed. Validation was conducted using independent datasets (GSE41613 and GSE102349). Results: Patients with a high TLS signature score exhibited better prognosis compared to those with a low TLS signature score. The group with a high TLS signature score had significantly higher immune cell subpopulations compared to the group with a low TLS signature score. Moreover, the major immune cell subpopulations and immune circulation characteristics in the tumor immune microenvironment were positively correlated with the TLS signature. Mutational differences in driver genes were observed between the TLS signature high/low groups, primarily in the cell cycle and NRF2 signaling pathways. Patients with TP53 mutations and high TLS signature scores demonstrated a better prognosis compared to those with TP53 wild-type. In the independent cohort, the relationship between TLS signatures and patient prognosis and immune infiltration was also confirmed. Additionally, immune-related biological processes and signaling pathways were activated with elevated TLS signature. Conclusion: High TLS signature is a promising independent prognostic factor for HNSCC patients. Immunological analysis indicated a correlation between TLS and immune cell infiltration in HNSCC. These findings provide a theoretical basis for future applications of TLS signature in HNSCC prognosis and immunotherapy.

Repeatability and agreement of 4 biometers measuring corneal astigmatism in eyes with irregular corneal astigmatism component.

PURPOSE: To investigate the repeatability and agreement of corneal astigmatism measurements in eyes with irregular corneal astigmatism component (ICAC) using four devices: IOLMaster 700 biometer, Lenstar 900 biometer, iTrace, and Pentacam. DESIGN: Prospective cross-sectional reliability analysis. METHODS: Sixty-four eyes (52 patients) with ICAC were examined three times using the four devices. The eye with ICAC in this study is defined as the cornea has a certain degree of irregular astigmatism (asymmetric and/or skewed bowtie pattern of corneal topography according to corneal topography classification), accompanied with total corneal higher-order aberrations in the 4 mm zone of 0.3 µm or greater. Corneal astigmatism was evaluated using three categories: anterior corneal astigmatism (ACA), posterior corneal astigmatism (PCA), and total corneal astigmatism (TCA). The repeatability was determined using the ∆Ast (arithmetic mean of vector differences among three repeated corneal astigmatism measurements). Bland-Altman plots and astigmatism vector analyses were employed to assess agreement. RESULTS: The IOLMaster 700 (∆Ast=0.27±0.20D) showcased higher repeatability in ACA measurements compared to iTrace (∆Ast=0.37±0.38D, P=0.040) and Pentacam (∆Ast=0.50±0.22D, P<0.001), and paralleled the performance of Lenstar 900 (∆Ast=0.31±0.26D, P=0.338). The Pentacam (∆Ast=0.09±0.07D, P<0.001) demonstrated superior repeatability in PCA, whereas the IOLMaster 700 (∆Ast=0.33±0.23D, P<0.001) excelled in TCA. The IOLMaster 700 exhibited good agreement with either Lenstar 900 or iTrace, characterized by narrow 95% limits of agreement and clinically acceptable vector differences. Conversely, vector differences between Pentacam and the other three devices in ACA and TCA measurements were clinically significant, exceeding 0.50D(all P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In terms of repeatability of corneal astigmatism measurements in eyes with irregular corneal astigmatism component, the IOLMaster 700 and Lenstar 900 outperformed iTrace and Pentacam. While the IOLMaster 700 can be used interchangeably with either Lenstar 900 or iTrace, the Pentacam is not interchangeable with the other three devices.

Effects of Fishery Utilization on the Physicochemical Index and Microbial Community Composition in Saline-Alkaline Water.

Fishery utilization of idle saline-alkaline water resources offers various benefits including reducing surrounding soil salinity, improving the ecological environment, increasing arable land area, and providing economic advantages to the fishery industry. However, for decades, the characteristics and regulatory mechanisms of microbial communities that affect fishery utilization have not been clear, which restricts their application. In this study, high-throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing was employed to analyze the bacterial community in these water resources. The sequencing yielded high-quality sequences (2,765,063), resulting in the identification of 18,761 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Analysis revealed that the type of saline-alkaline water had a more significant influence on the bacterial community compared to seasonal variations within the aquaculture period. The Chao index for saline-alkaline ponds (ASW) was significantly lower (P < 0.05) than for still saline-alkaline water (SSW) and flowing saline-alkaline water (FSW), while the Shannon index for ASW was also significantly lower (P < 0.05) compared to FSW. When comparing ASW to nonaquaculture saline-alkaline water, a decrease in Proteobacteria to 26.87% was noted, particularly α-proteobacteria and γ-proteobacteria, accompanied by a rapid increase in Actinobacteria and Cyanobacteria to 28.60%. Networkx analysis further revealed that ASW significantly increased competition and amensalism from secondary saline-alkaline water microorganisms, resulting in a more solitary bacterial community composition as an adaptive strategy to cope with intense environmental pressures. Key bacterial species such as Pseudomonas, Hydrogenophaga, and Flavobacterium were found to be involved in hydrogen-cycling, nitrogen-cycling, and carbon-cycling, respectively, with all three exhibiting high abundance in FSW. Consequently, FSW demonstrates significant advantages in biogeochemical cycling, pollutant degradation, and the utilization of indigenous probiotic bacteria. Although the surface of abandoned secondary saline-alkaline land was covered with white salt particles, the fishery utilization of saline-alkaline water with low salinity levels (4.0-5.5), and the presence of nitrate and phosphate were identified as primary determinants of bacterial community composition. Nevertheless, a comparison of coastal high-salinity ponds indicated that salinity still selectively affects bacterial communities to some extent. Overall, our study provides valuable insights into the microbial regulation of nitrite during saline-alkaline water aquaculture, thereby aiding in the efficient utilization of secondary saline-alkaline water resources for fisheries.

A proof-of-concept study: advantages of the subxiphoid over the lateral intercostal approach.

OBJECTIVES: The study was designed to evaluate the superiority of the subxiphoid approach comparing with the lateral intercostal approach during the process of operation, and other perioperative indices. METHODS: Patients diagnosed anterior mediastinal disease in our hospital between January 2018 and October 2019 were prospectively assigned into two groups, receiving the lateral intercostal approach or the subxiphoid approach VATS to resect the disease. The PaCO2, SaO2, PaO2 and circulation changes were recorded during the operation, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, and other perioperative outcomes, including clinical and surgical results, operation time, blood loss, postoperative complication, postoperative pain score were compared. RESULTS: A total 59 patients diagnosed anterior mediastinal tumour or myasthenia gravis underwent the resection by VATS. 31 patients were treated with the subxiphoid approach, 28 patients were treated with the lateral intercostal approach. PaCO2 increased significantly and SaO2 remained stable in the subxiphoid group during the operation, while PaCO2 increased significantly and SaO2 decreased at the same time in the lateral intercostal group. Operations were more frequently interrupted for the hypoxia or circulation disturbance during the process of dissecting the thymus in the lateral intercostal approach. Compared with the lateral intercostal approach, patients in the subxiphoid approach experienced less inflammation reaction, and yielded lower pain score and shorter postoperative hospital stay. There were no significant differences in postoperative complications between the two groups. All these patients recovered well when discharged. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggested that subxiphoid approach will influence pulmonary and circulation lesser than the lateral intercostal approach, and the whole procedure will be safer and easier, and the subxiphoid approach may be the ideal choice for the anterior mediastinal disease.

Surgical strategy for intravenous leiomyomatosis spreading from uterine to the right atrium presenting with recurrent syncope.

Uterine leiomyoma invading internal iliac vein and consequently disseminating into the right atrium is an extremely rare condition, and surgical strategy is controversial. Here, we reported a specific case with successful surgical resection through one-stage total hysterectomy, bilateral oophorectomy, and the intracardiovascular lesion. This procedure would be an optimal choice for uterine leiomyoma invading inferior vena cava and spreading to right atrium.

Elevating Low-Grade Heat Harvesting with Daytime Radiative Cooling and Solar Heating in Thermally Regenerative Electrochemical Cycles.

Thermal radiation control has garnered growing interest for its ability to provide localized cooling and heating without energy consumption. However, its direct application for energy harvesting remains largely underexplored. In this work, we demonstrate a novel system that leverages daytime radiative cooling and solar heating technologies to continuously power charging-free thermally regenerative electrochemical cycle (TREC) devices, turning ubiquitous low-grade ambient heat into electricity. Notably, by harnessing a substantial 35 °C temperature differential solely through passive cooling and heating effects, the integrated system exhibits a cell voltage of 50 mV and a specific capacity exceeding 20 mAh g-1 of PB. This work unlocks the potential of readily available low-grade ambient heat for sustainable electricity generation.

Invasive pneumococcal diseases in Chinese children: a multicentre hospital-based active surveillance from 2019 to 2021.

This study aimed to provide data for the clinical features of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and the molecular characteristics of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates from paediatric patients in China. We conducted a multi-centre prospective study for IPD in 19 hospitals across China from January 2019 to December 2021. Data of demographic characteristics, risk factors for IPD, death, and disability was collected and analysed. Serotypes, antibiotic susceptibility, and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) of pneumococcal isolates were also detected. A total of 478 IPD cases and 355 pneumococcal isolates were enrolled. Among the patients, 260 were male, and the median age was 35 months (interquartile range, 12-46 months). Septicaemia (37.7%), meningitis (32.4%), and pneumonia (27.8%) were common disease types, and 46 (9.6%) patients died from IPD. Thirty-four serotypes were detected, 19F (24.2%), 14 (17.7%), 23F (14.9%), 6B (10.4%) and 19A (9.6%) were common serotypes. Pneumococcal isolates were highly resistant to macrolides (98.3%), tetracycline (94.1%), and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (70.7%). Non-sensitive rates of penicillin were 6.2% and 83.3% in non-meningitis and meningitis isolates. 19F-ST271, 19A-ST320 and 14-ST876 showed high resistance to antibiotics. This multi-centre study reports the clinical features of IPD and demonstrates serotype distribution and antibiotic resistance of pneumococcal isolates in Chinese children. There exists the potential to reduce IPD by improved uptake of pneumococcal vaccination, and continued surveillance is warranted.

Kimura's disease treated with dupilumab: A case report and literature review.

BACKGROUND: Kimura's disease (KD) is a rare chronic inflammatory disorder characterised by painless, deep subcutaneous nodules that most commonly affect the head and neck region of Asian men. Due to high relapse rates and side effects of current therapies, the treatment of KD is challenging. OBJECTIVES: To present a case of KD that was successfully treated with dupilumab and to review the literature with a focus on the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of dupilumab in KD. METHODS: A review of the available literature on the treatment of KD with dupilumab was performed and a new case was analyzed. To gain further insight into this promising therapy, literature review of 8 articles published between January 2016 and January 2024 were included in this study using the PubMed database. RESULTS: Our patient with KD was successfully treated with dupilumab 300 mg every 2 weeks, at an initial dose of 600 mg. The treatment was well tolerated. In the past, only nine patients with KD treated with dupilumab have been reported and reviewed, half of whom had failed prior treatment. All patients achieved significant efficacy after treatment with dupilumab, with no relapses during an average follow-up of 10.4 months (ranged from 4 to 16 months). CONCLUSION: Dupilumab may be an emerging alternative treatment option for KD patients. Larger randomized controlled studies are needed to confirm these findings.

First report of multidrug-resistant carbapenemase-producing Aeromonas caviae co-harboring mcr-3.43 and mcr-7.2.

Hospital sewage serves as a crucial reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes. As colistin and carbapenems are the last-resort antibiotics, the emergence of their resistance genes has become a significant concern in clinical settings. In this study, we found that two novel mcr alleles (mcr-3.43 and mcr-7.2) with two carbapenemase genes (blaNDM-1 and blaKPC-2) were encoded in a single Aeromonas caviae strain isolated from hospital sewage. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed that the mcr-3.43 gene clustered with mcr-3.17 (with 95.55% amino acid identity), while the mcr-7.2 gene clustered with mcr-7.1 (with 68.68% amino acid identity). BLAST search against GenBank showed that mcr-7.2 was exclusively detected in Aeromonas spp. Mobile genetic elements were not found in the genetic context of mcr-7.2, suggesting that the dissemination of mcr-7.2 in Aeromonas spp. may be dependent on vertical transfer or recombination. The blaNDM-1 was adjacent to a recombinase gene and flanked by two IS91 elements, indicating a potential mobilization mechanism mediated by recombination and/or ISs. The blaKPC-2 gene was located on an IncU plasmid and adjacent to an ISKpn6. In summary, our study provides evidence for Aeromonas spp. as one of the potential reservoirs of colistin and carbapenem resistance genes.IMPORTANCEThe study discovered two novel mcr genes (mcr-3.43 and mcr-7.2) and two carbapenemase genes (blaNDM-1 and blaKPC-2) in a single Aeromonas caviae strain retrieved from hospital sewage. Using phylogenetic analysis and comparative data evaluation, the study revealed the genetic relatedness and dissemination potential of the detected resistance genes. With the exclusive discovery that mcr-7.2 is only present in Aeromonas spp. and the lack of mobile genetic elements in its genetic context, there is a strong indication of limited dissemination. The identification of these four resistance genes in a single strain of Aeromonas provided valuable insights into their potential presence in this genus. This study revealed that hospital sewage functions as a significant reservoir for antibiotic resistance genes, including colistin and carbapenem resistance genes.

Expression of Early Growth Response 3 in Skin Cancers.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the expression of early growth response 3 (EGR3) in normal skin and different types of skin tumors: cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC), basal cell carcinoma (BCC), melanoma (MM), and cutaneous adnexal tumors containing sebaceous carcinoma (SC), trichoepithelioma (TE) and clear cell hidradenoma (CCH). BACKGROUND: EGR3, expressed in multiple organs, including skin, plays an important role in cell differentiation and tumor growth. Previous studies have shown that EGR3 suppresses tumor growth and is downregulated in various malignancies. However, its distribution in normal skin and its expression especially in skin tumors have not been studied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Samples of normal cases (n = 4), cSCC (n = 12), BCC (n = 12), MM (n = 12), SC (n = 4), TE (n = 4), and CCH (n = 4) were collected from patients treated in our department between 2018 and 2023. Immunohistochemistry was used to investigate the expression of EGR3. The results were analyzed with the description of the staining pattern and the histochemical score. RESULTS: Immunohistochemical staining showed that EGR3 was uniquely expressed in normal skin in the granular layer and upper part of the stratum spinosum, as well as in sebaceous glands and hair follicles, but not in sweat glands. In skin cancers, BCC, SC, and TE showed positive EGR3 staining, whereas cSCC, MM, and CCH were negative. CONCLUSIONS: EGR3 has a specific expression pattern in normal skin and in skin tumors, which is important for the differential diagnosis of skin tumors, in particular for cSCC and sebaceous gland carcinoma.

Detection Transformer with Multi-Scale Fusion Attention Mechanism for Aero-Engine Turbine Blade Cast Defect Detection Considering Comprehensive Features.

Casting defects in turbine blades can significantly reduce an aero-engine's service life and cause secondary damage to the blades when exposed to harsh environments. Therefore, casting defect detection plays a crucial role in enhancing aircraft performance. Existing defect detection methods face challenges in effectively detecting multi-scale defects and handling imbalanced datasets, leading to unsatisfactory defect detection results. In this work, a novel blade defect detection method is proposed. This method is based on a detection transformer with a multi-scale fusion attention mechanism, considering comprehensive features. Firstly, a novel joint data augmentation (JDA) method is constructed to alleviate the imbalanced dataset issue by effectively increasing the number of sample data. Then, an attention-based channel-adaptive weighting (ACAW) feature enhancement module is established to fully apply complementary information among different feature channels, and further refine feature representations. Consequently, a multi-scale feature fusion (MFF) module is proposed to integrate high-dimensional semantic information and low-level representation features, enhancing multi-scale defect detection precision. Moreover, R-Focal loss is developed in an MFF attention-based DEtection TRansformer (DETR) to further solve the issue of imbalanced datasets and accelerate model convergence using the random hyper-parameters search strategy. An aero-engine turbine blade defect X-ray (ATBDX) image dataset is applied to validate the proposed method. The comparative results demonstrate that this proposed method can effectively integrate multi-scale image features and enhance multi-scale defect detection precision.

Intermittent proton bursts of single lactic acid bacteria.

Lactic acid bacteria are a kind of probiotic microorganisms that efficiently convert carbohydrates to lactic acids, thus playing essential roles in fermentation and food industry. While conventional wisdom often suggests continuous release of protons from bacteria during acidification, here we developed a methodology to measure the dynamics of proton release at the single bacteria level, and report on the discovery of a proton burst phenomenon, i.e., the intermittent efflux of protons, of single Lactobacillus plantarum bacteria. When placing an individual bacterium in an oil-sealed microwell, efflux and accumulation of protons consequently reduced the pH in the confined extracellular medium, which was monitored with fluorescent pH indicators in a high-throughput and real-time manner. In addition to the slow and continuous proton release behavior (as expected), stochastic and intermittent proton burst events were surprisingly observed with a typical timescale of several seconds. It was attributed to the regulatory response of bacteria by activating H+-ATPase to compensate the stochastic and transient depolarizations of membrane potential. These findings not only revealed an unprecedented proton burst phenomenon in lactic acid bacteria, but also shed new lights on the intrinsic roles of H+-ATPase in membrane potential homeostasis, with implications for both fermentation industry and bacterial electrophysiology.

Understanding drought propagation through coupling spatiotemporal features using vine copulas: A compound drought perspective.

Accurately evaluating drought impact on agriculture poses a challenge to regional food security, particularly in compound drought (i.e., meteorological and agricultural drought co-occurring) scenarios. This study presents a novel approach utilizing Vine copula for coupling spatiotemporal features to evaluate drought propagation. Three-dimensional clustering method was employed to identify meteorological and agricultural drought events, which excelled in capturing dynamic evolution characteristics (duration, area, severity, etc.) as well as integrating them into comprehensive meteorological drought intensity (IMD) and agricultural drought intensity (IAD). Through spatiotemporal matching, compound drought events were extracted from the meteorological-agricultural drought event pairs. From compound drought perspective, compound duration (CD) and compound area (CA) were devised to characterize drought propagation potential across time and space. Finally, the Vine copula method was employed to model the interdependence between four key coupling features, namely IMD, IAD, CD, and CA, and evaluate the probability of triggering agricultural drought with different intensity levels. Results showed that CD and CA can respectively characterize the temporal and spatial accumulation scale of drought propagation. At a certain IMD level, CD significantly influences the propagation probability (i.e., "stratification" phenomenon), while CA increases the probability proportionally. Probability evaluation lacking spatiotemporal information may underestimate the likelihood of drought propagation characterized by "low-IMD" but "long-CD" or "large-CA". The four-dimensional Vine copula structure can effectively couple dependence relationships of compound drought characteristics, and exhibits reliable robustness. This research provides stakeholders accurate probabilistic evaluation under compound drought scenarios, offering new insight into drought propagation.