Antidepressant-like effects of geniposide in chronic unpredictable mild stress-induced mice by regulating the circ_0008405/miR-25-3p/Gata2 and Oip5os1/miR-25-3p/Gata2 networks.

Evidence exists suggesting the anti-depressive activities of geniposide (GP), a major compound in Gardenia jasminoides Ellis. Accordingly, the present study attempts to explore the anti-depressive mechanism of GP in chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS)-induced depression-like behaviors of mice. CUMS-induced mice were given GP daily and subjected to behavioral tests to observe the effect of GP on the depression-like behaviors. It was noted that GP administration reduced depression-like behaviors in CUMS mice. Transcriptome sequencing was conducted in three control and three CUMS mice. Differentially expressed circRNAs, lncRNAs and mRNAs were then screened by bioinformatics analyses. Intersection analysis of the transcriptome sequencing results with the bioinformatics analysis results was followed to identify the candidate targets. We found that Gata2 alleviated depression-like behaviors via the metabolism- and synapse-related pathways. Gata2 was a target of miR-25-3p, which had binding sites to circ_0008405 and Oip5os1. circ_0008405 and Oip5os1 competitively bound to miR-25-3p to release the expression of Gata2. GP administration ameliorated depression-like behaviors in CUMS mice through regulation of the circ_0008405/miR-25-3p/Gata2 and Oip5os1/miR-25-3p/Gata2 crosstalk networks. Taken together, GP may exert a potential antidepressant-like effect on CUMS mice, which is ascribed to regulation of the circ_0008405/miR-25-3p/Gata2 and Oip5os1/miR-25-3p/Gata2 crosstalk networks.

Impact of COVID-19 epidemic on port operations: Evidence from Asian ports.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has impacted the shipping industry while the extent of the impact is still not fully understood. To quantitatively investigate the relationship between pandemic-related factors and port operations, a panel regression analysis is conducted using data from three important Asian ports, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Daily data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) database, and port authorities from January 2020 to December 2021 are utilized. Local newly confirmed cases of ports tend to negatively impact cargo throughput, while worldwide newly confirmed cases outside of ports tend to positively impact cargo throughput. Overall, the policy implications are that ports with better control of COVID-19 reap the benefits of more cargo throughput. In addition, countermeasures against COVID-19 and other epidemics should be designed deliberately to minimize the side-effect on port operations and maritime transportation.

Prediction of container port congestion status and its impact on ship's time in port based on AIS data

The growth of container throughput and the impact of COVID-19 have made container ports increasingly congested, leading to uncertain cargo transit times and high freight rates. Shipping parties want to know in advance the congestion of each port in the next phase to adjust their plans, but there are few studies involving congestion prediction, and this study hopes to make some additions. Three indicators are extracted from Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to represent the port congestion status for the sake of generalizability. And those indicators are used to predict port congestion status and further to predict container ships' time in port using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and SHapley Additive exPlanation (SHAP) algorithms. The established models show that those indicators can improve prediction accuracy of port time compared to not considering port status. The findings also show that port congestion status contributes significantly to determining port time and makes it fluctuate by up to nearly 50 hours. The prediction results could help shipping companies to change their transportation schedules early to bypass ports with long waiting times or to arrange ships to enter the port earlier for delivering cargos on schedule. [ FROM AUTHOR]