Dietary supplementation of hemp oil in teddy dogs: Effect on apparent nutrient digestibility, blood biochemistry and metabolomics.

Present study aimed to evaluate the influence of distinct concentration of dietary supplements hemp oil on apparent nutrient digestibility, blood biochemical parameters and metabolomics of teddy dogs. A total of 25 healthy teddy dogs were selected and divided into five treatments according to diet supplements hemp oil at a rate of 0% (A), 0.5% (B), 1% (C), 2% (D), and 4% (E). Appropriate added hemp oil improved apparent nutrient digestibility of dry matter, crude protein and crude fat (86.32-88.08%, 86.87-88.87% and 96.76-97.43%). The hemp oil significantly increased blood biochemical of utilization related total protein, albumin and globulin (61.33-69.54, 35.08-40.38 and 26.53-31.63 g/L), immunity capacity related immunoglobulin E and γ-interferon (203-347kU/L and 23.04-25.78ng/L), energy-related thyroxine and triiodothyronine (27.11-36.75 and 0.94-1.67 nmol/L). In addition, hemp oil improved superoxide dismutation (26.47-33.02 U/ml) and reduced malondialdehyde (5.30-3.28 nmol/ml). The differential metabolites mainly included nucleotides and metabolites of oxidized lipids, bile and other fatty acids, coenzymes and vitamins. The main metabolic pathways included purine and arachidonic acid metabolism, bile and unsaturated fatty acid biosynthesis, cell oxidative phosphorylation and rheumatoid arthritis. Overall, appropriate dietary supplements hemp oil positively to nutrient digestibility and blood metabolism, immunity and antioxidant capacity, 1% to 2% hemp oil supplements was recommended for teddy dog diet.

Air Pollution Impairs Subjective Happiness by Damaging Their Health.

Background: The impact of air pollution on residents' happiness remains unclear and the underlying mechanism remains unknown. We aimed to examine the direct effect of air pollution on residents' happiness and indirect effect through mediating their health. Methods: Based on the 2017 China Comprehensive Social Survey Data (CGSS), data on happiness were retrieved from 11,997 residents in 28 provinces in China. An ordered-probit model was used to examine the effect of air pollution on residents' happiness and health, respectively. A stepwise regression was used to derive the direct effect of air pollution on residents' happiness and indirect effect from health impairment attributable to air pollution. Results: Air pollution was associated with lower levels of health (coef. -0.190, 95% CI -0.212, -0.167, p < 0.001), while health was positively associated with happiness (coef. 0.215, 95% CI 0.196, 0.234, p < 0.001). Mediation analysis methods showed that air pollution impacted residents' happiness directly and indirectly: the percent of total effect that was mediated through health was 36.97%, and the ratio of indirect to direct effect was 0.5864. Conclusions: Health plays a major mediating role in the relation between air pollution and residents' happiness. In order to alleviate the impact of air pollution on residents' happiness, future strategies should focus on health promotion besides reducing air pollutant emission.

Monitoring Depth of Anesthesia Based on Hybrid Features and Recurrent Neural Network.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals contain valuable information about the different physiological states of the brain, with a variety of linear and nonlinear features that can be used to investigate brain activity. Monitoring the depth of anesthesia (DoA) with EEG is an ongoing challenge in anesthesia research. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and a sparse denoising autoencoder (SDAE) to combine the hybrid features of EEG to monitor the DoA. The EEG signals were preprocessed using filtering, etc., and then more than ten features including sample entropy, permutation entropy, spectra, and alpha-ratio were extracted from the EEG signal. We then integrated the optional features such as permutation entropy and alpha-ratio to extract the essential structure and learn the most efficient temporal model for monitoring the DoA. Compared with using a single feature, the proposed model could accurately estimate the depth of anesthesia with higher prediction probability (P k ). Experimental results evaluated on the datasets demonstrated that our proposed method provided better performance than the methods using permutation entropy, alpha-ratio, LSTM, and other traditional indices.

The Role of Environmental Tax in Alleviating the Impact of Environmental Pollution on Residents' Happiness in China.

Background: Environmental tax has been implemented by the government in response to the demands of the residents to control environmental pollution. However, a tax has a wide effect on many interacting aspects of the society. It remains unknown whether enacting an environmental tax for the government can improve the residents' happiness. This study aimed to examine the impact of air and water pollution on residents' happiness and evaluate whether an environmental tax can alleviate the impact of air and water pollution on residents' happiness. Methods: Based on the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey Data, 28 provinces in China were divided into two categories according to their environmental tax rates: baseline-tax areas (n = 13) and high-tax areas (n = 15). The ordered probit model was used to analyze the impact of air and water pollution on the residents' happiness in baseline-tax areas and high-tax areas, respectively. The Chow Test was used to test whether the impact of environmental pollution on happiness was different between baseline-tax areas and high-tax areas. Results: The impact of air pollution on residents' happiness was statistically significant in the baseline-tax areas (coefficient -0.162, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.239, -0.086, p < 0.001), but the significance was weakened in the high-tax areas (coefficient -0.030, 95% CI -0.060, 0.000, p = 0.051). The Chow Test showed that the absolute value of the regression coefficient in the baseline-tax areas was significantly higher than the value in the high-tax areas (F = 12.712, p < 0.001). Similarly, the impact of water pollution on residents' happiness was statistically significant (coefficient -0.264, 95% CI -0.353, -0.174, p < 0.001) in the baseline-tax areas and in the high-tax areas (coefficient -0.063, 95% CI -0.091, -0.035, p < 0.001), but the Chow Test showed that the absolute value of the regression coefficient in the baseline-tax areas was significantly higher than the value in the high-tax areas (F = 13.758, p < 0.001). Conclusions: Both air and water pollution impair residents' happiness. The present study shows for the first time that enacting an environmental tax significantly alleviates the negative effect of air and water pollution on residents' happiness. The findings of the present study provide empirical evidence for the government to levy environmental tax.

Experimental Observation of Linear and Rotational Doppler Shifts from Several Designer Surfaces.

An orbital angular momentum (OAM) carrying beam has the ability to detect a spinning surface from its rotational Doppler effect. However, a mixture of linear and rotational Doppler effects can occur when an OAM beam is illuminated to a target, with not only spins but also vibrations. In this paper, we experimentally observe using OAM carrying beams, both linear and rotational Doppler effects from several designer surfaces. Specifically, a spinning polarization-independent metasurface, helicoidal reflector and propeller are applied respectively in this study. We demonstrate by the use of two microwave beams with opposite OAM to separate rotational Doppler shift from micro-Doppler shift. The proposed method can also be applied to measure the spinning speed of rotational objects, which have wider applications in intelligent sensing, radar and quantum optics.

Benzothiadiazole and B-Aminobutyricacid Induce Resistance to Ectropis Obliqua in Tea Plants (Camellia Sinensis (L.) O. Kuntz).

In order to investigate the effect of benzothiadiazole (BTH) and ß-aminobutyric acid (BABA) on the resistance of tea plants (Camellia sinensis) to tea geometrid (Ectropis obliqua), three levels each of benzothiadiazole (BTH) and ß-aminobutyric acid (BABA) were sprayed on 10-year-old tea plants. Generally PPO and PAL activities increased with low concentrations of BTH and BABA treatments. Quantitative RT-PCR revealed a 1.43 and 2.72-fold increase in PPO gene expression, and 3.26 and 3.99-fold increase in PAL gene expression with 75 mg/L BTH and 400 mg/L BABA respectively. Analysis of hydrolysis of synthetic substrates also revealed that chymotrypsin-like enzyme activity present in larval midgut extracts was not significantly inhibited by BTH and BABA. However, proteinase activity was found to be inversely proportional to the age of tea geometrid. Larvae pupation rate decreased by 8.10, 10.81 and 21.62% when tea geometrid were fed with leaves treated with 25, 50 and 75 mg/L BTH solutions, while 100, 200 and 400 mg/L BABA solutions decreased same by 8.10, 16.21 and 13.51% respectively. Also, larvae development period delayed to 23.33 and 26.33 days with 75 mg/L BTH and 400 mg/L BABA treatments respectively. The results in this study; therefore, suggest that benzothiadiazole (BTH) and ß-aminobutyric acid (BABA) play a role in inducing resistance in tea plants to tea geometrid, with the optimal effect achieved at BTH-3 (75 mg/L) and BABA-3 (400 mg/L), respectively.

An Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) Mode Reconfigurable Antenna for Channel Capacity Improvement and Digital Data Encoding.

For purpose of utilizing orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode diversity, multiple OAM beams should be generated preferably by a single antenna. In this paper, an OAM mode reconfigurable antenna is proposed. Different from the existed OAM antennas with multiple ports for multiple OAM modes transmitting, the proposed antenna with only a single port, but it can be used to transmit mode 1 or mode -1 OAM beams arbitrary by controlling the PIN diodes on the feeding network through a programmable microcontroller which control by a remote controller. Simulation and measurement results such as return loss, near-field and far-field radiation patterns of two operating states for mode 1 and mode -1, and OAM mode orthogonality are given. The proposed antenna can serve as a candidate for utilizing OAM diversity, namely phase diversity to increase channel capacity at 2.4 GHz. Moreover, an OAM-mode based encoding method is experimentally carried out by the proposed OAM mode reconfigurable antenna, the digital data are encoded and decoded by different OAM modes. At the transmitter, the proposed OAM mode reconfigurable antenna is used to encode the digital data, data symbol 0 and 1 are mapped to OAM mode 1 and mode -1, respectively. At the receiver, the data symbols are decoded by phase gradient method.

[Effects of biochar on CO2 and N2O emissions and microbial properties of tea garden soils].

To clarify the effects of biochar addition (0.5%, 1.5%, 2.5%, 3.5%) on the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O), pH and microbial communities of the tea garden soil, an indoor incubation experiment was conducted using the acidulated tea-planted soil. Results showed that the emissions of CO2 and N2O and the rate of C, N mineralization were increased in a short term after the addition of biochar compared with the control, while the promoting effect was weakened along with increasing the addition of biochar. The pH, dehydrogenase activity and microbial biomass carbon were increased in the biochar treatments. Phospholi-pid fatty acid (PLFA) with different markers was measured and the most PLFA was detected in the group in the 1.5% biochar treatment with significant differences (P<0.05) compared with the control. In addition, the higher levels of 16:0, 14:0 (bacteria), 18:lω9c (fungi), l0Me18:0 (actinomycetes) groups were observed and there were significant differences (P <0.05) in individual phospholipid fatty acid among the different treatments. Taken together, the acidulated tea-planted soil, soil microbial biomass and microbial number were improved after addition of biochar.

Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells and derived hepatocyte-like cells exhibit similar therapeutic effects on an acute liver failure mouse model.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have exhibited therapeutic effects in multiple animal models so that are promising liver substitute for transplantation treatment of end-stage liver diseases. However, it has been shown that over-manipulation of these cells increased their tumorigenic potential, and that reducing the in vitro culture time could minimize the risk. In this study, we used a D-galactosamine plus lipopolysaccharide (Gal/LPS)-induced acute liver failure mouse model, which caused death of about 50% of the mice with necrosis of more than 50% hepatocytes, to compare the therapeutic effects of human umbilical cord MSCs (hUCMSCs) before and after induction of differentiation into hepatocyte (i-Heps). Induction of hUCMSCs to become i-Heps was achieved by treatment of the cells with a group of growth factors within 4 weeks. The resulted i-Heps exhibited a panel of human hepatocyte biomarkers including cytokeratin (hCK-18), α-fetoprotein (hAFP), albumin (hALB), and hepatocyte-specific functions glycogen storage and urea metabolism. We demonstrated that transplantation of both cell types through tail vein injection rescued almost all of the Gal/LPS-intoxicated mice. Although both cell types exhibited similar ability in homing at the mouse livers, the populations of the hUCMSCs-derived cells, as judged by expressing hAFP, hCK-18 and human hepatocyte growth factor (hHGF), were small. These observations let us to conclude that the hUCMSCs was as effective as the i-Heps in treatment of the mouse acute liver failure, and that the therapeutic effects of hUCMSCs were mediated largely via stimulation of host hepatocyte regeneration, and that delivery of the cells through intravenous injection was effective.