Inoculation of Zaopei with biofortification: Inducing variation in community structure and improving flavor compounds in Nongxiangxing baijiu.

The deterioration of the quality of raw liquor caused by the low content of ethyl hexanoate in Nongxiangxing baijiu has become a pervasive problem in the baijiu industry. Therefore, this study attempted to increase the synthesis of ethyl hexanoate by microorganisms with high esterase activity to increase Zaopei fermentation. The results showed that biofortification was a feasible and important way to improve the quality of the raw liquor and increase the ethyl hexanoate content. Adding Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus epidermidis, and Millerozyma farinosa for biofortified fermentation disturbed the microbial community structure of Zaopei and increased the abundance of Wickerhamomyces, Saccharomyces, and Thermoascus. The contents of ethyl hexanoate, ethyl valerate, ethyl caprylate, and ethyl heptanoate also increased noticeably in baijiu. The results of E-nose and sensory analysis tested and verified that the baijiu in the fortified group had better flavor characteristics.

Efficacy of home-based exercise in the treatment of pain and disability at the hip and knee in patients with osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: An increasing body of evidence suggests that home-based exercise (HBE) therapy has significant therapeutic effects on knee osteoarthritis (KOA) and hip osteoarthritis (HipOA), and it has advantages such as cost savings, strong operability, and good compliance compared with hospitalization and exercise courses. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of HBE in the treatment of KOA and HipOA. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, and Embase to collect randomized controlled trials. The retrieval time was from database establishment until March 6, 2024. Stata 15.1 software was used for data analysis. RESULTS: A total of 16 randomized controlled trials involving 3,015participants were included, with 1,519 participants in the intervention group and 1,496 in the control group. The meta-analysis showed that, compared to the control group, HBE can significantly improve pain [SMD=-0.38, 95% CI (-0.58, -0.18); P = 0.001], joint function [SMD=-0.60, 95% CI (-1.01, -0.19); P = 0.004], balance ability [SMD=-0.67, 95% CI (-1.00, -0.34); P = 0.001], mobility (ADL) [SMD = 0.51, 95% CI (0.19, 0.82); P = 0.002] in patients with KOA and HipOA. There is no statistical difference in the improvement of joint stiffness [WMD = -0.80, 95% CI (-1.61, 0.01); P = 0.052]. In addition, subgroup analysis showed that HBE significantly improved pain, joint function, and balance ability in KOA patients compared with the control group. HipOA patients showed significant improvement in pain and joint function; However, HBE only improved activity ability in patients with comorbidities of KOA and HipOA. CONCLUSION: HBE can effectively alleviate pain, improve joint function, and enhance physical function in patients with KOA and HipOA. However, more high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with large sample sizes and long-term interventions are needed to validate the efficacy of HBE due to limitations in the methodology and consistency of indicator outcomes in the included RCTs. REGISTRATION NUMBER: We've registered with PROSPERO, and the number is CRD42023443085.

Dragging but not tapping promotes preschoolers' numerical estimating with touchscreens.

When solving mathematical problems, young children will perform better when they can use gestures that match mental representations. However, despite their increasing prevalence in educational settings, few studies have explored this effect in touchscreen-based interactions. Thus, we investigated the impact on young children's performance of dragging (where a continuous gesture is performed that is congruent with the change in number) and tapping (involving a discrete gesture that is incongruent) on a touchscreen device when engaged in a continuous number line estimation task. By examining differences in the set size and position of the number line estimation, we were also able to explore the boundary conditions for the superiority effect of congruent gestures. We used a 2 (Gesture Type: drag or tap) × 2 (Set Size: Set 0-10 or Set 0-20) × 2 (Position: left of midpoint or right of midpoint) mixed design. A total of 70 children aged 5 and 6 years (33 girls) were recruited and randomly assigned to either the Drag or Tap group. We found that the congruent gesture (drag) generally facilitated better performance with the touchscreen but with boundary conditions. When completing difficult estimations (right side in the large set size), the Drag group was more accurate, responded to the stimulus faster, and spent more time manipulating than the Tap group. These findings suggest that when children require explicit scaffolding, congruent touchscreen gestures help to release mental resources for strategic adjustments, decrease the difficulty of numerical estimation, and support constructing mental representations.

FoxO1 promotes ovarian cancer by increasing transcription and METTL14-mediated m6A modification of SMC4.

The transcription factor forkhead box protein O1 (FoxO1) is closely related to the occurrence and development of ovarian cancer (OC), however its role and molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Herein, we found that FoxO1 was highly expressed in clinical samples of OC patients and was significantly correlated with poor prognosis. FoxO1 knockdown inhibited the proliferation of OC cells in vitro and in vivo. ChIP-seq combined with GEPIA2 and Kaplan-Meier database analysis showed that structural maintenance of chromosome 4 (SMC4) is a downstream target of FoxO1, and FoxO1 promotes SMC4 transcription by binding to its -1400/-1390 bp promoter. The high expression of SMC4 significantly blocked the tumor inhibition effect of FoxO1 knockdown. Furtherly, FoxO1 increased SMC4 mRNA abundance by transcriptionally activating methyltransferase-like 14 (METTL14) and increasing SMC4 m6A methylation on its coding sequence region. The Cancer Genome Atlas dataset analysis confirmed a significant positive correlation between FoxO1, SMC4, and METTL14 expression in OC. In summary, this study revealed the molecular mechanisms of FoxO1 regulating SMC4 and established a clinical link between the expression of FoxO1/METTL14/SMC4 in the occurrence of OC, thus providing a potential diagnostic target and therapeutic strategy.

Temperature and light reverse the fertility of rice P/TGMS line ostms19 via reactive oxygen species homeostasis.

P/TGMS (Photo/thermo-sensitive genic male sterile) lines are crucial resources for two-line hybrid rice breeding. Previous studies revealed that slow development is a general mechanism for sterility-fertility conversion of P/TGMS in Arabidopsis. However, the difference in P/TGMS genes between rice and Arabidopsis suggests the presence of a distinct P/TGMS mechanism in rice. In this study, we isolated a novel P/TGMS line, ostms19, which shows sterility under high-temperature conditions and fertility under low-temperature conditions. OsTMS19 encodes a novel pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) protein essential for pollen formation, in which a point mutation GTA(Val) to GCA(Ala) leads to ostms19 P/TGMS phenotype. It is highly expressed in the tapetum and localized to mitochondria. Under high temperature or long-day photoperiod conditions, excessive ROS accumulation in ostms19 anthers during pollen mitosis disrupts gene expression and intine formation, causing male sterility. Conversely, under low temperature or short-day photoperiod conditions, ROS can be effectively scavenged in anthers, resulting in fertility restoration. This indicates that ROS homeostasis is critical for fertility conversion. This relationship between ROS homeostasis and fertility conversion has also been observed in other tested rice P/TGMS lines. Therefore, we propose that ROS homeostasis is a general mechanism for the sterility-fertility conversion of rice P/TGMS lines.

A point mutation in the meiotic crossover formation gene HEI10/TFS2 leads to thermosensitive genic sterility in rice.

Thermosensitive genic female sterility (TGFS) is a promising property to be utilized for hybrid breeding. Here, we identified a rice TGFS line, tfs2, through an ethyl methyl sulfone (EMS) mutagenesis strategy. This line showed sterility under high temperature and became fertile under low temperature. Few seeds were produced when the tfs2 stigma was pollinated, indicating that tfs2 is female sterile. Gene cloning and genetic complementation showed that a point mutation from leucine to phenylalanine in HEI10 (HEI10tfs2), a crossover formation protein, caused the TGFS trait of tfs2. Under high temperature, abnormal univalents were formed, and the chromosomes were unequally segregated during meiosis, similar to the reported meiotic defects in oshei10. Under low temperature, the number of univalents was largely reduced, and the chromosomes segregated equally, suggesting that crossover formation was restored in tfs2. Yeast two-hybrid assays showed that HEI10 interacted with two putative protein degradation-related proteins, RPT4 and SRFP1. Through transient expression in tobacco leaves, HEI10 were found to spontaneously aggregate into dot-like foci in the nucleus under high temperature, but HEI10tfs2 failed to aggregate. In contrast, low temperature promoted HEI10tfs2 aggregation. This result suggests that protein aggregation at the crossover position contributes to the fertility restoration of tfs2 under low temperature. In addition, RPT4 and SRFP1 also aggregated into dot-like foci, and these aggregations depend on the presence of HEI10. These findings reveal a novel mechanism of fertility restoration and facilitate further understanding of HEI10 in meiotic crossover formation.

The therapeutic effects of fermented milk with lactic acid bacteria from traditional Daqu on hypertensive mice.

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB), a type of microorganism widely used in functional foods, has gained notable research attention in recent years. Certain strains possess the proteolytic ability to release potentially antihypertensive peptides from dairy proteins, which prompted us to explore the LAB strains from an understudied and unique ingredient, Daqu. We screened for 67 strains of LAB strains from traditional Daqu using the calcium dissolution ring method. Sixteen strains exhibiting angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition (ACE-I) activity exceeding 50% were chosen for 16S rDNA sequencing and safety assessment. It is noteworthy that Enterococcus faecium CP640 and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus CP658 exhibited significant ACE-I activity, which was the result of strain fermentation in reconstituted skim milk. These 2 strains did not exhibit hemolytic activity or antibiotic resistance. They also did not produce biogenic amines and showed high survival rates in the gastrointestinal tract. Additionally, Enterococcus faecium CP640 and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus CP658 fermented milk exhibited a notable reduction in blood pressure levels in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) compared with negative controls in SHR. Importantly, no adverse effect was observed in normal Wistar-Kyoto rats. Through the analysis of physiological, serum, and urine-related indicators, it was observed that Enterococcus faecium CP640 and Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus CP658 have the potential to promote weight gain in SHR, alleviate excessive heart rate, improve renal function indicators, and effectively regulate blood sugar and uric acid levels in SHR. These 2 strains showed optimal properties in lowering blood pressure and have the potential to be used in functional dairy products in the future.

Machine learning-based radiomics nomograms to predict number of fields in postoperative IMRT for breast cancer.

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is now the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women worldwide. Radiotherapy is an important part of the treatment for breast cancer, while setting proper number of fields dramatically affects the benefits one can receive. Machine learning and radiomics have been widely investigated in the management of breast cancer. This study aims to provide models to predict the best number of fields based on machine learning and improve the prediction performance by adding clinical factors. METHODS: Two-hundred forty-two breast cancer patients were retrospectively enrolled for this study, all of whom received postoperative intensity modulated radiation therapy. The patients were randomized into a training set and a validation set at a ratio of 7:3. Radiomics shape features were extracted for eight machine learning algorithms to predict the number of fields. Univariate and multivariable logistic regression were implemented to screen clinical factors. A combined model of rad-score and clinical factors were finally constructed. The area under receiver operating characteristic curve, precision, recall, F1 measure and accuracy were used to evaluate the model. RESULTS: Random Forest outperformed from eight machine learning algorithms while predicting the number of fields. Prediction performance of the radiomics model was better than the clinical model, while the predictive nomogram combining the rad-score and clinical factors performed the best. CONCLUSIONS: The model combining rad-score and clinical factors performed the best. Nomograms constructed from the combined models can be of reliable references for medical dosimetrists.

Low temperature compensates for defective tapetum initiation to restore the fertility of the novel TGMS line ostms15.

In rice breeding, thermosensitive genic male sterility (TGMS) lines based on the tms5 locus have been extensively employed. Here, we reported a novel rice TGMS line ostms15 (Oryza sativa ssp. japonica ZH11) which show male sterility under high temperature and fertility under low temperature. Field evaluation from 2018 to 2021 revealed that its sterility under high temperature is more stable than that of tms5 (ZH11), even with occasional low temperature periods, indicating its considerable value for rice breeding. OsTMS15 encodes an LRR-RLK protein MULTIPLE SPOROCYTE1 (MSP1) which was reported to interact with its ligand to initiate tapetum development for pollen formation. In ostms15, a point mutation from GTA (Val) to GAA (Glu) in its TIR motif of the LRR region led to the TGMS phenotype. Cellular observation and gene expression analysis showed that the tapetum is still present in ostms15, while its function was substantially impaired under high temperature. However, its tapetum function was restored under low temperature. The interaction between mOsTMS15 and its ligand was reduced while this interaction was partially restored under low temperature. Slow development was reported to be a general mechanism of P/TGMS fertility restoration. We propose that the recovered protein interaction together with slow development under low temperature compensates for the defective tapetum initiation, which further restores ostms15 fertility. We used base editing to create a number of TGMS lines with different base substitutions based on the OsTMS15 locus. This work may also facilitate the mechanistic investigation and breeding of other crops.

Reducing Open-Circuit Voltage Deficit in Perovskite Solar Cells via Surface Passivation with Phenylhydroxylammonium Halide Salts.

Suppressing non-radiative recombination via passivating surface defects of perovskite films has demonstrated an excellent strategy for high-performance perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, it is still hard to realize both high open-circuit voltage (Voc ) of >1.2 V and high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of >22%, because the optimized bandgap of perovskite films is less than 1.60 eV for efficient light harvesting and Voc deficit is generally unavoidable due to carriers recombination. Here, the surface of the perovskite film is treated with a series of phenylhydroxylammonium halide salts and it is found that all of them can remarkably prolong the carrier lifetime owing to their excellent capability of surface defects passivation. The best PSC with phenylbutylammonium bromide treatment realizes a PCE of 22.67% with a Voc of 1.216 V, corresponding to a small Voc deficit of ≈344 mV.

Broadband 400-2400†nm Ge heterostructure nanowire photodetector fabricated by three-dimensional Ge condensation technique.

A 2.7% tensile strained Ge/SiGe heterostructure nanowire (NW) is in-situ fabricated by a three-dimensional Ge condensation method. The NW metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetector demonstrates an ultra-broadband detection wavelength of 400-2400 nm, showing a high responsivity of >3.46×102 A/W with a photocurrent gain of >4.32×102 at 1550 nm under -2 V. A high normalized photocurrent to dark current ratio (NPDR) of 1.88×1011 W-1 at 1550 nm under -1 V is achieved. The fully complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible, simple and scalable process suggest that the Ge heterostructure NW is promising for low cost, high performance near-infrared or short wavelength infrared focal plane array applications.

Low dark current broadband 360-1650 nm ITO/Ag/n-Si Schottky photodetectors.

This work designed an ITO/Ag/n-Si Schottky photodetector with broad wavelength detection and low dark current. The introduction of Ag interfacial layer and post rapid thermal annealing dramatically increase the barrier height of ITO/n-Si Schottky diode by 0.32 eV, leading to the 2300 × reduction of dark current. A well-behaved ITO/Ag (8 nm)/n-Si Schottky diode with a high rectification ratio ( ± 1 V) of 4 × 105 and low dark current (-1 V) of 9.2 nA was achieved. Such low dark current device spontaneously provides high sensitivity for visible/near infrared wavelength detection, in which substantial responsivity for wavelengths from 360 to 1650 nm was realized through both inter-band and internal photoemission. The design here provides an encouraging strategy for monolithically integrated pure Si photodetectors operating at long wavelength up to 1650 nm.