Multi-modal Ca2+ nanogenerator via reversing T cell exhaustion for enhanced chemo-immunotherapy.

Chemo-immunotherapy holds the advantage of specific antitumor effects by activating cytotoxic lymphocyte cells (CTLs) immune response. However, multiple barriers have limited the outcomes partly due to tumor-cell-mediated exhaustion of CTLs in the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (iTME). Here, we rationally designed a simple-yet-versatile Ca2+ nanogenerator to modulate iTME for enhancing 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) mediated chemo-immunotherapy. Briefly, after 2-DG chemotherapy, CaO2 nanoparticles coated with EL4 cell membrane (denoted as CaNP@ECM) could preferentially accumulate in tumor tissue via adhesion between LFA-1 on EL4 cell membrane and ICAM-1 on inflamed endothelial cell in tumor tissues and display a series of benefits for CTLs: i) Increasing glucose availability of CTLs while reducing lactic acid secretion through Ca2+ overloading mediated inhibition of tumor cell glycolysis, as well as relieving hypoxia; ii) Reversing CTLs exhaustion via TGF-ß1 scavenging and PD-L1 blockade through PD-1 and TGF-ß1R on EL4 cell membrane; iii) Boosting tumor immunotherapy via immunologic death (ICD) of tumor cells induced by Ca2+ overloading. We demonstrate that the multi-modal Ca2+ nanogenerator rescues T cells from exhaustion and inhibits tumor growth both in vitro and in vivo. More importantly, the study also facilitate the development of glucose metabolism inhibition-based tumor immunotherapy via Ca2+ overloading.

Genome-wide analysis of MYB transcription factor family and AsMYB1R subfamily contribution to ROS homeostasis regulation in Avena sativa under PEG-induced drought stress.

BACKGROUND: The myeloblastosis (MYB) transcription factor (TF) family is one of the largest and most important TF families in plants, playing an important role in a life cycle and abiotic stress. RESULTS: In this study, 268 Avena sativa MYB (AsMYB) TFs from Avena sativa were identified and named according to their order of location on the chromosomes, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis of the AsMYB and Arabidopsis MYB proteins were performed to determine their homology, the AsMYB1R proteins were classified into 5 subgroups, and the AsMYB2R proteins were classified into 34 subgroups. The conserved domains and gene structure were highly conserved among the subgroups. Eight differentially expressed AsMYB genes were screened in the transcriptome of transcriptional data and validated through RT-qPCR. Three genes in AsMYB2R subgroup, which are related to the shortened growth period, stomatal closure, and nutrient and water transport by PEG-induced drought stress, were investigated in more details. The AsMYB1R subgroup genes LHY and REV 1, together with GST, regulate ROS homeostasis to ensure ROS signal transduction and scavenge excess ROS to avoid oxidative damage. CONCLUSION: The results of this study confirmed that the AsMYB TFs family is involved in the homeostatic regulation of ROS under drought stress. This lays the foundation for further investigating the involvement of the AsMYB TFs family in regulating A. sativa drought response mechanisms.

MYB2 and MYB108 regulate lateral root development by interacting with LBD29 in Arabidopsis thaliana.

AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR 7 (ARF7)-mediated auxin signaling plays a key role in lateral root (LR) development by regulating downstream LATERAL ORGAN BOUNDARIES DOMAIN (LBD) transcription factor genes, including LBD16, LBD18, and LBD29. LBD proteins are believed to regulate the transcription of downstream genes as homodimers or heterodimers. However, whether LBD29 forms dimers with other proteins to regulate LR development remains unknown. Here, we determined that the Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynh. MYB transcription factors MYB2 and MYB108 interact with LBD29 and regulate auxin-induced LR development. Both MYB2 and MYB108 were induced by auxin in an ARF7-dependent manner. Disruption of MYB2 by fusion with an SRDX domain severely affected auxin-induced LR formation and the ability of LBD29 to induce LR development. By contrast, overexpression of MYB2 or MYB108 resulted in greater LR numbers, except in the lbd29 mutant background. These findings underscore the interdependence and importance of MYB2, MYB108, and LBD29 in regulating LR development. In addition, MYB2-LBD29 and MYB108-LBD29 complexes promoted the expression of CUTICLE DESTRUCTING FACTOR 1 (CDEF1), a member of the GDSL (Gly-Asp-Ser-Leu) lipase/esterase family involved in LR development. In summary, this study identified MYB2-LBD29 and MYB108-LBD29 regulatory modules that act downstream of ARF7 and intricately control auxin-mediated LR development.

Intestinal microflora promotes Th2-mediated immunity through NLRP3 in damp and heat environments.

Background: With the worsening of the greenhouse effect, the correlation between the damp-heat environment (DH) and the incidence of various diseases has gained increasing attention. Previous studies have demonstrated that DH can lead to intestinal disorders, enteritis, and an up-regulation of NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3). However, the mechanism of NLRP3 in this process remains unclear. Methods: We established a DH animal model to observe the impact of a high temperature and humidity environment on the mice. We sequenced the 16S rRNA of mouse feces, and the RNA transcriptome of intestinal tissue, as well as the levels of cytokines including interferon (IFN)-γ and interleukin (IL)-4 in serum. Results: Our results indicate that the intestinal macrophage infiltration and the expression of inflammatory genes were increased in mice challenged with DH for 14 days, while the M2 macrophages were decreased in Nlrp3 -/- mice. The alpha diversity of intestinal bacteria in Nlrp3 -/- mice was significantly higher than that in control mice, including an up-regulation of the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio. Transcriptomic analysis revealed 307 differentially expressed genes were decreased in Nlrp3 -/- mice compared with control mice, which was related to humoral immune response, complement activation, phagocytic recognition, malaria and inflammatory bowel disease. The ratio of IFN-γ/IL-4 was decreased in control mice but increased in Nlrp3 -/- mice. Conclusions: Our study found that the inflammation induced by DH promotes Th2-mediated immunity via NLRP3, which is closely related to the disruption of intestinal flora.

Aptamer-Functionalized Interface Nanopores Enable Amino Acid-Specific Peptide Detection.

Single-molecule proteomics based on nanopore technology has made significant advances in recent years. However, to achieve nanopore sensing with single amino acid resolution, several bottlenecks must be tackled: controlling nanopore sizes with nanoscale precision and slowing molecular translocation events. Herein, we address these challenges by integrating amino acid-specific DNA aptamers into interface nanopores with dynamically tunable pore sizes. A phenylalanine aptamer was used as a proof-of-concept: aptamer recognition of phenylalanine moieties led to the retention of specific peptides, slowing translocation speeds. Importantly, while phenylalanine aptamers were isolated against the free amino acid, the aptamers were determined to recognize the combination of the benzyl or phenyl and the carbonyl group in the peptide backbone, enabling binding to specific phenylalanine-containing peptides. We decoupled specific binding between aptamers and phenylalanine-containing peptides from nonspecific interactions (e.g., electrostatics and hydrophobic interactions) using optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy. Aptamer-modified interface nanopores differentiated peptides containing phenylalanine vs. control peptides with structurally similar amino acids (i.e., tyrosine and tryptophan). When the duration of aptamer-target interactions inside the nanopore were prolonged by lowering the applied voltage, discrete ionic current levels with repetitive motifs were observed. Such reoccurring signatures in the measured signal suggest that the proposed method has the possibility to resolve amino acid-specific aptamer recognition, a step toward single-molecule proteomics.

Distinct microbiome of tongue coating and gut in type 2 diabetes with yellow tongue coating.

The gut microbiome plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, the inconvenience of obtaining fecal samples hinders the clinical application of gut microbiome analysis. In this study, we hypothesized that tongue coating color is associated with the severity of T2DM. Therefore, we aimed to compare tongue coating, gut microbiomes, and various clinical parameters between patients with T2DM with yellow (YC) and non-yellow tongue coatings (NYC). Tongue coating and gut microbiomes of 27 patients with T2DM (13 with YC and 14 with NYC) were analyzed using 16S rDNA gene sequencing technology. Additionally, we measured glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), random blood glucose (RBG), fasting blood glucose (FBG), postprandial blood glucose (PBG), insulin (INS), glucagon (GC), body mass index (BMI), and homeostasis model assessment of ß-cell function (HOMA-ß) levels for each patient. The correlation between tongue coating and the gut microbiomes was also analyzed. Our findings provide evidence that the levels of Lactobacillus spp. are significantly higher in both the tongue coating and the gut microbiomes of patients with YC. Additionally, we observed that elevated INS and GC levels, along with decreased BMI and HOMA-ß levels, were indicative of a more severe condition in patients with T2DM with YC. Moreover, our results suggest that the composition of the tongue coating may reflect the presence of Lactobacillus spp. in the gut. These results provide insights regarding the potential relationship between tongue coating color, the gut microbiome, and T2DM.

Development and validation of a nomogram for predicting the risk of poor prognosis in patients with cerebral infarction.

Objective: To identify factors related to poor prognosis in patients with cerebral infarction (CI) and to construct and validate a personalized prediction model based on these factors. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical and follow-up data of 857 patients with CI who were diagnosed in the neurology department of a tertiary A hospital in Anhui Province, China from April 2020 to March 2022. Based on follow-up data and the Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score one year after discharge, patients were divided into a good prognosis group (793 cases, mRS ≤2) and a poor prognosis group (64 cases, mRS >2). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent risk factors, which were then used to establish a nomogram model. The predictive performance of the model was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC, AUC), and the calibration curve was used to evaluate the calibration of the nomogram. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the distribution of eight variables between the groups, including post-discharge use of biguanide hypoglycemic drugs, insulin, systolic blood pressure, exercise status, alcohol consumption, smoking status, age, and gender (P < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis suggested that gender, smoking after discharge, alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, and oral administration of biguanide hypoglycemic drugs are independent risk factors for poor prognosis in patients with CI (P < 0.05). The personalized poor prognosis nomogram constructed based on these five predictive factors showed good discriminative ability and predictive stability, with AUCs of 0.768 (95 % CI: 0.712-0.825) and 0.775 (95 % CI: 0.725-0.836) before and after internal validation, respectively. The calibration curve confirmed the accuracy and consistency of the nomogram (P = 0.956). Conclusion: Female gender, smoking, alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, and post-discharge use of biguanide hypoglycemic drugs are independent risk factors for poor prognosis in patients with CI. The constructed nomogram shows good predictive efficiency for post-discharge prognosis and can help in clinical decision-making.

The effect of aspartame on accelerating caspase-dependent apoptosis of pancreatic islet via ZIPK/STAT3/caspase 3 signaling pathway.

Aspartame (ASP) as an important sugar substitute is widely used in pharmaceutical and food processing. Here, we compared the effects of ASP and sucrose on mice pancreatic islet cells in vivo and observed that ASP with the condition of high concentration and long-term exposure (HASP) could cause insulin secretion (500 mg/kg for 1 month). Next, we conducted iTRAQ mass spectrometry to profile the global phosphoproteome and found that phosphorylation of zipper-interacting protein kinase (ZIPK) in murine pancreatic islet tissues were induced at Thr197, Thr242, Thr282, and Ser328 by high-sucrose (HS) treatment, but only induced at Thr197 and Ser328 by HASP treatment. Simultaneously, phosphorylation of STAT3 could be induced at Tyr705 and Ser727 by HS but not by HASP. Furthermore, presence of activated STAT3 accompanied with autophagy was observed in HS treatment. In turn, the inactivation of STAT3 as well as enhanced expression of caspase 3 was observed in HASP treatment. We generated Thr242APro and Thr282Pro on ZIPK using CRISPR-Cas9 in ß-TC3 cells and found the weakened interaction with STAT3 as well as the reduced phosphorylation of STAT3 even under HS stimulation. Finally, we observed that ankyrin repeat domain containing 11 (ANKRD11) could interact with ZIPK and play an inhibitory role in the phosphorylation of Thr242APro and Thr282Pro of ZIPK. However, HASP can induce the retention of ANKRD11 in the cytoplasm by phenylpyruvic acid (the metabolite of ASP). Taken together, this study determined that ASP with high concentration and long-term exposure could lead to caspase-dependent apoptosis of pancreatic islet cells through ANKRD11/ZIPK/STAT3 inhibition. Our results give evidence of adverse effects of aspartame on islet cells in some extreme conditions, which might help people to reconsider the biosafety of non-nutritive sweeteners.

Pressure-Driven Structural and Electronic Transitions in a Two-Dimensional Janus WSSe Crystal.

In this work, we presented the first report on the high-pressure structural stability and electrical transport characteristics in WSSe under different hydrostatic environments through Raman spectroscopy, electrical conductivity, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) coupled with first-principles theoretical calculations. For nonhydrostatic conditions, WSSe endured a phase transition at 15.2 GPa, followed by a semiconductor-to-metal crossover at 25.3 GPa. Furthermore, the bandgap closure was accounted for the metallization of WSSe as derived from theoretical calculations. Under hydrostatic conditions, ∼ 2.0 GPa pressure hysteresis was detected for the emergence of phase transition and metallization in WSSe because of the feeble deviatoric stress. Upon depressurization, the reversibility of the phase transition was substantiated by those of microscopic HRTEM observations under different hydrostatic environments. Our high-pressure investigation on WSSe advances the insightful understanding of the crystalline structure and electronic properties for the Janus transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMD) family and boosts prospective developments in functional devices.

Efficacy and safety of sugammadex sodium in reversing rocuronium-induced neuromuscular blockade in children: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: In response to the differences in pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic characteristics of neuromuscular blocking agents between children and adults and limited studies which existing meta-analyses included, this study will update the safety and efficacy of sugammadex (Sug) sodium in reversing rocuronium-induced neuromuscular blockade in children. Methods: Five electronic databases were searched for clinical trials on the safety and efficacy of Sug sodium in reversing rocuronium-induced neuromuscular block in children. A random-effects model was used to calculate the standardized mean difference (SMD) for primary outcomes. The relative risk (RR) was calculated for secondary outcomes. Results: As of 2022-11-03, 18 out of 236 studies included 724 children in the intervention group and 478 children in the control group for meta-analysis. The results showed that compared with the control group, the time required for Train-of-Four Ratio (TOFR) to return to 0.9 and the extubation time were shortened in both 2 mg/kg and 4 mg/kg of Sug sodium, with statistically significant differences (TOFR ≥0.9: 2 mg/kg: SMD = -2.90; 95%CI: -3.75, -2.04; 4 mg/kg: -3.31; -4.79, -1.84; extubation time: 2 mg/kg: -2.95; -4.04, -1.85; 4 mg/kg: -1.57; -1.90, -1.23). Compared with the control group, the total incidence of adverse effects in the Sug group was lower (RR = 0.44; 0.24,0.82). Conclusions: This review and meta-analysis suggest that Sug sodium is more effective and safer in reversing rocuronium-induced neuromuscular blockade in children than traditional antagonistic regimens or placebos.

Physiological response and transcriptome analyses of leguminous Indigofera bungeana Walp. to drought stress.

Objective: Indigofera bungeana is a shrub with high quality protein that has been widely utilized for forage grass in the semi-arid regions of China. This study aimed to enrich the currently available knowledge and clarify the detailed drought stress regulatory mechanisms in I. bungeana, and provide a theoretical foundation for the cultivation and resistance breeding of forage crops. Methods: This study evaluates the response mechanism to drought stress by exploiting multiple parameters and transcriptomic analyses of a 1-year-old seedlings of I. bungeana in a pot experiment. Results: Drought stress significantly caused physiological changes in I. bungeana. The antioxidant enzyme activities and osmoregulation substance content of I. bungeana showed an increase under drought. Moreover, 3,978 and 6,923 differentially expressed genes were approved by transcriptome in leaves and roots. The transcription factors, hormone signal transduction, carbohydrate metabolism of regulatory network were observed to have increased. In both tissues, genes related to plant hormone signaling transduction pathway might play a more pivotal role in drought tolerance. Transcription factors families like basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH), vian myeloblastosis viral oncogene homolog (MYB), basic leucine zipper (bZIP) and the metabolic pathway related-genes like serine/threonine-phosphatase 2C (PP2C), SNF1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2), indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), auxin (AUX28), small auxin up-regulated rna (SAUR), sucrose synthase (SUS), sucrosecarriers (SUC) were highlighted for future research about drought stress resistance in Indigofera bungeana. Conclusion: Our study posited I. bungeana mainly participate in various physiological and metabolic activities to response severe drought stress, by regulating the expression of the related genes in hormone signal transduction. These findings, which may be valuable for drought resistance breeding, and to clarify the drought stress regulatory mechanisms of I. bungeana and other plants.

Pressure-driven structural phase transitions and metallization in the two-dimensional ferromagnetic semiconductor CrBr3.

High-pressure structural, magnetic and electrical transport characteristics of CrBr3 were synthetically investigated using Raman scattering, electrical conductivity, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and first-principles theoretical calculations during compression and decompression under different hydrostatic conditions. Upon pressurization, CrBr3 underwent a second-order structural transition at 9.5 GPa, followed by the semiconductor-to-metal and magnetic switching at 25.9 GPa under non-hydrostatic conditions, whereas, an obvious pressure hysteresis of ∼3.0 GPa was detected in the occurrence of structural transitions and metallization under hydrostatic conditions due to the deviatoric stress. Upon decompression, the structural and electronic transitions of CrBr3 under different hydrostatic conditions were of good reversibility with a considerable pressure sluggishness of ∼5.0 GPa, which was corroborated well by the microstructural observation with HRTEM. Our systematic high-pressure investigation on CrBr3 not only reveals its underlying application in spintronic, magnetic and electronic devices but also advances the understanding of the physicochemical behaviors for 2D magnetic materials.

Attention-Based Multiscale Feature Pyramid Network for Corn Pest Detection under Wild Environment.

A serious outbreak of agricultural pests results in a great loss of corn production. Therefore, accurate and robust corn pest detection is important during the early warning, which can achieve the prevention of the damage caused by corn pests. To obtain an accurate detection of corn pests, a new method based on a convolutional neural network is introduced in this paper. Firstly, a large-scale corn pest dataset has been constructed which includes 7741 corn pest images with 10 classes. Secondly, a deep residual network with deformable convolution has been introduced to obtain the features of the corn pest images. To address the detection task of multi-scale corn pests, an attention-based multi-scale feature pyramid network has been developed. Finally, we combined the proposed modules with a two-stage detector into a single network, which achieves the identification and localization of corn pests in an image. Experimental results on the corn pest dataset demonstrate that the proposed method has good performance compared with other methods. Specifically, the proposed method achieves 70.1% mean Average Precision (mAP) and 74.3% Recall at the speed of 17.0 frames per second (FPS), which balances the accuracy and efficiency.

The Global Burden of Diseases attributed to high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol from 1990 to 2019.

Background: To demonstrate the real-word situation of burdens that are attributed to the risk factor of high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) at the global, regional, national levels, among different age groups and between genders. Methods: We analyzed data from the Global Burden of Disease study 2019 related to global deaths, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), summary exposure value (SEV), average annual percentage change (AAPC), and observed to expected ratios (O/E ratios) attributable to high LDL-C from 1990 to 2019. Results: Globally, in 2019, the total numbers of deaths and DALYs attributed to high LDL cholesterol were 1.47 and 1.41 times higher than that in 1990. The age-standardized deaths and DALYs rate was 1.45 and 1.70 times in males compared to females, while the age-standardized SEVs rate was 1.10 times in females compared to males. The deaths, DALYs, and SEV rates increased with age. In 2019, the highest age-standardized rates of both deaths and DALYs occurred in Eastern Europe while the lowest occurred in high-income Asia Pacific. High-income North America experienced a dramatic reduction of risk related to high LDL-C. Correlation analysis identified that the age-standardized SEV rate was positively correlated with Socio-demographic Index (SDI; r = 0.7753, P < 0.001). The average annual percentage change (AAPC) of age-standardized SEV rate decreased in the high SDI and high-middle SDI regions but increased in the middle SDI, low-middle SDI, and low SDI regions. High LDL-C mainly contributed to ischemic heart diseases. Conclusion: High LDL-C contributed considerably to health burden worldwide. Males suffered worse health outcomes attributed to high LDL-C when compared to females. The burden attributed to high LDL-C increased with age. Lower SDI regions and countries experienced more health problem challenges attributed to high LDL-C as the result of social development and this should be reflected in policymaking.

ASP-Det: Toward Appearance-Similar Light-Trap Agricultural Pest Detection and Recognition.

Automatic pest detection and recognition using computer vision techniques are a hot topic in modern intelligent agriculture but suffer from a serious challenge: difficulty distinguishing the targets of similar pests in 2D images. The appearance-similarity problem could be summarized into two aspects: texture similarity and scale similarity. In this paper, we re-consider the pest similarity problem and state a new task for the specific agricultural pest detection, namely Appearance Similarity Pest Detection (ASPD) task. Specifically, we propose two novel metrics to define the texture-similarity and scale-similarity problems quantitatively, namely Multi-Texton Histogram (MTH) and Object Relative Size (ORS). Following the new definition of ASPD, we build a task-specific dataset named PestNet-AS that is collected and re-annotated from PestNet dataset and also present a corresponding method ASP-Det. In detail, our ASP-Det is designed to solve the texture-similarity by proposing a Pairwise Self-Attention (PSA) mechanism and Non-Local Modules to construct a domain adaptive balanced feature module that could provide high-quality feature descriptors for accurate pest classification. We also present a Skip-Calibrated Convolution (SCC) module that can balance the scale variation among the pest objects and re-calibrate the feature maps into the sizing equivalent of pests. Finally, ASP-Det integrates the PSA-Non Local and SCC modules into a one-stage anchor-free detection framework with a center-ness localization mechanism. Experiments on PestNet-AS show that our ASP-Det could serve as a strong baseline for the ASPD task.

The Effect of Soil Water Deficiency on Water Use Strategies and Response Mechanisms of Glycyrrhiza uralensis Fisch.

We aimed to investigate the water use strategies and the responses to water shortages in Glycyrrhiza uralensis, which is a dominant species in the desert steppe. Water stress gradients included control, mild, moderate, and severe. The time intervals were 15, 30, 45, and 60 d. Our study suggested that with the aggravation of water stress intensity, the total biomass of Glycyrrhiza uralensis gradually decreased and allometric growth was preferred to underground biomass accumulation. From 30 d and mild to moderate water stress, the water potential (WP) of leaves decreased considerably compared to the CK. The relative water content (EWC) decreased over time and had a narrow range of variation. Proline (PR) was continuously increased, then declined at 45−60 d under severe and more severe water stress. The δ13C values increased in all organs, showed roots > stems > leaves. The net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and transpiration rate (Tr) decreased to varying degrees. The instantaneous water use efficiency (WUEi) and limiting value of stomata (Ls) increased continuously at first and decreased under severe water stress. Meanwhile, severe water stress triggered the most significant changes in chloroplast and guard cell morphology. In summary, Glycyrrhiza uralensis could maintain water content and turgor pressure under water stress, promote root biomass accumulation, and improve water use efficiency, a water-conservation strategy indicating a mechanism both avoidable dehydration and tolerable drought.

Pressure-induced coupled structural-electronic transition in SnS2 under different hydrostatic environments up to 39.7 GPa.

A series of in situ high-pressure Raman spectroscopy and electrical conductivity experiments have been performed to investigate the vibrational and electrical transport properties of SnS2 under non-hydrostatic and hydrostatic environments. Upon compression, an coupled structural-electronic transition in SnS2 occurred at 30.2 GPa under non-hydrostatic conditions, which was evidenced by the splitting of the Eg mode and the discontinuities in Raman shifts, Raman full width at half maximum (FWHM) and electrical conductivity. However, the coupled structural-electronic transition took place at a higher pressure of 33.4 GPa under hydrostatic conditions, which may be due to the influence of the pressure medium. Furthermore, our first-principles theoretical calculations results revealed that the bandgap energy of SnS2 decreased slowly with increasing pressure and it closed in the pressure range of 30-40 GPa, which agreed well with our Raman spectroscopy and electrical conductivity results. Upon decompression, the recoverable Raman peaks and electrical conductivity indicated that the coupled structural-electronic transition was reversible, which was further confirmed by our HRTEM observations.

Pressure-Induced Structural Phase Transition and Metallization of CrCl3 under Different Hydrostatic Environments up to 50.0 GPa.

High-pressure structural, vibrational, and electrical transport properties of CrCl3 were investigated by means of Raman spectroscopy, electrical conductivity, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy under different hydrostatic environments using the diamond anvil cell in conjunction with the first-principles theoretical calculations up to 50.0 GPa. The isostructural phase transition of CrCl3 occurred at 9.9 GPa under nonhydrostatic conditions. As pressure was increased up to 29.8 GPa, CrCl3 underwent an electronic topological transition accompanied by a metallization transformation due to the discontinuities in the Raman scattering and electrical conductivity, which is possibly belonging to a typical first-order metallization phase transition as deduced from first-principles theoretical calculations. As for the hydrostatic condition, a ∼2.0 GPa pressure delay in the occurrence of two corresponding transformations of CrCl3 was observed owing to the different deviatoric stress. Upon decompression, we found that the phase transformation from the metal to semiconductor in CrCl3 is of good reversibility, and the obvious pressure hysteresis effect is observed under different hydrostatic environments. All of the obtained results on the structural, vibrational, and electrical transport characterizations of CrCl3 under high pressure can provide a new insight into the high-pressure behaviors of representative chromium trihalides CrX3 (X = Br and I) under different hydrostatic environments.

An automatic system for pest recognition and forecasting.

BACKGROUND: Pests cause significant damage to agricultural crops and reduce crop yields. Use of manual methods of pest forecasting for integrated pest management is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Here, we present an automatic system for monitoring pests in large fields, with the aim of replacing manual forecasting. The system comprises an automatic detection and counting system and a human-computer data statistical fitting system. Image data sets of the target pests from large fields are first input into the system. The number of pests in the image is then counted both manually and using the automatic system. Finally, a mapping relationship between counts obtained using the automated system and by agricultural experts is established using the statistical fitting system. RESULTS: Trends in the pest-count curves produced using the manual and automated counting methods were very similar. To sample the number of pests for manual statistics, plants were shaken to transfer the pests from the plant to a plate. Hence, pests hiding within plant crevices were also sampled and included in the count, whereas the automatic method counted only the pests visible in the images. Therefore, the computer index threshold was much lower than the manual index threshold. However, the proposed system correctly reflected trends in pest numbers obtained using computer vision. CONCLUSION: The experimental results demonstrate that our automatic pest-monitoring system can generate pest grades and can replace manual forecasting methods in large fields. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry.

Two Co(II) coordination polymers: magnetic properties and application values against chronic subdural hematoma.

In this current experiment, by applying the mixed-ligand synthesis method, two coordination polymers (CPs) containing Co(II) were created triumphantly with reaction between 1,3-bis(1-imidazoly)benzene (mbib) and Co(II) salts with the aid of diverse carboxylic ligands, and their chemical formulae are [Co3(opda)3(mbib)4(H2O)4]·2H2O (1, H2opda is 1,2-phenylenediacetic acid) and [Co(mpda)(mbib)]·H2O (2, H2mpda is 1,3-phenylenediacetic acid). The two compounds' magnetic performances suggest that between the adjacent metal ions, there present the antiferromagnetic coupling. The evaluation of their treatment activity against chronic subdural hematoma was carried out and the relevant mechanism was studied simultaneously. Firstly, before the treatment of compound, the chronic subdural hematoma was generated. Furthermore, the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay detection kit was implemented and in hematoma capsule, the anti-inflammatory cytokines level and pro-inflammatory cytokines level was detected. Additionally, the cytotoxicity of compounds 1 and 2 on the normal human cells was determined with Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. Above all, we proved compound 1 decreased the pro-inflammatory cytokines content and increased the anti-inflammatory cytokines content in the hematoma capsule, which is much stronger than that of compound 2. Both compounds 1 and 2 showed no cytotoxicity on the normal human cells.