Pd/NHC catalyzed reduction and coupling of nitroaromatics for the synthesis of diarylamines.

Herein, we report a one-pot approach to diarylamines through the reductive homocoupling of nitroaromatics, employing triethylsilane as the reducing agent and Pd/NHC as the catalyst. This method enables nitroaromatics to serve both as electrophilic reagents and as precursors of nucleophilic reagents, allowing for the direct preparation of diarylamines without the need to isolate aromatic primary amines.

Associations of Serum Testosterone and Sex Hormone-binding Globulin With Incident Arrhythmias in Men From UK Biobank.

CONTEXT: Sex hormones have been identified as cardiovascular risk factors, whereas the relationship between sex hormones and the risk of arrhythmias in men has not yet been well studied in the prospective cohort study. OBJECTIVE: To analyze associations of serum testosterone and SHBG concentrations and calculate free testosterone (cFT) with arrhythmias in men. METHODS: Sex hormones were measured at baseline from UK Biobank. Main outcomes were incidence of atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF), ventricular arrhythmia (VA), and bradyarrhythmia (BA). RESULTS: Of 173 498 men (aged 37-73 years, followed for 11 years), 11 368 had incident AF, 1646 had incident VA, and 4788 had incident BA. Compared with the third quartiles, the lowest category of serum testosterone was associated with increased risks of AF (hazard ratio [HR], 1.06; 95% CI, 1.00-1.12) and BA (HR, 1.11; 95% CI, 1.02-1.20) after multivariable adjustment, but no VA. Likewise, similar associations were found between cFT values and AF and BA events. Furthermore, higher levels of cFT were associated with increased risks of AF (HR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.13) and VA (HR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.01-1.37). Higher SHBG concentrations were associated with increased risks of AF (HR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.34-1.54), VA (HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.07-1.52), and BA (HR, 1.17; 95% CI ,1.05-1.29). CONCLUSIONS: Lower levels of testosterone and cFT were associated with increased risk of AF and BA. Higher cFT levels were associated with increased risk of AF and VA. Higher SHBG levels were associated with increased risk of AF, VA, and BA.

Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin and Risk of Incident Dementia in Middle-Aged to Older Women: Results from the UK Biobank Cohort Study.

INTRODUCTION: The association of serum sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) concentrations with dementia risk remains uncertain in middle-aged to older women. We examined associations of serum SHBG levels with incidence of all-cause dementia and its subtypes in middle-aged to older women from the large population-based UK Biobank cohort study. METHODS: Serum total SHBG levels were measured by immunoassay. The incidence of all-cause dementia and its subtypes was recorded. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HR) for main outcomes. RESULTS: Among 171,482 community-dwelling women (mean [SD] age was 59.9 [5.4] years, median follow-up of 11.8 years), 2,368 developed dementia, including 1,088 from Alzheimer's disease (AD), 451 from vascular dementia (VAD), and 1,609 from other dementia. After multivariable adjustments, higher serum SHBG levels were significantly associated with higher risks of all-cause dementia, AD, and other dementia (all p < 0.05). Compared to those in the lowest quartile of SHBG levels, participants in the highest quartile of SHBG levels had a higher risk of all-cause dementia (HR: 1.34; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.16-1.53), AD (HR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.07-1.62), and other dementia (HR: 1.44; 95% CI: 1.21-1.70). However, this relationship was not significant for VAD (HR: 1.16; 95% CI: 0.86-1.56). CONCLUSION: These findings indicated that higher serum SHBG concentrations were independently associated with higher risks of incident all-cause dementia, as well as AD and other dementia among middle-aged to older women. No association was found for VAD.

Enhanced mechanical properties and antibacterial activities of chitosan films through incorporating zein-gallic acid conjugate stabilized cinnamon essential oil Pickering emulsion.

In this study, zein-gallic acid covalent complex prepared by alkali treatment was utilized as an emulsifier to stabilize cinnamon essential oil (CEO) Pickering emulsion, and the chitosan-based (CZGE) films loaded with CEO Pickering emulsion were prepared by blending. The influences of different contents of CEO Pickering emulsion on the physical properties and biological activities of CZGE films were investigated. The results showed that Pickering emulsion had good compatibility with chitosan matrix and enhanced the interaction between film-forming matrix polymer. In addition, incorporating with CEO Pickering emulsion (15 %, v/v) significantly improved the mechanical and barrier properties of the films, and also enhanced the light transmittance and thermal stability of the films. Furthermore, the loading of emulsion also improved the antioxidant activities of the films and led to the formation of high antimicrobial property against food pathogens, and the slow-release behavior of CEO could effectively extend the biological activity of the films. These results suggested that Pickering emulsion has potential as a loading system and a plasticizer in active packaging, and the feasibility of CZGE film in food packaging.

Exosomal miR-129 and miR-342 derived from intermittent hypoxia-stimulated vascular smooth muscle cells inhibit the eIF2α/ATF4 axis from preventing calcified aortic valvular disease.

This study aims to elucidate the role of miR-129/miR-342 loaded in exosomes derived from vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) stimulated by intermittent hypoxia in calcified aortic valvular disease (CAVD). Bioinformatics analysis was conducted to identify differentially expressed miRs in VSMCs-derived exosomes and CAVD samples, and their potential target genes were predicted. VSMCs were exposed to intermittent hypoxia to induce stimulation, followed by isolation of exosomes. Valvular interstitial cells (VICs) were cultured in vitro to investigate the impact of miR-129/miR-342 on VICs' osteogenic differentiation and aortic valve calcification with eIF2α. A CAVD mouse model was established using ApoE knockout mice for in vivo validation. In CAVD samples, miR-129 and miR-342 were downregulated, while eIF2α and ATF4 were upregulated. miR-129 and miR-342 exhibited inhibitory effects on eIF2α through targeted regulation. Exosomes released from intermittently hypoxia-stimulated VSMCs contained miR-129 and miR-342. Overexpression of miR-129 and miR-342, or silencing ATF4, suppressed VICs' osteogenic differentiation and aortic valve calcification, which could be rescued by overexpressed eIF2α. Collectively, intermittent hypoxia stimulation of VSMCs leads to the secretion of exosomes that activate the miR-129/miR-342 dual pathway, thereby inhibiting the eIF2α/ATF4 axis and attenuating VICs' osteogenic differentiation and CAVD progression.

CRISPR/Cas9 mutated p-coumaroyl shikimate 3'-hydroxylase 3 gene in Populus tomentosa reveals lignin functioning on supporting tree upright.

The lignin plays one of the most important roles in plant secondary metabolism. However, it is still unclear how lignin can contribute to the impressive height of wood growth. In this study, C3'H, a rate-limiting enzyme of the lignin pathway, was used as the target gene. C3'H3 was knocked out by CRISPR/Cas9 in Populus tomentosa. Compared with wild-type popular trees, c3'h3 mutants exhibited dwarf phenotypes, collapsed xylem vessels, weakened phloem thickening, decreased hydraulic conductivity and photosynthetic efficiency, and reduced auxin content, except for reduced total lignin content and significantly increased H-subunit lignin. In the c3'h3 mutant, the flavonoid biosynthesis genes CHS, CHI, F3H, DFR, ANR, and LAR were upregulated, and flavonoid metabolite accumulations were detected, indicating that decreasing the lignin biosynthesis pathway enhanced flavonoid metabolic flux. Furthermore, flavonoid metabolites, such as naringenin and hesperetin, were largely increased, while higher hesperetin content suppressed plant cell division. Thus, studying the c3'h3 mutant allows us to deduce that lignin deficiency suppresses tree growth and leads to the dwarf phenotype due to collapsed xylem and thickened phloem, limiting material exchanges and transport.

Associations of Oral Contraceptive Use With Cardiovascular Disease and All-Cause Death: Evidence From the UK Biobank Cohort Study.

Background The associations of oral contraceptive (OC) use with cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause death remains unclear. We aimed to determine the associations of OC use with incident CVD and all-cause death. Methods and Results This cohort study included 161 017 women who had no CVD at baseline and reported their OC use. We divided OC use into ever use and never use. Cox proportional hazard models were used to calculate hazard ratios and 95% CIs for cardiovascular outcomes and death. Overall, 131 131 (81.4%) of 161 017 participants reported OC use at baseline. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios for OC ever users versus never users were 0.92 (95% CI, 0.86-0.99) for all-cause death, 0.91 (95% CI, 0.87-0.96) for incident CVD events, 0.88 (95% CI, 0.81-0.95) for coronary heart disease, 0.87 (95% CI, 0.76-0.99) for heart failure, and 0.92 (95% CI, 0.84-0.99) for atrial fibrillation. However, no significant associations of OC use with CVD death, myocardial infarction, or stroke were observed. Furthermore, the associations of OC use with CVD events were stronger among participants with longer durations of use (P for trend<0.001). Conclusions OC use was not associated with an increased risk of CVD events and all-cause death in women and may even produce an apparent net benefit. In addition, the beneficial effects appeared to be more apparent in participants with longer durations of use.

Mannose binding lectin-associated serine protease-1 is a novel contributor to myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury.

BACKGROUND: The lectin pathway has been demonstrated to play a critical role in the pathological process of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI). Mannose-binding lectin (MBL)-associated serine protease-1 (MASP-1), especially different from other components of the lectin pathway, mediates proinflammatory and procoagulant reactions independent of complement cascades. However, the role of MASP-1 in myocardial IRI remains unknown so far. METHODS: Myocardial IRI was established with 45 min ischemia and 24 h reperfusion in mice. C1 inhibitor, as the natural inhibitor of MASP-1, was administrated at 20 IU/Kg via tail vein 5 min before surgical operation. Cardiac function and myocardial infarct size were assessed. Myocardial histology and fibrosis were evaluated by H&E and Masson staining, respectively. Deposition of MASP-1, expression of PAR-1/4 and neutrophil extracellular traps (NET) were investigated on myocardium tissue by IHC staining. Cell apoptosis was detected by TUNEL assay. Levels of myocardial enzymes and proinflammatory cytokines were determined by ELISA. RESULTS: Inhibition of MASP-1 with C1 INH improved cardiac function and alleviated myocardium tissue injury (infarct size, enzymes, histology and fibrosis) after myocardial IRI. Deposition of MASP-1 and expression PAR-1, as well as NET formation in myocardial tissue were suppressed by MASP-1 inhibitor, while PAR-4 was elevated. Levels of apoptosis, HMGB-1 and IL-6 were lower after blocking MASP-1. Yet, IL-8 and TNF-α remained unchanged. CONCLUSIONS: MASP-1, as a new contributor, played a critical role in myocardial IRI. Inhibition of MASP-1 protected myocardial tissue from IRI probably via regulation of PARs/NET pathway. This may provide a novel target strategy against myocardial IRI.

Oxidized phospholipids facilitate calcific aortic valve disease by elevating ATF4 through the PERK/eIF2α axis.

In this study we sought to analyze the critical role of oxidized phospholipid (OxPL) in the progression of calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) with the involvement of activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4). Differentially expressed genes related to CAVD were identified using bioinformatics analysis. Expression of ATF4 was examined in mouse models of aortic valve calcification (AVC) induced by the high cholesterol (HC) diet. Valvular interstitial cells (VICs) were then isolated from mouse non-calcified valve tissues, induced by osteogenic induction medium (OIM) and co-cultured with OxPAPC-stimulated macrophages. The effect of OxPLs regulating ATF4 on the macrophage polarization and osteogenic differentiation of VICs was examined with gain- and loss-of-function experiments in VICs and in vivo. In aortic valve tissues and OIM-induced VICs, ATF4 was highly expressed. ATF4 knockdown alleviated the osteogenic differentiation of VICs, as evidenced by reduced expression of bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP2), osteopontin (OPN), and osteocalcin. In addition, knockdown of ATF4 arrested the AVC in vivo. Meanwhile, OxPL promoted M1 polarization of macrophages and mediated osteogenic differentiation of VICs. Furthermore, OxPL up-regulated ATF4 expression through protein kinase R-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK)/eukaryotic translation initiation factor 2 subunit alpha (eIF2α) pathway. In conclusion, OxPL can potentially up-regulate the expression of ATF4, inducing macrophages polarized to M1 phenotype, osteogenic differentiation of VICs and AVC, thus accelerating the progression of CAVD.

Manipulation of the Structure and Optoelectronic Properties through Bromine Inclusion in a Layered Lead Bromide Perovskite.

One of the great advantages of organic-inorganic metal halides is that their structures and properties are highly tuneable and this is important when optimizing materials for photovoltaics or other optoelectronic devices. One of the most common and effective ways of tuning the electronic structure is through anion substitution. Here, we report the inclusion of bromine into the layered perovskite [H3N(CH2)6NH3]PbBr4 to form [H3N(CH2)6NH3]PbBr4·Br2, which contains molecular bromine (Br2) intercalated between the layers of corner-sharing PbBr6 octahedra. Bromine intercalation in [H3N(CH2)6NH3]PbBr4·Br2 results in a decrease in the band gap of 0.85 eV and induces a structural transition from a Ruddlesden-Popper-like to Dion-Jacobson-like phase, while also changing the conformation of the amine. Electronic structure calculations show that Br2 intercalation is accompanied by the formation of a new band in the electronic structure and a significant decrease in the effective masses of around two orders of magnitude. This is backed up by our resistivity measurements that show that [H3N(CH2)6NH3]PbBr4·Br2 has a resistivity value of one order of magnitude lower than [H3N(CH2)6NH3]PbBr4, suggesting that bromine inclusion significantly increases the mobility and/or carrier concentration in the material. This work highlights the possibility of using molecular inclusion as an alternative tool to tune the electronic properties of layered organic-inorganic perovskites, while also being the first example of molecular bromine inclusion in a layered lead halide perovskite. By using a combination of crystallography and computation, we show that the key to this manipulation of the electronic structure is the formation of halogen bonds between the Br2 and Br in the [PbBr4]∞ layers, which is likely to have important effects in a range of organic-inorganic metal halides.

Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: Results From the UK Biobank Cohort Study.

CONTEXT: Relationships between insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) levels and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the general population remain unclear. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate the association of circulating IGF-1 concentrations with CVD from a population-based cohort study. METHODS: A total of 394 082 participants without CVD and cancer at baseline from UK Biobank were included with measurements of serum IGF-1 at baseline. Main outcomes were incidence of CVD, including CVD mortality, coronary heart disease (CHD), myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure (HF), and stroke. RESULTS: Over a median 11.6 years of follow-up, UK Biobank documented 35 803 incident CVD cases, including 4231 from CVD-related death, 27 051 from CHD, 10 014 from MI, 7661 from HF, and 6802 from stroke. Dose-response analysis showed a U-shaped relationship between IGF-1 levels and cardiovascular events. Compared with the third quintile of IGF-1, the lowest category of IGF-1 was associated with increased risk of CVD (hazard ratio 1.128; 95% CI, 1.093 to 1.164), CVD mortality (1.294; 1.181 to 1.418), CHD (1.118; 1.078 to 1.159), MI (1.071; 1.008 to 1.139), HF (1.185; 1.107 to 1.268), and stroke (1.149, 1.070 to 1.235); also, the highest category was associated with increased risk of CVD (1.056; 1.020 to 1.094), CVD mortality (1.111; 1.000 to 1.236), CHD (1.070; 1.028 to 1.114), MI (1.111; 1.041 to 1.187) and HF (1.098; 1.015 to 1.188) after multivariable adjustment. CONCLUSION: This study indicates that both low and high levels of circulating IGF-1 are associated with increased risk of CVD in general population. These results highlight the importance of monitoring IGF-1 status on cardiovascular health.

In-situ composite microstructure formation of immiscible alloy solidified in space.

The immiscible alloy Ti-Co-Gd is solidified in space by using the Electrostatic Levitation Device on board the Chinese Space Station. A sample with in-situ composite structure is obtained. The microstructure formation and gravity effect are discussed.

Token Selection is a Simple Booster for Vision Transformers.

Vision transformers have recently attained state-of-the-art results in visual recognition tasks. Their success is largely attributed to the self-attention component, which models the global dependencies among the image patches (tokens) and aggregates them into higher-level features. However, self-attention brings significant training difficulties to ViTs. Many recent works thus develop various new self-attention components to alleviate this issue. In this article, instead of developing complicated self-attention mechanism, we aim to explore simple approaches to fully release the potential of the vanilla self-attention. We first study the token selection behavior of self-attention and find that it suffers from a low diversity due to attention over-smoothing, which severely limits its effectiveness in learning discriminative token features. We then develop simple approaches to enhance selectivity and diversity for self-attention in token selection. The resulted token selector module can server as a drop-in module for various ViT backbones and consistently boost their performance. Significantly, they enable ViTs to achieve 84.6% top-1 classification accuracy on ImageNet with only 25M parameters. When scaled up to 81M parameters, the result can be further improved to 86.1%. In addition, we also present comprehensive experiments to demonstrate the token selector can be applied to a variety of transformer-based models to boost their performance for image classification, semantic segmentation and NLP tasks. Code is available at https://github.com/zhoudaquan/dvit_repo.

Modified Newton-residual interpolation for division of focal plane polarization image demosaicking.

With the improvement of semiconductor processing technology, polarization sensors using division of focal plane have gradually become the mainstream method of polarization imaging. Similar to the color restoration method of the Bayer array sensor, the spatial information of polarized image is also recovered through the polarization demosaicking algorithm. In this paper, we propose a new modified Newton-residual interpolation polarization image demosaicking algorithm based on residual interpolation, which is suitable for a monochrome or color polarization filter array. First, we use the modified Newton interpolation method to generate edge-sensitive guiding images. Then, we carry out the improvement of the guide process during the residual interpolation by performing variance statistics on the local window image in the guiding process, so that the edges and flat image blocks have different guiding weights. Finally, we obtain edge-preserving results by applying these two improvements, which reduces the zipper effect and edge confusion. We compare the results of various algorithms on experimental data, demonstrating that our algorithm has impactful improvements in the evaluation metrics based on the ground-truth images.

Associations of fish oil supplementation with incident dementia: Evidence from the UK Biobank cohort study.

Background: Although numerous studies have investigated the association of dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids with cognitive function and the risks of dementia, the relationship between fish oil supplementation and incident dementia in a large population-based cohort study has not yet well studied. Materials and methods: A total of 211,094 community-dwelling older persons over 60 years from the UK Biobank cohorts enrolled between 2006 and 2010 that reported regularly taking fish oil and had no dementia at baseline, was included in the present study. All participants completed an electronic questionnaire regarding habitual use of supplements including fish oil. Results: Overall, 83,283 (39.5%) participants reported regularly taking fish oil at baseline. Of 211,094 participants with the median age was 64.1 years, 5,274 participants developed dementia events during a median follow-up of 11.7 years, with 3,290 individuals derived from fish oil non-users. In the multivariable adjusted models, the adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) associated with fish oil supplementation for all-cause dementia, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and other dementia were 0.91 [CI = 0.84-0.97], 0.83 [CI = 0.71-0.97], 0.43 [CI = 0.26-0.72], 0.90 [CI = 0.82-0.98], respectively (all P < 0.05). However, no significant association between fish oil supplementation and Alzheimer's disease was found (HR = 1.00 [CI = 0.89-1.12], P = 0.977). In the subgroup analyses, the associations between use of fish oil and the risk of all-cause dementia (P for interaction = 0.007) and vascular dementia were stronger among men (P for interaction = 0.026). Conclusion: Among older adults, regular fish oil supplementation was significantly associated with a lower risks of incident all-cause dementia, as well as vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia and other dementia but not Alzheimer's disease. These findings support that habitual use of fish oils may be beneficial for the prevention of dementia in clinical practice.

Type A aortic dissection following heart transplantation: A case report.

BACKGROUND: Cardiac transplantation is considered the standard treatment for refractory end-stage heart failure. Worldwide, 5074 heart transplantations were performed in 2015. About 100 heart transplants are performed at the authors' center each year. The usual complications of heart transplantation include graft rejection, infection, and graft dysfunction. Aortic dissection after heart transplantation is very rare and is a serious complication that requires a hybrid procedure. CASE SUMMARY: A 58-year-old female patient was admitted to Union Hospital Affiliated to Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in July 2020 because of unprovoked low back pain without precipitating causes. Magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography angiography showed type A aortic dissection with an aberrant right subclavian artery. After admission, urapidil was used to control blood pressure. Ten days later, the patient underwent ascending aortic and aortic arch replacement, subclavian artery reconstruction, and endovascular repair of abdominal and thoracic aortic aneurysms. A cardiopulmonary bypass was established through the right femoral artery and femoral vein. The aberrant right subclavian artery, innominate artery, left common carotid artery, and left subclavian artery were blocked, and the left and right common carotid arteries were cannulated for bilateral cerebral perfusion. CONCLUSION: The right axillary artery could not be selected for cardiopulmonary bypass intubation because of aberrant right subclavian artery.

Autonomous UAVs landing site selection from point cloud in unknown environments.

Autonomous safe landing of UAVs is an important and challenging task in unknown environments, as almost no prior scene information can be leveraged for navigation. Most existing methods cannot address this issue completely, due to terrain uncertainty and system complexity. In this paper, we present a novel and complete framework for UAVs landing, which is built on point cloud in coarse-to-fine manner. Besides, our framework is designed with modularity and has four modules: point cloud preprocessing, coarse landing site selection, fine terrain evaluation, and landing optimal model. Specifically, a composite preprocessing scheme is applied to simultaneously filter noise, generate 3D Octo-map and plan the path on the raw point cloud. To balance the accuracy and real-time of the landing system, only promising coarse landing locations are automatically selected by adopting the proposed multi-stage process in grid-map. Based on the result of coarse stage, a fine-grained 3D validation is modeled by multiple terrain factors, which can further improve landing safety. Finally, a novel landing optimal model fuses terrain condition, fuel consumption, and second landing validation to determine the final landing sites during descent. Extensive experiments have been successfully conducted on different real-world and unknown environments, verifying that our method can select safe landing sites for UAVs robustly. Additionally, the system is further evaluated under normal, emergency, and rescue situations respectively to highlight different landing requirements.

Isolation, Characterization, and Depolymerization of l-Cysteine Substituted Eucalyptus Lignin.

Lignin condensation reactions are hard to avoid or control during separation, which is a deterrent to lignin isolation and post-conversation, especially for the full utilization of lignocelluloses. Selective protection of ß-aryl ether linkages in the isolation process is crucial to lignin valorization. Herein, a two-step acid/alkali separation method assisted with l-cysteine for eucalyptus lignin separation is developed, and the isolated l-cysteine lignins (LCLs) are comprehensively characterized by 2D NMR, 31P NMR, thioacidolysis, etc. Compared to the two-step control treatment, a much higher ß-O-4 content is preserved without reducing the separation efficiency assisted by l-cysteine, which is also significantly higher than alkali lignin and kraft lignin. The results of hydrogenolysis show that LCLs generate a much higher monomer yield than that of control sample. Structural analysis of LCLs suggests that lignin condensation reaction, to some extent, is suppressed by adding l-cysteine during the two-step acid/alkali separation. Further, mechanistic studies using dimeric model compound reveals that l-cysteine may be the α-carbon protective agent in the two-step separation. The role of l-cysteine in the two-step lignin isolation method provides novel insights to the selective fractionation of lignin from biomass, especially for the full valorization of lignocellulosic biomass.

Prognostic signature of esophageal adenocarcinoma based on pyroptosis-related genes.

BACKGROUND: The role of pyroptosis-related genes (PRGs) in esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) remains unknown. METHODS: In this study, the first PRGs prognostic signature (PPS) of EAC was constructed based on the results of multivariate stepwise Cox regression analysis. Based on 1,047 samples of EAC and normal esophagus (NE), differentially expressed PRGs were selected for the establishment of the PPS. The discrimination effect of this PPS was detected by receiver operating characteristic curves, and the prognosis value of this PPS was determined through Cox regression analysis and Kaplan-Meier curves. Net benefits of the EAC patients from the nomogram (constructed based on the PPS and some clinical parameters) were assessed via decision curve analysis. The potential molecular mechanism of the PPS in EAC was explored via gene set enrichment analysis. The ability of PPS to distinguish EAC and NE was evaluated based on the results of summary receiver operating characteristic curves. RESULTS: The significant prognostic value of PPS can be observed at all of the training cohort, test cohort, and validation cohort, such as its independent risk role in the prognosis of the EAC patients (hazard ratio > 0; 95% CI not including 0). The positive net benefits of the nomogram for the EAC patients can be detected via decision curve analysis, and the potential molecular mechanism of the PPS in EAC is likely related to cell pyroptosis. Last, some of the PRGs (particularly CASP5) included in this PPS specifically support its feasibility for identifying EAC (area under the curves > 0.7). CONCLUSIONS: The construction of this PPS in EAC enhances the present understanding of the relationship between PRGs and EAC, thus representing a novel approach to the clinical identification and management of EAC based on PRGs.

Synergistic Effect of La and TiB2 Particles on Grain Refinement in Aluminum Alloy.

Synergistic effect of TiB2 (in form of Al-5Ti-1B) and La on grain refining results in Al-2Cu alloy was investigated. α-Al grains are significantly refined by Al-5Ti-1B. When trace La is added to the melt, further refinement is exhibited. Average grain size and nucleation undercooling of α-Al reduce first and then almost remain unchanged with La addition. Satisfactory grain refining result achieves when La addition level reaches 600 ppm. When more than 600 ppm La is added to the melt, La-rich particles form and the effect of solute La left in matrix on the microstructure almost no longer changes. Theoretical calculation results demonstrate that solute La segregates to Al melt/TiB2 particles interface along with Ti and Cu prior to α-Al nucleation and the synergistic effect of La and TiB2 particles on grain refinement mainly attributes to the enhancement in the potency of TiB2 particles to heterogeneously nucleate α-Al by trace La addition.