Ribosomal protein RPL11 haploinsufficiency causes anemia in mice via activation of the RP-MDM2-p53 pathway.

Recent discovery of the ribosomal protein (RP) RPL11 interacting with and inhibiting the E3 ubiquitin ligase function of MDM2 established the RP-MDM2-p53 signaling pathway, which is linked to biological events, including ribosomal biogenesis, nutrient availability, and metabolic homeostasis. Mutations in RPs lead to a diverse array of phenotypes known as ribosomopathies in which the role of p53 is implicated. Here, we generated conditional RPL11-deletion mice to investigate in vivo effects of impaired RP expression and its functional connection with p53. While deletion of one Rpl11 allele in germ cells results in embryonic lethality, deletion of one Rpl11 allele in adult mice does not affect viability but leads to acute anemia. Mechanistically, we found RPL11 haploinsufficiency activates p53 in hematopoietic tissues and impedes erythroid precursor differentiation, resulting in insufficient red blood cell development. We demonstrated that reducing p53 dosage by deleting one p53 allele rescues RPL11 haploinsufficiency-induced inhibition of erythropoietic precursor differentiation and restores normal red blood cell levels in mice. Furthermore, blocking the RP-MDM2-p53 pathway by introducing an RP-binding mutation in MDM2 prevents RPL11 haploinsufficiency-caused p53 activation and rescues the anemia in mice. Together, these findings demonstrate that the RP-MDM2-p53 pathway is a critical checkpoint for RP homeostasis and that p53-dependent cell cycle arrest of erythroid precursors is the molecular basis for the anemia phenotype commonly associated with RP deficiency.

Self-Powered Traffic Lights Through Wind Energy Harvesting Based on High-Performance Fur-Brush Dish Triboelectric Nanogenerators.

Traffic lights play vital roles in urban traffic management systems, providing clear directional guidance for vehicles and pedestrians while ensuring traffic safety. However, the vast quantity of traffic lights widely distributed in the transportation system aggravates energy consumption. Here, a self-powered traffic light system is proposed through wind energy harvesting based on a high-performance fur-brush dish triboelectric nanogenerator (FD-TENG). The FD-TENG harvests wind energy to power the traffic light system continuously without needing an external power supply. Natural rabbit furs are applied to dish structures, due to their outstanding characteristics of shallow wear, high performance, and resistance to humidity. Also, the grid pattern of the dish structure significantly impacts the TENG outputs. Additionally, the internal electric field and the influences of mechanical and structural parameters on the outputs are analyzed by finite element simulations. After optimization, the FD-TENG can achieve a peak power density of 3.275 W m-3. The portable and miniature features of FD-TENG make it suitable for other natural environment systems such as forests, oceans, and mountains, besides the traffic light systems. This study presents a viable strategy for self-powered traffic lights, establishing a basis for efficient environmental energy harvesting toward big data and Internet of Things applications.

Exosomes regulate SIRT3-related autophagy by delivering miR-421 to regulate macrophage polarization and participate in OSA-related NAFLD.

PURPOSE: To analyze the role of and mechanism underlying obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)-derived exosomes in inducing non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD). METHODS: The role of OSA-derived exosomes was analyzed in inducing hepatocyte fat accumulation in mice models both in vivo and in vitro. RESULTS: OSA-derived exosomes caused fat accumulation and macrophage activation in the liver tissue. These exosomes promoted fat accumulation; steatosis was more noticeable in the presence of macrophages. Macrophages could internalize OSA-derived exosomes, which promoted macrophage polarization to the M1 type. Moreover, it inhibited sirtuin-3 (SIRT3)/AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and autophagy and promoted the activation of nucleotide-binding domain, leucine-rich-containing family, pyrin domain-containing-3 (NLRP3) inflammasomes. The use of 3-methyladenine (3-MA) to inhibit autophagy blocked NLRP3 inflammasome activation and inhibited the M1 polarization of macrophages. miR-421 targeting inhibited SIRT3 protein expression in the macrophages. miR-421 was significantly increased in OSA-derived exosomes. Additionally, miR-421 levels were increased in OSA + NAFLD mice- and patient-derived exosomes. In the liver tissues of OSA and OSA + NAFLD mice, miR-421 displayed similar co-localization with the macrophages. Intermittent hypoxia-induced hepatocytes deliver miR-421 to the macrophages via exosomes to inhibit SIRT3, thereby participating in macrophage M1 polarization. After OSA and NAFLD modeling in miR-421-/- mice, liver steatosis and M1 polarization were significantly reduced. Additionally, in the case of miR-421 knockout, the inhibitory effects of OSA-derived exosomes on SIRT3 and autophagy were significantly alleviated. Furthermore, their effects on liver steatosis and macrophage M1 polarization were significantly reduced. CONCLUSIONS: OSA promotes the delivery of miR-421 from the hepatocytes to macrophages. Additionally, it promotes M1 polarization by regulating the SIRT3/AMPK-autophagy pathway, thereby causing NAFLD.

Plasmonic hotspot arrays boost second harmonic generation in thin-film lithium niobate.

Focusing light down to subwavelength scales to enhance the light-matter interaction has been highly sought after, which has promoted significant researches and applications in nanophotonics. Plasmonic nanoantennae are a significant tool to achieve this goal since they can confine light into ultra-small volumes far below the diffraction limit. However, metallic materials have the property of central symmetry, resulting in weak second-order nonlinear effects. Here, we design plasmonic bowtie nanoantennae on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) for deep-subwavelength light confinement to boost the second-harmonic generation (SHG) in TFLN via the plasmonic hotspot enhancement. The SHG enhancement factor of about 20 times as compared to unpatterned TFLN is achieved in the experiment when resonantly excited by femtosecond laser. This work proposes a route for subwavelength nonlinear optics on the TFLN platform.

Highly sensitive mid-infrared methane remote sensor using a deep neural network filter.

A novel mid-infrared methane remote sensor integrated on a movable platform based on a 3.291-µm interband cascade laser (ICL) and wavelength modulation spectroscopy (WMS) is proposed. A transmitting-receiving coaxial, visualized optical layout is employed to minimize laser energy loss. Using a hollow retro-reflector remotely deployed as a cooperative target, the atmospheric average methane concentration over a 100-meter optical range is measured with high sensitivity. A deep neural network (DNN) filter is used for second harmonic (2f) signal denoising to compensate for the performance shortcomings of conventional filtering. Allan deviation analysis indicated that after applying the DNN filter, the limit of detection (LOD) of methane was 86.62 ppb with an average time of 1 s, decreasing to 12.03 ppb with an average time of 229 s, which is a significant promotion compared to similar work reported. The high sensitivity and stability of the proposed sensor are shown through a 24-hour continuous monitoring experiment of atmospheric methane conducted outdoors, providing a new solution for high-sensitivity remote sensing of atmospheric methane.

Simulation evaluation of a single-photon laser methane remote sensor for leakage rate monitoring.

We propose a novel methane leakage rate remote sensor that combines a single-photon avalanche diode detector with a near-infrared 1653.7 nm low-power laser. The proposed M sequence and triangle wave signal modulation method simultaneously realizes the detection of methane leakage and target point clouds. Innovatively, the sensor's methane concentration and leakage rate quantification ability were simulated by combining the Gaussian plume diffusion model and the Risley prism. The effects of the prism rotation ratio, wind speed, leakage rate, atmospheric stability (AS), target reflectivity, signal averaging period, and concentration spatial interpolation method on leakage rate are discussed. When plume methane concentrations reduce from 10,000 to 500 ppm·m, the relative concentration bias rise from 1% to 30%, the absolute concentration bias is approximately 100 ppm·m. Two spatial concentration interpolation methods introduced leakage rate bias ranging from 6%-25%. For a low AS, the leakage rate bias under the cubic interpolation method was small (approximately 1.6%). In addition, when the initial leakage rate increased from 100 to 1,000 mg/s, the leakage rate bias was approximately 20% smaller.

Fast, intelligent and high-precision adaptive null interferometry for optical freeform surfaces by backpropagation.

In the past 10 years, adaptive wavefront interferometry (AWI) has been employed for measuring freeform surface profiles. However, existing AWI techniques relying on stepwise and model-free stochastic optimizations have resulted in inefficient tests. To address these issues, deterministic adaptive wavefront interferometry (DAWI) is firstly introduced in this paper based on backpropagation (BP), which employs a loss function to simultaneously reconstruct and sparsify initial incomplete interferometric fringes until they are nulled. Each iteration of BP requires two phase shifts. Through simulations, we have verified that freeform wavefront error with a peak-to-valley (PV) of up to 168 λ can be fully compensated in tens of iterations using a 1024 × 1024 pixel area of a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. In experiments, we accomplished a null test of a freeform surface with 80% missing interference fringes in 39 iterations, resulting in a surface profile error PV of 66.22 λ and measurement error better than λ/4. The DAWI has at least 20 times fewer iterations in fringe reconstruction than the 3-step AWI methods, and nearly an order of magnitude fewer iterations in the whole process, paving the way for significantly enhanced efficiency, generality and precision in freeform surface adaptive interferometry.

Rapid in-situ calibration of computational micro-spectrometer with few-shot meta-learning.

Computational micro-spectrometers comprised of detector arrays and encoding structure arrays, such as on-chip Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity filters, have great potential in many in-situ applications owing to their compact size and snapshot imaging ability. Given manufacturing deviation and environmental influence are inevitable, easy and effective calibration for spectrometer is necessary, especially for in-situ applications. Currently calibration strategies based on iterative algorithms or neural networks require accurate measurements of pixel-level (spectral) encoding functions through monochromator or large amounts of standard samples. These procedures are time-consuming and expensive, thereby impeding in-situ applications. Meta-learning algorithms with few-shot learning ability can address this challenge by incorporating the prior knowledge in the simulated dataset. In this work, we propose a meta-learning algorithm free of measuring encoding function or large amounts of standard samples to calibrate a micro-spectrometer with manufacturing deviation effectively. Our micro-spectrometer comprises 16 types of FP filters covering a wavelength range of 550-720 nm. The center wavelength of each filter type deviates from the design up to 6 nm. After calibration with 15 different color data, the average reconstruction error on the test dataset decreased from 7.2 × 10-3 to 1.2 × 10-3, and further decreased to 9.4 × 10-4 when the calibration data increased to 24. The performance is comparable to algorithms trained with measured encoding function both in reconstruction error and generalization ability. We estimated that the cost of in-situ calibration through reflectance measurements of color chart decreased to one percent of the cost through monochromator measurements. By exploiting prior deviation information in simulation data with meta-learning, the efficiency and cost of calibration are significantly improved, thereby facilitating the large-scale production and in-situ application of micro-spectrometers.

Noncritical birefringence phase-matched second harmonic generation in a lithium-niobate-on-insulator micro-waveguide for green light emission.

Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) holds great potential for frequency conversion, where a variety of high-performance nonlinear devices based on different structures has been demonstrated. Here, we report on second harmonic generation (SHG) in MgO-doped LNOI ridge micro-waveguides for efficient green light emission, via an exact type-I noncritical birefringence phase matching (BPM). The LNOI micro-waveguide has a cross section of ∼3×4 µm2, featuring low coupling loss with lens fiber. The normalized conversion efficiency from a continuous-wave (cw) pump to its second harmonic is measured to be 37%/Wcm2 in a single-pass configuration. The device shows both relatively high efficiency and a void of periodic poling, offering a potential solution for efficient and scalable green light sources and frequency converters.

Pontederia crassipes inspired bottom overflow for fast and stable drainage.

Fast and stable water drainage is essential for living organisms, drainage plane construction, and protection of infrastructure from damage during rainfall. Unlike traditional anti-overflow drainage methods that rely on hydrophobic or sharped edges, this study demonstrates a bottom overflow-induced drainage model inspired by the water path employed by Pontederia crassipes leaves, leading to fast and stable drainage. A superhydrophilic bottom surface guides water to overflow and pin at the bottom of a thin sheet, resulting in dripping at a higher frequency and reduced water retention. This bottom drainage idea assists large-scale thin sheets to function as efficient and stable drainage surfaces in simulated rain environments. The flexible thin sheet can also be feasibly attached to dusty substrates to effectively remove dusty rainwater with slight dust residue. The bioinspired approach presented herein suggests a promising potential for efficient water drainage on outdoor functional photovoltaic surfaces, such as solar panels and radomes, thus ensuring effective energy conversion and stable signal transmission.

Is adherence to the 24-h movement guidelines associated with greater academic-related outcomes in children and adolescents? A systematic review and meta-analysis.

The purpose of this systematic review was to synthesise the evidence for the association of adherence to the 24-h movement guidelines with academic-related outcomes in children and adolescents. This systematic review was based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) statement. PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, WOS, SPORTDiscus, and EMBASE were searched from their inception to 12 December 2023. The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist was used to assess the risk of bias of included studies. In total, 4326 records were identified through database searches; 10 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic review. There were eight cross-sectional studies and two longitudinal studies; the main academic-related outcomes were academic achievement and cognitive function. A small association between adherence to all three recommendations and academic achievement (k = 5, r = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.10-0.24, I2 = 49%) was found compared to those who did not adhere to any recommendations.   Conclusion: Findings from this systematic review and meta-analysis reveal a small association between adherence to all three recommendations and greater academic achievement in children and adolescents. Nevertheless, it is imperative to underscore the need for more studies to establish robust evidence underpinning this relationship.   Trial registration: PROSPERO (CRD42021295403). What is Known: • Regular physical activity, reduced screen time, and optimal sleep duration are independently associated with improved academic-related outcomes in children and adolescents. • The associations between adherence to the 24-h movement guidelines and academic-related outcomes in children and adolescents have not been quantitatively synthesised. What is New: • There is a small but positive association between adherence to all three recommendations of the 24-h movement guidelines and greater academic achievement in children and adolescents. • Further well-designed research is needed to focus on academic achievement, cognitive function and classroom behaviours in young individuals.

Temperature-Automated Calibration Methods for a Large-Area Blackbody Radiation Source.

High-precision temperature control of large-area blackbodies has a pivotal role in temperature calibration and thermal imaging correction. Meanwhile, it is necessary to correct the temperature difference between the radiating (surface of use) and back surfaces (where the temperature sensor is installed) of the blackbody during the testing phase. Moreover, large-area blackbodies are usually composed of multiple temperature control channels, and manual correction in this scenario is error-prone and inefficient. At present, there is no method that can achieve temperature-automated calibration for a large-area blackbody radiation source. Therefore, this article is dedicated to achieving temperature-automated calibration for a large-area blackbody radiation source. First, utilizing two calibrated infrared thermometers, the optimal temperature measurement location was determined using a focusing algorithm. Then, a three-axis movement system was used to obtain the true temperature at the same measurement location on a large-area blackbody surface from different channels. This temperature was subtracted from the blackbody's back surface. The temperature difference was calculated employing a weighted algorithm to derive the parameters for calibration. Finally, regarding experimental verification, the consistency error of the temperature measurement point was reduced by 85.4%, the temperature uniformity of the surface source was improved by 40.4%, and the average temperature measurement deviation decreased by 43.8%. In addition, this system demonstrated the characteristics of strong environmental adaptability that was able to perform temperature calibration under the working conditions of a blackbody surface temperature from 100 K to 573 K, which decreased the calibration time by 9.82 times.

Pharmacokinetics of tilmicosin in plasma, urine and feces after a single intragastric administration in donkey (Equus asinus).

Tilmicosin, a macrolide antibiotic, has the potential to treat bacterial infections in donkeys. However, the pharmacokinetics of tilmicosin in donkeys have not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate the pharmacokinetics of tilmicosin in donkey plasma, urine, and feces after a single intragastric administration to determine the suitability of tilmicosin for donkeys. A total of 5 healthy male donkeys with similar body weights were selected. The donkeys were administered a single dose of 10 mg · kg-1 body weight (BW) tilmicosin by gavage. The concentrations of tilmicosin in plasma, urine, and feces were determined. The results showed that after a single intragastric administration of 10 mg · kg-1 body weight, tilmicosin in donkey plasma reached a maximum concentration of 11.23 ± 5.37 mg · L-1 at 0.80 ± 0.10 h, with a half-life of 14.49 ± 7.13 h, a mean residence time of 28.05 ± 3.05 h, a Cl/F of 0.48 ± 0.18 L · kg-1 · h-1, and a Vd/F of 9.28 ± 2.63 Lkg-1. The percentage of tilmicosin excreted through the urine of donkeys is 2.47%, and the percentage excreted through the feces is 66.43%. Our study provides data to inform the use of tilmicosin in donkeys.

Emission and optical characteristics of brown carbon in size-segregated particles from three types of Chinese ships.

Brown carbon (BrC) is one of the important light absorption substances that have high light absorption ability under short wavelength light. However, limit studies have focused on the BrC emission from ships. In this study, size-segregated particulate matters (PM) were collected from three different types of ships, light absorption characteristics and size distribution of methanol-soluble BrC and water-soluble BrC in PM from ship exhausts were investigated. Results showed that four-stroke low-power diesel fishing boat (4-LDF) had the highest mass concentrations of methanol-soluble organic carbon (MSOC) and water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), followed by 2-stroke high-power heavy-fuel-oil vessel (2-HHV), and four-stroke high-power marine-diesel vessel (4-HMV). While 2-HHV had obviously higher light absorption coefficients of methanol-soluble BrC (Abs365,M) and water-soluble BrC (Abs365,W) in unit weight of PM than the other two types of ships. The tested ships presented comparable or higher absorption efficiency of BrC in water extracts (MAE365,W) compared with other BrC emission sources. Majority of BrC was concentrated in fine particles, and the particle size distributions of both Abs365,M and Abs365,W showed bimodal patterns, peaking at 0.43-0.65 µm and 4.7-5.8 µm, respectively. However, different particle size distributions were found for MAE365,M between diesel and heavy fuel oil ships. Besides, different wavelength dependence in particles with different size were also detected. Ship exhaust could be confirmed as a non-ignorable BrC emission source, and complex influencing factor could affect the light absorption characteristics of ship emissions. Particle size should also be considered when light absorption ability of BrC was evaluated.

Broadband second-harmonic generation in an angle-cut lithium niobate-on-insulator waveguide by a temperature gradient.

Frequency conversion via nonlinear wave mixing is an important technology to broaden the spectral range of lasers, propelling their applications in optical communication, spectroscopy, signal processing, and quantum information. Many applications require not only a high conversion efficiency but also a broad phase matching bandwidth. Here, we demonstrate broadband birefringence phase matching (BPM) second-harmonic generation (SHG) in angle-cut lithium niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) ridge waveguides based on a temperature gradient scheme. The bandwidth and shift of the phase matching spectrum can be effectively tuned by controlling the temperature gradient of the waveguide. Broadband SHG of a telecom C-band femtosecond laser is also demonstrated. The approach may open a new avenue for tunable broadband nonlinear frequency conversion in various integrated photonics platforms.

Yap Promotes Noncanonical Wnt Signals From Cardiomyocytes for Heart Regeneration.

[Figure: see text].

The cohesive properties and pyrolysis mechanism of an aprotic ionic liquid tetrabutylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide.

As the cohesive properties (such as the enthalpy of sublimation) of solid organic salts (or ionic liquids, ILs) are unmeasurable, a method of their indirect determination is proposed in this paper. For this purpose, the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetric analysis (DSC) were carried out over a wide range of temperatures. In this study, the mathematical relationship of the thermodynamic properties between the liquid and solid phases of ILs is established using the Born-Fajans-Haber cycle, in which the sum of the vaporization enthalpy of ILs, melting enthalpy and the enthalpy of solid-solid phase transition is regarded as the sublimation enthalpy of solid organic salts. With this method, the cohesive properties of tetrabutylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide ([N4444][NTf2]), which is an aprotic IL, were successfully obtained. Additionally, the difference between the lattice energy and the cohesive energy was employed to quantitatively calculate the charge separation distance of single ion pair (r12) in the gas phase of ionic liquids for the first time, which can serve as a standard methodology to measure the closeness in distance between the anion and the cation in a gas phase ion pair. The pyrolysis mechanism of [N4444][NTf2] was also explored.

Secondary Formation of Atmospheric Brown Carbon in China Haze: Implication for an Enhancing Role of Ammonia.

Optical characteristics and molecular compositions of brown carbon (BrC) were investigated during winter 2019 at a rural site of China with a focus on nitro-aromatic compounds (NACs) and imidazoles (IMs). The abundance of gaseous nitrophenols relative to CO during the campaign maximized at noontime, being similar to O3, while the particulate NACs during the haze periods strongly correlated with toluene and NO2, suggesting that NACs in the region are largely formed from the gas-phase photooxidation. Strong correlations of particulate IMs in the dry haze periods with the mass ratio of EC/PM2.5 and the concentration of levoglucosan were observed, indicating that IMs during the dry events are largely derived from biomass burning emissions. However, an increase in IMs with the increasing aerosol liquid water content and pH was observed in the humid haze events, along with much lower abundances of levoglucosan and K+ relative to PM2.5, suggesting that IMs were mostly formed from aqueous reactions in the humid haze periods. These IMs exponentially increased with an increasing NH3 owing to an aqueous reaction of carbonyls with free ammonia. Our findings for the first time revealed an enhancing effect of ammonia on BrC formation in China, especially in humid haze periods.

Prediction of metastable phase of the Sc-N system in the N-rich region under high pressure.

The prediction of the high-pressure structure of the ScNx system enriches the phase diagram of the Sc-N system: three metastable phase structures (P1̄-ScN8, P1-ScN9 and P1-ScN11) are proposed in the N-rich region. These structures have novel polymeric nitrogen structures, and enrich the structural types of polymeric nitrogen under pressure. Interestingly, the P1-ScN11 phase can be quenched to ambient conditions, and release energy at a relatively mild temperature of 800 K. The larger charge transfer plays an important role in the structural stability by inducing the Sc-N ionic bond interaction and N-N covalent bond interaction. The prominent energy properties of P1̄-ScN8, P1-ScN9 and P1-ScN11 make them potential candidates in the application of propellants and explosives.

Flow cytometry: a tool for understanding the behaviour of polyhydroxyalkanoate accumulators.

The use of mixed microbial cultures (MMCs) is seen as an attractive strategy for polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) production. In order to optimize the MMC-PHA production process, tools are required to improve our understanding of the physiological state of the PHA-storing microorganisms within the MMC. In the present study, we explored the use of flow cytometry to analyse the metabolic state and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) content of the microorganisms from an MMC-PHA production process. A sequencing batch reactor under a feast and famine regime was used to enrich an MMC with PHB-storing microorganisms. Interestingly, once the PHB-storing microorganisms are selected, the level of PHB accumulation depends largely on the metabolic state of these microorganisms and not exclusively on the consortium composition. These results demonstrate that flow cytometry is a powerful tool to help to understand the PHA storage response of an MMC-PHA production process. KEY POINTS: • Flow cytometry allows to measure PHB content and metabolic activity over time. • Microorganisms showing high PHB content also have high metabolic activity. • PHB producers with low metabolic activity show low PHB content.