Thermodynamic Effects Are Essential for Surface Entrapment of Bacteria.

The entrapment of bacteria near boundary surfaces is of biological and practical importance, yet the underlying physics is not well understood. We demonstrate that it is crucial to include a commonly neglected thermodynamic effect related to the spatial variation of hydrodynamic interactions, through a model that provides analytic explanation of bacterial entrapment in two dimensionless parameters: α_{1} the ratio of thermal energy to self-propulsion, and α_{2} an intrinsic shape factor. For α_{1} and α_{2} that match an Escherichia coli at room temperature, our model quantitatively reproduces existing experimental observations, including two key features that have not been previously resolved: The bacterial "nose-down" configuration, and the anticorrelation between the pitch angle and the wobbling angle. Furthermore, our model analytically predicts the existence of an entrapment zone in the parameter space defined by {α_{1},α_{2}}.

Bioactivities and Action Mechanisms of Ellipticine Derivatives Reported Prior to 2023.

Currently, natural products are one of the priceless options for finding novel chemical pharmaceutical entities. Ellipticine is a naturally occurring alkaloid isolated from the leaves of Ochrosia elliptica Labill. Ellipticine and its derivatives are characterized by multiple biological activities. The purpose of this review was to provide a critical and systematic assessment of ellipticine and its derivatives as bioactive molecules over the last 60 years. Publications focused mainly on the total synthesis of alkaloids of this type without any evaluation of bioactivity have been excluded. We have reviewed papers dealing with the synthesis, bioactivity evaluation and mechanism of action of ellipticine and its derivatives. It was found that ellipticine and its derivatives showed cytotoxicity, antimicrobial ability, and anti-inflammatory activity, among which cytotoxicity toward cancer cell lines was the most investigated aspect. The inhibition of DNA topoisomerase II was the most relevant mechanism for cytotoxicity. The PI3K/AKT pathway, p53 pathway, and MAPK pathway were also closely related to the antiproliferative ability of these compounds. In addition, the structure-activity relationship was deduced, and future prospects were outlined. We are confident that these findings will lay a scientific foundation for ellipticine-based drug development, especially for anticancer agents.

Application of dynamic contrast enhanced ultrasound analysis in predicting early response to systemic therapy of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the value of dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound (DCE-US) analysis in early prediction of tumor response to systemic treatment in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). PATIENTS & METHODS: In this retrospective study, patients diagnosed with ICC by core needle biopsy and histopathological results were included. All patients were diagnosed as advanced stages (stage III/IV) by the 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC)/International Union Against Cancer (UICC) TNM staging system. Liver contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) examination, DCE-US analysis, CT/MRI, and blood tests were performed in all patients before and 2 months after systemic treatment. CEUS procedure was performed using an ultrasound system (ACUSON Sequoia; Siemens Medical Solutions, Germany) equipped with a 5C1 MHz convex array transducer. Time-intensity curves (TIC) and quantitative parameters were created with VueBox software. According to one-year results of the modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (m-RECIST) based on CT/MRI, patients were divided into the responder group (RG) and the non-responder group (NRG). Before and 2 months after systemic therapy, the DCE-US perfusion parameters was compared using the paired-sample t test and the Wilcoxon test. RESULTS: From September 2020 to December 2021, a total of 24 patients diagnosed with advanced ICC were included (11 males, 13 females, mean age 59.4 ± 1.8 years). According to the one year of m-RECIST results, 17 cases (70.8 %) were classified as non-responders by the final m-RECIST criteria, while 7 cases (19.2 %) were responders. Comparing before and 2 months after therapy, the RG took longer time to reach peak intensity, and the peak intensity of TIC was lower. While the TICs of NRG revealed faster enhancement after therapy. Among all DCE-US quantitative parameters, PE (peak enhancement), WiR (wash-in rate), WiPI (wash-in perfusion index) and WoR (wash-out rate) reduced significantly following 2 months of systemic therapy in RG (P < 0.05). Comparing to RG, PE and WiPI decreased slightly 2 months after therapy in NRG (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The DCE-US analysis with quantitative parameters has the potential value to make early and quantitative evaluation of treatment response to systemic therapy in ICC patients.

Normal value of virtual touch imaging quantification elastography in measurements of pancreas.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate pancreatic tissue stiffness and provide a normal reference shear wave velocity (SWV) value of pancreas from healthy adults by Virtual Touch Imaging Quantification (VTIQ) measurements. METHODS: Healthy adult volunteers without known history of hepatobiliary or pancreatic diseases were included. VTIQ elastography (Siemens ACUSON Sequoia, 5C-1 transducer) was used. SWV values were measured at the cephalic, corpus and tail of pancreas and replicated different operators' obtained data. Subgroups were classified according to the volunteers' gender, age, body mass index (BMI), depth of measurements and the echogenicity of the pancreas. RESULTS: From February 2023 to July 2023, 33 healthy adult volunteers were included. The success rate of VTIQ measurements in cephalic, corpus and tail regions was 90.90 % (30/33), 96.97 % (32/33) and 90.90 % (30/33) respectively. The color elastograms of healthy adult pancreas showed uniform blue or simultaneously blue and green. The average SWV values were 0.97±0.26 m/s for cephalic, 0.91±0.24 m/s for corpus and 0.97±0.25 m/s for pancreatic tail respectively (P = 0.198). The mean SWV values of pancreas did not show significant difference with age, gender or depth (P >  0.05). BMI was an influence factor in the measurements of SWV values of cephalic and tail of pancreas (P <  0.05). Pancreas with hyperechoic parenchyma showed higher mean SWV values (P <  0.05). The intra-observer (ICC = 0.938 [95% CI: 0.869-0.971]) and the inter-observer (ICC = 0.887 [95% CI: 0.760-0.947]) agreements of VTIQ measurements were excellent. CONCLUSIONS: The mean SWV value of the pancreas in healthy adults was 0.96±0.20 m/s (range: 0.52-1.74 m/s). VTIQ technique can be used in pancreatic stiffness measurements with good reliability.

Multi-modality trajectory prediction with the dynamic spatial interaction among vehicles under connected vehicle environment.

Compared to non-connected vehicle environments, the connected vehicle environment establishes vehicle interconnection through communication technologies, resulting in more complex interaction, network topologies, and large-scale inputs. This complexity renders traditional trajectory prediction models, which rely primarily on inputting historical information of the target vehicle, inadequate for handling the complex and dynamic interactive lane-changing scenarios in connected vehicle environments. In a connected vehicle environment, it is necessary to propose a more targeted and stable lane-changing behavior prediction method based on vehicle traveling characteristics. Taking into account dynamic spatial interaction among vehicles, this study proposes a multi-modality trajectory prediction model called STA-LSTM to perform analysis on the potential interactive behaviors among vehicles under connected vehicle lane-changing scenarios, and specifically to expand the multi-modality feature input of the vehicle trajectory prediction model. The spatial grid occupancy method is used to model the interactions between vehicles. A space-dimensional attention mechanism is introduced to adaptively match the influencing weights of the surrounding vehicles with the target vehicle and to improve the interactive information extraction method. In addition, the attention module is incorporated into the LSTM decoder from the time dimension so that the established model can identify significant historical hidden features during each trajectory decoding process. To account for the uncertainty of trajectory prediction, the vectors of vehicle interactions are incorporated into contextual information to improve the reliability of prediction results and the robustness of the established model. Compared with conventional baseline models, the proposed model exhibited lower root mean square error (RMSE) and negative log-likelihood (NLL) values, and the RMSE values at different prediction times of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s are 0.46m, 1.15m, 1.89m, 2.84m, and 4.05m, respectively. This indicates that the proposed model can accurately predict the interactions between vehicles and the travel paths of surrounding target vehicles.

Sonographic methods to predict type 2 diabetes patients with sarcopenia: B mode ultrasound and shear wave elastography.

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes accelerates the loss of muscle mass and strength. Sarcopenia is also one of the chronic complications of diabetes. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical value of B mode ultrasound (BMUS) and shear wave elastography (SWE) for predicting type 2 diabetic sarcopenia. METHODS: We recorded Skeletal Muscle Mass Index (ASMI), grip strength, muscle thickness (MT), pinna angle (PA), fascicle length (FL), and the difference of Young's modulus in the relaxed states and tense states (ΔSWE). The correlations between clinical indicators and ultrasound characteristics were compared. A diagnostic model of sarcopenia was developed to assess the independent correlates and evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of sarcopenia. RESULTS: ASMI was significantly and positively correlated with MT and ΔSWE (r = 0.826, 0.765, P < 0.01), and grip strength was significantly and positively correlated with MT and ΔSWE (r = 0.797, 0.818, P < 0.01). MT was the most significant predictor of sarcopenia (OR = 4.576, P < 0.001), and the cut-off value of MT was 11.4 mm (AUC: 0.952). CONCLUSION: BMUS and SWE can quantitatively assess muscle mass and strength, and are effective methods to predict the occurrence of sarcopenia in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes.

Hepatic steatosis using ultrasound-derived fat fraction: First technical and clinical evaluation.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the technical and clinical evaluation of ultrasound-derived fat fraction (UDFF) measurement in adult patients in whom fatty liver was suspected. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this prospective study, 41 participants were initially enrolled in our hospital between October 2022 and December 2022 and received UDFF assessment using Siemens ACUSON Sequoia system equipped with DAX transducer. UDFF measurement was performed three times to obtain UDFF values from each imaging location (V hepatic segment and VIII hepatic segment) per participant, and the depth (skin-to-capsule distance) was automatically measured. The echogenicity of liver tissue in B mode ultrasound (BMUS) was compared to the normal kidney tissue, and fatty liver was graded as mild (Grade 1), moderate (Grade 2), and severe (Grade 3). The median of the acquired overall median UDFF values was used for statistical analysis. All ultrasound examinations were performed by one of two radiologists (with 20 and 10 years of liver ultrasound imaging experience). RESULTS: Finally, UDFF measurement was successfully performed on 38 participants to obtain valid values, including 21 men with a median age of 40.0 years (interquartile range [IQR]: 23.0 - 58.5) and 17 women with a median age of 60.0 years (IQR: 29.5 - 67.0). Fatty liver was diagnosed by BMUS features in 47.4% (18/38) participants. Among all participants, the median UDFF value was 7.0% (IQR: 4.0 - 15.6). A significant difference in UDFF values was found between participants with fatty liver and without fatty liver (U = 7.0, P < 0.001), and UDFF values elevated as the grade of the fatty liver increased (P < 0.001). The median UDFF values from the three UDFF measurements obtained during each ultrasound examination showed excellent agreement (ICC = 0.882 [95% confidence interval: 0.833 - 0.919]). The Spearman correlation of UDFF values in different depths was moderate, with a rs value of 0.546 (P < 0.001). No significant differences in UDFF values were found between V hepatic segment and VIII hepatic segment (U = 684.5, P = 0.697). CONCLUSIONS: UDFF provides a novel non-invasive imaging tool for hepatic steatosis assessment with excellent feasibility.

Benefits, potential and risks of China's grassland ecosystem conservation and restoration.

Severe threats from ongoing degradation undermine the grasslands to support ecosystem services, biodiversity, and human well-being. Unfortunately, grasslands are often underappreciated and ignored in sustainable development agendas. Despite a series of projects for Grassland Ecosystem Conservation and Restoration (GECR) been implemented in China, the effects and cost-effectiveness of these efforts remain uncertain and untested. Therefore, we developed an integrated assessment framework to evaluate the benefits of GECR, considering ecological value accounting and input-output efficiency estimation. Additionally, we projected potential and risk areas for GECR in the future. The results showed that in 2020, the annual ecological value of China's grassland ecosystem was CNY 246 trillion. The investment in GECR exceeded CNY 7 billion, leading to an ecological benefit of CNY 3478 billion, with an input-output ratio of 1:446. Over the past 20 years, GECR positively impacted nearly 90 % of China's grassland. Furthermore, grasslands in southern provinces with favorable hydrothermal conditions exhibited significantly higher GECR efficiency, boasting an input-output ratio of >1:2000. The arid and semi-arid northern grasslands and the alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau, despite being the main regions for animal husbandry development and GECR, exhibited comparatively lower efficiency and input-output ratio in GECR. Moreover, the central and northwest parts of Tibet showed higher potential and lower risk, indicating their greatest likelihood of benefiting from GECR in the future. Meanwhile, Hulunbeier and Inner Mongolia deserve more special attention to reverse degradation and mitigate climate change due to their lower potential and higher risks. Our study provides an important basis for prioritizing and implementing effective and sustainable GECR treatment methods.

Soil organic carbon priming co-regulated by labile carbon input level and long-term fertilization history.

Labile carbon (C) input and fertilization have important consequences for soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition via the priming effect (PE), thereby impacting soil fertility and C sequestration. However, it remains largely uncertain on how the labile C input levels interact with long-term fertilization history to control PE intensity. To clarify this question, soil samples were collected from a 38-year fertilization field experiment (including five treatments: chemical nitrogen fertilizer, N; chemical fertilizer, NPK; manure, M1; 200 % manure, M2; NPK plus M2, NPKM2), with strongly altered soil physiochemical properties (i.e., soil aggregation, organic C and nutrient availability). These soil samples were incubated with three input levels of 13C-glucose (without glucose, control; low, 0.4 % SOC; high, 2.0 % SOC) to clarify the underlying mechanisms of PE. Results showed that the PE significantly increased with glucose input levels, with values increasing from negative or weak (-2.21 to 3.55 mg C g-1 SOC) at low input level to strongly positive (5.62 to 8.57 mg C g-1 SOC) at high input level across fertilization treatments. The increased PE intensity occurred along with decreased dissolved total nitrogen (DTN) contents and increased ratios of dissolved organic C to DTN, implying that the decline in N availability largely increased PE via enhanced microbial N mining from SOM. Compared to N and NPK treatments, the PE was significantly lower in the manure-amendment treatments, especially for low input level, due to more stable SOM by aggregate protection and higher N and phosphorus availability. These results suggested that manure application could alleviate SOM priming via increased soil C stability and nutrient availability. Collectively, our findings emphasize the importance of long-term fertilization-driven changes in labile C inputs, SOM stability, and nutrient availability in regulating PE and soil C dynamics. This knowledge advances our understanding of the long-term fertilization management for soil C sequestration.

[Spatial Network of Urban Heat Environment in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration Based on MSPA and Circuit Theory].

Rapid urbanization has increased the complexity of the urban heat environment system, which has negative impacts on the health of the urban ecological system and the human habitat. By combining theories and technologies such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, morphological spatial pattern analysis, and circuit theory with data from MODIS land surface temperature production, urban heat island patches in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration were quantitatively identified in terms of their spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and their spatial and temporal transfer paths. This foundation revealed the geographical network structure of the urban heat environment as well as the spatial and temporal evolution process of critical corridors. According to the findings, urban heat island patches covered 16610 km2 in 2020, accounting for 7.68% of the study area. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, both the area and the number of urban heat island patches considerably increased between 2005 and 2020, going from being dominated by isolated island types of urban heat island patches in 2005 to being dominated by core types in 2020. In particular, the non-urban heat island patches, core type, and edge type of urban heat island patches in 2005 were the major ancestors of the core type and edge type urban heat island patches in 2020. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, there were more urban heat environment source sites, corridor length, densities, and present densities in 2020 than there were in 2005. The sensitive corridor was found to be the predominant type of urban heat island corridor in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration in 2020. The number of sensitive corridors increased the highest in the period from 2005-2020. As the coefficient of urban heat environment corridors increased concurrently, it was apparent that the urban heat environment corridor had a propensity to grow continuously in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. The active adaptation and mitigation measures of the urban heat environment were proposed, and a spatial network model of the urban heat environment was finally provided. To adapt to, mitigate, and promote urban sustainable development risks, these research findings will serve as a paradigm for the identification of the urban heat environment spatial network actively and methodically.

Spatial and temporal variations of soil nutrients of cropland in Northeast China from the 1980s to the 2010s.

In recent years, the degradation of cropland soils in Northeast China, such as "thinned, barren, and hardened", has become increasingly serious, with consequences on sustainable development of agriculture. Based on the data from Soil Types of China (1980s) and Soil Series of China (2010s), we examined the change patterns of soil nutrient conditions across different regions and soil types in Northeast China over the past 30 years through the statistical analysis of large samples. The results showed that: 1) from the 1980s to the 2010s, soil nutrient indicators in Northeast China changed to different degrees. Soil pH decreased by 0.03. Soil organic matter (SOM) content decreasd most prominently, by 8.99 g·kg-1 or 23.6%. Soil total N (TN), total P (TP) and total K (TK) contents showed increasing trends, with increases of 17.1%, 46.8%, and 4.9%, respectively. 2) Changes in soil nutrient indicators differed across different provinces and cities. Soil acidification in Liaoning was the most obvious, with pH decreasing by 0.32. SOM content in Liaoning decreased most significantly, by 31.0%. Soil TN, TP, and TK contents in Liaoning increased most significantly by 73.8%, 248.1% and 44.0%, respectively. 3) The changes of soil nutrients varied greatly among soil types, with brown soil and kastanozems showing the greatest decrease in pH. The SOM content of all soil types showed a decreasing trend, with 35.4%, 33.8% and 26.0% reduction in brown soil, dark brown forest soil and chernozem respectively. The greatest increase in TN, TP and TK contents were observed in brown soil by 89.1%, 232.8%, and 48.5%, respectively. In summary, declining organic matter content and soil acidification were the core problems of soil degradation in Northeast China from the 1980s to the 2010s. Reasonable tillage methods and targeted conservation strategies are critically needed to ensure the sustai-nable development of agriculture in Northeast China.

Synthesis, biological activity and mechanism of action of novel allosecurinine derivatives as potential antitumor agents.

Cancer with low survival rates is the second main cause of death among all diseases in the world and consequently, effective antineoplastic agents are urgently needed. Allosecurinine is a plant-derived indolicidine securinega alkaloid shown bioactivity. The object of this study is to investigate synthetic allosecurinine derivatives with considerable anticancer capacity against nine human cancer cell lines as well as mechanism of action. We synthesized twenty-three novel allosecurinine derivatives and evaluated their antitumor activity against nine cancer cell lines for 72 h by MTT and CCK8 assays. FCM was applied to analyze the apoptosis, mitochondrial membrane potential, DNA content, ROS production, CD11b expression. Western blot was selected to analyze the protein expression. Structure-activity relationships were established and potential anticancer lead BA-3 which induced differentiation of leukemia cells towards granulocytosis at low concentration and apoptosis at high concentration was identified. Mechanism studies showed that mitochondrial pathway mediated apoptosis within cancer cells with cell cycle blocking was induced by BA-3. In addition, western blot assays revealed that BA-3 induced expression of the proapoptotic factor Bax, p21 and reduced the levels of antiapoptotic protein such as Bcl-2, XIAP, YAP1, PARP, STAT3, p-STAT3, and c-Myc. Collectively, BA-3 was a lead compound for oncotherapy at least in part, through the STAT3 pathway. These results were an important step in further studies on allosecurinine-based antitumor agent development.

Unintended consequences of combating desertification in China.

Since the early 2000s, China has carried out extensive "grain-for-green" and grazing exclusion practices to combat desertification in the desertification-prone region (DPR). However, the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of these practices remain unclear. We quantify and compare the changes in fractional vegetation cover (FVC) with economic and population data in the DPR before and after the implementation of these environmental programmes. Here we show that climatic change and CO2 fertilization are relatively strong drivers of vegetation rehabilitation from 2001-2020 in the DPR, and the declines in the direct incomes of farmers and herders caused by ecological practices exceed the subsidies provided by governments. To minimize economic hardship, enhance food security, and improve the returns on policy investments in the DPR, China needs to adapt its environmental programmes to address the potential impacts of future climate change and create positive synergies to combat desertification and improve the economy in this region.

Realizing the multifunctional metamaterial for fluid flow in a porous medium.

Metamaterials are artificial materials that can achieve unusual properties through unique structures. In particular, their "invisibility" property has attracted enormous attention due to its little or negligible disturbance to the background field that avoids detection. This invisibility feature is not only useful for the optical field, but it is also important for any field manipulation that requires minimum disturbance to the background, such as the flow field manipulation inside the human body. There are several conventional invisible metamaterial designs: a cloak can isolate the influence between the internal and external fields, a concentrator can concentrate the external field to form an intensified internal field, and a rotator can rotate the internal field by a specific angle with respect to the external field. However, a multifunctional invisible device that can continuously tune across all these functions has never been realized due to its challenging requirements on material properties. Inside a porous medium flow, however, we overcome these challenges and realize such a multifunctional metamaterial. Our hydrodynamic device can manipulate both the magnitude and the direction of the internal flow and, at the same time, make negligible disturbance to the external flow. Thus, we integrate the functions of the cloak, concentrator, and rotator within one single hydrodynamic metamaterial, and such metamaterials may find potential applications in biomedical areas such as tissue engineering and drug release.

Mechanical Modeling of Tube Bending Considering Elastoplastic Evolution of Tube Cross-Section.

Aluminum alloy tubes are widely used in various industries because of their excellent performance. Up to now, when the tube is bent, the elastoplastic deformation evolution mechanism of the cross-section has not been clear, and no direct analytical proof has been found. In this paper, based on the bilinear material model assumption, a new mechanical model of tube plane bending deformation is constructed. The analytical model can describe in detail the evolution mechanism of elastic-plastic deformation on the cross-section of the tube after bending deformation, the position of the elastic-plastic boundary, the position of the radius of the strain neutral layer, and the relationship between the bending moment over the section and the bending radius. According to this model, the deformation law of the tube cross-section during bending is elucidated. The results are as follows: (1) the deformation evolution of the cross-section of the bending deformed tube calculated by the analytical model is in good agreement with the finite element model (FEM) of pure bending. (2) By comparing the results of the analytical model with FEM results, and the processing test of the self-designed four-axis free bending forming tube bender, the bending moments are in good agreement. (3) Compared with the bending moments calculated by several other analytical models of tube bending, this model has a relatively small deviation value.

The colloidal nature of complex fluids enhances bacterial motility.

The natural habitats of microorganisms in the human microbiome, ocean and soil ecosystems are full of colloids and macromolecules. Such environments exhibit non-Newtonian flow properties, drastically affecting the locomotion of microorganisms1-5. Although the low-Reynolds-number hydrodynamics of swimming flagellated bacteria in simple Newtonian fluids has been well developed6-9, our understanding of bacterial motility in complex non-Newtonian fluids is less mature10,11. Even after six decades of research, fundamental questions about the nature and origin of bacterial motility enhancement in polymer solutions are still under debate12-23. Here we show that flagellated bacteria in dilute colloidal suspensions display quantitatively similar motile behaviours to those in dilute polymer solutions, in particular a universal particle-size-dependent motility enhancement up to 80% accompanied by a strong suppression of bacterial wobbling18,24. By virtue of the hard-sphere nature of colloids, whose size and volume fraction we vary across experiments, our results shed light on the long-standing controversy over bacterial motility enhancement in complex fluids and suggest that polymer dynamics may not be essential for capturing the phenomenon12-23. A physical model that incorporates the colloidal nature of complex fluids quantitatively explains bacterial wobbling dynamics and mobility enhancement in both colloidal and polymeric fluids. Our findings contribute to the understanding of motile behaviours of bacteria in complex fluids, which are relevant for a wide range of microbiological processes25 and for engineering bacterial swimming in complex environments26,27.

Component-target network and mechanism of Qufeng Zhitong capsule in the treatment of neuropathic pain.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Qufeng Zhitong capsule (QFZTC) is a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) clinically used for treating pain. However, the active ingredients of QFZTC and its pharmacological mechanism in the treatment of neuropathic pain (NP) remain unclear. AIM OF THE STUDY: We aimed to identify the active ingredients of QFZTC and reveal its target genes and underlying mechanism of action in NP. MATERIALS AND METHODS: High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to identify the active ingredients of QFZTC. Network pharmacology analysis was conducted to determine the core targets and pathway enrichment of QFZTC. An NP mice model was established through chronic compression injury (CCI) surgery of the sciatic nerve, while von Frey instrumentation and a thermal stimulator were employed to measure the sensitivity of mice to mechanical and thermal stimuli. Immunofluorescence was used to observe the expression of TLR4 and p-P65 in microglia. Western blotting was used to detect the levels of protein expression of Iba-1, TLR4, MyD88, P65, p-P65, and c-Fos, while ELISA kits were used to detect the release of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1ß. RESULTS: Seven active ingredients were identified in QFZTC: gallic acid, loganylic acid, syringin, corilagin, loganin, ellagic acid, and osthole. Network analysis identified TLR4, TNF, IL6, IL1ß, and c-Fos as core targets, and Toll-like receptors and NF-κB as core signaling pathways. Treatment with QFZTC significantly relieved mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia in CCI mice models. CCI induced an increase in the expression of TLR4 and p-P65 in microglia, whereas QFZTC dose-dependently reduced the expression of Iba-1, TLR4, MyD88, and p-P65 in the spinal cord. QFZTC inhibited the expression of the c-Fos pain marker and reduced the expression of the TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1ß inflammatory factors. CONCLUSION: We combined the active ingredients of QFZTC with network pharmacology research to clarify its biological mechanism in the treatment of NP. We demonstrated that QFZTC reduced NP in mice probably through regulating the spinal microglia via the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling pathway. Hence, QFZTC could be regarded as a potential drug for relieving NP.

A comparative study of land development patterns and regional thermal environments (RTEs) in typical urban agglomerations of China and America: A case study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) and Boswash.

Currently, most regional thermal environment (RTE) studies in urban agglomerations focus on developing countries, especially China. However, there is still a lack of comparative studies on the RTEs of urban agglomerations between China and other developed countries, such as the United States. This paper used the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) agglomeration in China and Boswash (the highly urbanized area extending from Boston to Washington) in the United States as examples to investigate the differences in land development patterns, RTEs and their relationship between the agglomerations of China and America. The results showed that the land development patterns of BTH and Boswash were different, as evidenced by the spatial pattern of land development intensity (LDI) and impervious surface configuration. In terms of the RTE, the sub-high land surface temperature (LST) zones were aggregated in a large and compact patch in central and northern BTH. However, the sub-high zones of the cities in Boswash were relatively separate. Moreover, the land development pattern of Boswash showed a stronger relationship with the RTE than that of BTH did. Global Moran's I between the LDI and LST in Boswash was higher than that in BTH. In addition, the correlation between impervious surface configuration and LST in Boswash was stronger than that in BTH, and this correlation was more controlled by LDI in Boswash. This study also indicated that BTH should change the land development pattern to prevent the further expansion of aggregated sub-high LST zones and control the proximity of high LST zones in cities in central and southern BTH, however, Boswash should adopt some local heat management approaches (installing cool and green roofs and creating more green space) in the core areas to help reduce the very high temperatures in the already highly developed areas where the largest fraction of people live.

Physicochemical properties and salinization characteristics of soils in coastal land reclamation areas: A case study of China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City.

Land salinization is a global environmental problem, and how to manage saline soils and promote healthy ecosystems has become a major challenge. China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is located in coastal land reclamation areas, so salinization is severe in this region. In this study, geostatistical methods, the ordinary kriging method, and principal component analysis were used. Vertical sampling was performed over three layers (0-20 cm, 20-40 cm, and 40-60 cm) at 184 locations within the study area to produce a total of 542 soil samples. It was found that areas with soluble salt contents greater than 3000 mg/kg account for over 90% of the study area, and high soluble salt content in surface layer soils is the dominant factor in soil salinization. Na+, Cl-, and SO4 2- are the primary control factors that determine the coefficient of variation of the soils' soluble salt content. Total salinity and Na+, Cl-, SO4 2-, K+, and Mg2+ reflect on the salinization of the soils, while effective phosphorus, available potassium, and soil organic carbon reflect on the state of soil nutrition. Based on our results, we proposed site-specific and scientific soil remediation and greening measures.

An effective and efficient model of the near-field hydrodynamic interactions for active suspensions of bacteria.

Near-field hydrodynamic interactions in active fluids are essential to determine many important emergent behaviors observed, but have not been successfully modeled so far. In this work, we propose an effective model capturing the essence of the near-field hydrodynamic interactions through a tensorial coefficient of resistance, validated numerically by a pedagogic model system consisting of an Escherichia coli bacterium and a passive sphere. In a critical test case that studies the scattering angle of the bacterium-sphere pair dynamics, we prove that the near-field hydrodynamics can make a qualitative difference even for this simple two-body system: Calculations based on the proposed model reveal a region in parameter space where the bacterium is trapped by the passive sphere, a phenomenon that is regularly observed in experiments but cannot be explained by any existing model. In the end, we demonstrate that our model also leads to efficient simulation of active fluids with tens of thousands of bacteria, sufficiently large for investigations of many emergent behaviors.