Hydrological time series prediction based on IWOA-ALSTM.

The prediction of hydrological time series is of great significance for developing flood and drought prevention approaches and is an important component in research on smart water resources. The nonlinear characteristics of hydrological time series are important factors affecting the accuracy of predictions. To enhance the prediction of the nonlinear component in hydrological time series, we employed an improved whale optimisation algorithm (IWOA) to optimise an attention-based long short-term memory (ALSTM) network. The proposed model is termed IWOA-ALSTM. Specifically, we introduced an attention mechanism between two LSTM layers, enabling adaptive focus on distinct features within each time unit to gather information pertaining to a hydrological time series. Furthermore, given the critical impact of the model hyperparameter configuration on the prediction accuracy and operational efficiency, the proposed improved whale optimisation algorithm facilitates the discovery of optimal hyperparameters for the ALSTM model. In this work, we used nonlinear water level information obtained from Hankou station as experimental data. The results of this model were compared with those of genetic algorithms, particle swarm optimisation algorithms and whale optimisation algorithms. The experiments were conducted using five evaluation metrics, namely, the RMSE, MAE, NSE, SI and DR. The results show that the IWOA is effective at optimising the ALSTM and significantly improves the prediction accuracy of nonlinear hydrological time series.

Design of a recombinant asparaginyl ligase for site-specific modification using efficient recognition and nucleophile motifs.

Asparaginyl ligases have been extensively utilized as valuable tools for site-specific bioconjugation or surface-modification. However, the application is hindered by the laborious and poorly reproducible preparation processes, unstable activity and ambiguous substrate requirements. To address these limitations, this study employed a structure-based rational approach to obtain a high-yield and high-activity protein ligase called OaAEP1-C247A-aa55-351. It was observed that OaAEP1-C247A-aa55-351 exhibits appreciable catalytic activities across a wide pH range, and the addition of the Fe3+ metal ion effectively enhances the catalytic power. Importantly, this study provides insight into the recognition and nucleophile peptide profiles of OaAEP1-C247A-aa55-351. The ligase demonstrates a higher recognition ability for the "Asn-Ala-Leu" motif and an N-terminus "Arg-Leu" as nucleophiles, which significantly increases the reaction yield. Consequently, the catalytic activity of OaAEP1-C247A-aa55-351 with highly efficient recognition and nucleophile motif, "Asn-Ala-Leu" and "Arg-Leu" under the buffer containing Fe3+ is 70-fold and 2-fold higher than previously reported OaAEP1-C247A and the most efficient butelase-1, respectively. Thus, the designed OaAEP1-C247A-aa55-351, with its highly efficient recognition and alternative nucleophile options, holds promising potential for applications in protein engineering, chemo-enzymatic modification, and the development of drugs.

Layerwised multimodal knowledge distillation for vision-language pretrained model.

The transformer-based model can simultaneously learn the representation for both images and text, providing excellent performance for multimodal applications. Practically, the large scale of parameters may hinder its deployment in resource-constrained devices, creating a need for model compression. To accomplish this goal, recent studies suggest using knowledge distillation to transfer knowledge from a larger trained teacher model to a small student model without any performance sacrifice. However, this only works with trained parameters of the student model by using the last layer of the teacher, which makes the student model easily overfit in the distillation procedure. Furthermore, the mutual interference between modalities causes more difficulties for distillation. To address these issues, the study proposed a layerwised multimodal knowledge distillation for a vision-language pretrained model. In addition to the last layer, the intermediate layers of the teacher were also used for knowledge transfer. To avoid interference between modalities, we split the multimodality into separate modalities and added them as extra inputs. Then, two auxiliary losses were implemented to encourage each modality to distill more effectively. Comparative experiments on four different multimodal tasks show that the proposed layerwised multimodality distillation achieves better performance than other KD methods for vision-language pretrained models.

Fe(II) coordination transition regulates reductive dechlorination: The overlooked abiotic role of lactate.

The coordination environment of Fe(II) significantly affect the reductive reactivity of Fe(II). Lactate is a common substrate for enhancing microbial dechlorination, but its effect on abiotic Fe(II)-driven reductive dechlorination is largely ignored. In this study, the structure-reactivity relationship of Fe(II) is investigated by regulating the ratio of lactate:Fe(II). This work shows that lactate-Fe(II) complexing enhances the abiotic Fe(II)-driven reductive dechlorination with the optimum lactate:Fe(II) ratio of 10:20. The formed hydrogen bond (Fe-OH∙∙∙∙∙∙O = C-) and Fe-O-C metal-ligand bond result in a reduced Fe(II) coordination number from six to four, which lead to the transition of Fe(II) coordination geometry from octahedron to tetrahedron/square planar. Coordinatively unsaturated Fe(II) results in the highest reductive dechlorination reactivity towards carbon tetrachloride (k1 = 0.26254 min-1). Excessive lactate concentration (> 10 mM) leads to an increased Fe(II) coordination number from four to six with a decreased reductive reactivity. Electrochemical characterization and XPS results show that lactate-Fe(II)-I (C3H5O3-:Fe(II) = 10:20) has the highest electron-donating capacity. This study reveals the abiotic effect of lactate on reductive dechlorination in a subsurface-reducing environment where Fe(II) is usually abundant.

Mixed-state ptychography for quantitative optical properties measurement of vector beam.

Recent advances in ptychography have extended to anisotropic specimens, but vectorial reconstruction of probes owing to polarization aliasing remains a challenge. A polarization-sensitive ptychography that enables full optical property measurement of vector light is proposed. An optimized reconstruction strategy, first calibrating the propagation direction and then performing faithful retrieval, is established. This method avoids multiple image acquisitions with various polarizer configurations and significantly improves the measurement accuracy by correlating the intensity and position of different polarization components. The capability of the proposed method to quantify anisotropic parameters of optical materials and polarization properties of vector probe is demonstrated by experiment.

Thyroid allostasis in drug-free affective disorder patients.

AIM: To assess the thyroid allostasis in drug-free patients with affective disorder. METHODS: Patients with major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder as drug-free, defined as those without psychiatric drugs exposure for at least 4 months before admission, from a tertiary hospital were recruited in this cross-sectional study. The primary outcomes were "structure parameters of thyroid homeostasis", which include "thyroid's secretory capacity" (SPINA-GT), "sum step-up activity of deiodinases" (SPINA-GD), the ratio of total to free thyroxine and "thyroid homeostasis central set point" (TSH index and "thyroid feedback quantile-based index" [TFQI]), calculated by TSH and thyroid hormones measured at admission. A healthy population and non-affective psychiatric disorder (schizophrenia) from the same catchment area were recruited as two comparison groups. RESULTS: A total of 1263 cases of major depressive disorder, 1619 cases of bipolar disorder, 1186 cases of schizophrenia, and 162 healthy controls were included in the study. Compared to healthy control, GD and ratio of total to free thyroxine were lower in affective disorders. Bipolar with mania episode had higher GT than bipolar with depressive episode and major depressive disorder (median level at 3.70 vs. 3.04 and 3.03, respectively). Compared with healthy control, schizophrenia had higher TSH index and TFQI, but no increase in these parameters in major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. CONCLUSION: Affective disorders have a unique profile of thyroid allostasis with impaired step-up deiodinase activity and reduced serum protein binding of thyroid hormones, but no change in thyroid homeostasis central set point. Mania episode may be associated with higher thyroid secretory capacity.

A clinical study on roxadustat for anemia in diabetic nephropathy: a 8-week study.

PURPOSE: The development of roxadustat is a standard treatment for renal anemia, and multiple clinical trials have proved its safety and efficacy. However, less information is available from trials of the population with diabetic nephropathy (DN). This study aimed to determine whether roxadustat is effective for treating DN. METHODS: This was a single-center, retrospective, institutional review board-approved cohort study. The patients with DN were chosen and given roxadustat or erythropoietin (EPO) for 8 weeks. The mean hemoglobin (Hb) level after 8 weeks of treatment served as the primary outcome. Alterations in the iron index and lipid levels were considered secondary objectives. Sub-group analysis was performed to observe the impact of inflammation and glycemic status on Hb. RESULTS: A total of 80 patients were enrolled, 40 in each group. After 8 weeks of treatment, the Hb levels in the roxadustat group were higher than those in the control group. The number of patients who achieved Hb response was higher in the roxadustat group than in the control group (77.5% versus 27.5%; P < 0.001). In addition to lowering total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, roxadustat decreased ferritin and elevated total iron-binding capacity. Compared to the control group, roxadustat was more beneficial for patients with an inflammatory condition and poor glycemic control. CONCLUSIONS: Roxadustat treatment remarkably corrected anemia in patients with DN, and its effectiveness was unaffected by inflammation or glycemic control levels. In addition, roxadustat can also reduce a patient's blood lipid level and enhance the body's use of iron. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ChiCTR2200057232.

Enhanced Light-Harvesting and Energy Transfer in Carbon Dots Embedded Thylakoids for Photonic Hybrid Capacitor Applications.

Nanohybrid photosystems have advantages in converting solar energy into electricity, while natural photosystems based solar-powered energy-storage device is still under developed. Here, we fabricate a new kind of photo-rechargeable zinc-ion hybrid capacitor (ZHC) benefiting from light-harvesting carbon dots (CDs) and natural thylakoids for realizing solar energy harvesting and storage simultaneously. Under solar light irradiation, the embedded CDs in thylakoids (CDs/Thy) can convert the less absorbed green light into highly absorbed red light for thylakoids, besides, Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between CDs and Thy also occurs, which facilitates the photoelectrons generation during thylakoids photosynthesis, thereby resulting in 6-fold photocurrent output in CDs/Thy hybrid photosystem, compared to pristine thylakoids. Using CDs/Thy as the photocathode in ZHCs, the photonic hybrid capacitor shows photoelectric conversion and storage features. CDs can improve the photo-charging voltage response of ZHCs to ≈1.2 V with a remarkable capacitance enhancement of 144 % under solar light. This study provides a promising strategy for designing plant-based photonic and electric device for solar energy harvesting and storage.

Dynamic Room Temperature Phosphorescence of Silane-Functionalized Carbon Dots Confining within Silica for Anti-Counterfeiting Applications.

Room temperature phosphorescent (RTP) materials with long-lived, excitation-dependent, and time-dependent phosphorescence are highly desirable but very hard to achieve. Herein, this work reports a rational strategy of multiple wavelength excitation and time-dependent dynamic RTP color by confining silane-functionalized carbon dots (CDs) in a silica matrix (Si-CDs@SiO2). The Si-CDs@SiO2 possesses unique green-light-excitation and a change in phosphorescence color from yellow to green. A slow-decaying phosphorescence at 500 nm with a lifetime of 1.28 s and a fast-decaying phosphorescence at 580 nm with a lifetime of 0.90 s are observed under 365 nm of irradiation, which originated from multiple surface triplet states of the Si-CDs@SiO2. Given the unique dynamic RTP properties, the Si-CDs@SiO2 are demonstrated for applications in fingerprint recognition and multidimensional dynamic information encryption. These findings will open an avenue to explore dynamic phosphorescent materials and significantly broaden their applications.

Characterization of genes involved in micronutrients and toxic metals detoxification in Brassica napus by genome-wide cDNA library screening.

Stresses caused by deficiency/excess of mineral nutrients or of pollution of toxic metals have already become a primary factor in limiting crop production worldwide. Genes involved in minerals and toxic metals accumulation/tolerance could be potential candidates for improving crop plants with enhanced nutritional efficiency and environmental adaptability. In this study, we first generated a high-quality yeast expression cDNA library of Brassica napus (Westar), and 46 genes mediating excess micronutrients and toxic metals detoxification were screened using the yeast genetic complementation system, including 11, 5, 6, 14, 6, and 5 genes involved in cadmium (Cd), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), boron (B), and copper (Cu) tolerance, respectively. Characterization of genes mediating excess ions stress resistance in this study is beneficial for us to further understand ions homeostasis in B. napus.

Effect of roxadustat on iron metabolism in patients with peritoneal dialysis: a real-world 24-week study.

BACKGROUND: Roxadustat is an oral hypoxia inducing factor-prolyl hydroxylase inhibitor (HIF-PHI) that regulates iron metabolism in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) primarily by reducing hepcidin levels and mobilizing internal iron stores. More data are needed to demonstrate the efficacy of roxadustat in regulating iron metabolism in patients with peritoneal dialysis (PD) compared with erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESAs). METHODS: This prospective cohort study enrolled PD patients with a mean hemoglobin level of 60-100 g/L. All subjects were randomized into two groups at a ratio of 2:1 the roxadustat group (106 cases), and the ESA group (53 cases). The primary endpoint was the change in the iron biomarker levels and the proportion of patients with absolute iron deficiency and functional iron deficiency. RESULTS: Compared with ESAs, roxadustat significantly decreased hepcidin level (difference, - 20.09 ng/mL; 95% CI, - 30.26 to - 9.92), attenuated the increase in serum soluble transferrin receptor (sTFR) level (difference, - 7.87 nmol/L; 95% CI, - 12.11 to - 3.64), and reduced the proportion of patients with functional iron deficiency (roxadustat, 11.43%; ESA, 33.33%). There was no significant difference in safety of the two groups over the duration of the study. CONCLUSIONS: Compared with ESA group, roxadustat group showed significant differences in all iron biomarker levels except serum ferritin (sFt) and transferrin saturation (TSAT). These results suggest that roxadustat was superior to ESAs as a therapy for iron metabolism in PD patients. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study completed Chinese Clinical Trial Registration on March 4, 2022 (registration number: ChiCTR2200057231).

Comprehensive Time-Course Transcriptome Reveals the Crucial Biological Pathways Involved in the Seasonal Branch Growth in Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila).

Timber, the most prevalent organic material on this planet, is the result of a secondary xylem emerging from vascular cambium. Yet, the intricate processes governing its seasonal generation are largely a mystery. To better understand the cyclic growth of vascular tissues in elm, we undertook an extensive study examining the anatomy, physiology, and genetic expressions in Ulmus pumila. We chose three robust 15-year-old elm trees for our study. The cultivars used in this study were collected from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China and nurtured in the tree farm of Shandong Normal University. Monthly samples of 2-year-old elm branches were taken from the tree from February to September. Marked seasonal shifts in elm branch vascular tissues were observed by phenotypic observation: In February, the cambium of the branch emerged from dormancy, spurring growth. By May, elms began generating secondary xylem, or latewood, recognized by its tiny pores and dense cell structure. From June to August, there was a marked increase in the thickness of the secondary xylem. Transcriptome sequencing provides a potential molecular mechanism for the thickening of elm branches and their response to stress. In February, the tree enhanced its genetic responses to cold and drought stress. The amplified expression of CDKB, CYCB, WOX4, and ARF5 in the months of February and March reinforced their essential role in the development of the vascular cambium in elm. Starting in May, the elm deployed carbohydrates as a carbon resource to synthesize the abundant cellulose and lignin necessary for the formation of the secondary wall. Major genes participating in cellulose (SUC and CESA homologs), xylan (UGD, UXS, IRX9, IRX10, and IRX14), and lignin (PAL, C4H, 4CL, HCT, C3H, COMT, and CAD) biosynthetic pathways for secondary wall formation were up-regulated by May or/and June. In conclusion, our findings provided a foundation for an in-depth exploration of the molecular processes dictating the seasonal growth of elm timber.

Patterns of deep fine root and water utilization amongst trees, shrubs and herbs in subtropical pine plantations with seasonal droughts.

Introduction: Seasonal droughts will become more severe and frequent under the context of global climate change, this would result in significant variations in the root distribution and water utilization patterns of plants. However, research on the determining factors of deep fine root and water utilization is limited. Methods: We measured the fine root biomass and water utilization of trees, shrubs and herbs, and soil properties, light transmission, and community structure parameters in subtropical pine plantations with seasonal droughts. Results and Discussion: We found that the proportion of deep fine roots (below 1 m depth) is only 0.2-5.1%, but that of deep soil water utilization can reach 20.9-38.6% during the dry season. Trees improve deep soil water capture capacity by enhancing their dominance in occupying deep soil volume, and enhance their deep resource foraging by increasing their branching capacity of absorptive roots. Shrubs and herbs showed different strategies for deep water competition: shrubs tend to exhibit a "conservative" strategy and tend to increase individual competitiveness, while herbs exhibited an "opportunistic" strategy and tend to increase variety and quantity to adapt to competitions. Conclusion: Our results improve our understanding of different deep fine root distribution and water use strategies between overstory trees and understory vegetations, and emphasize the importance of deep fine root in drought resistance as well as the roles of deep soil water utilization in shaping community assembly.

Labile Fe(III) phase mediates the electron transfer from Fe(II,III) (oxyhydr)oxides to carbon tetrachloride.

Labile Fe(III) phase (includes Fe(III)aq, Fe(III)ads, or Fe(III)s species) is an important intermediate during the interaction between Fe(II) and Fe(III) (oxyhydr)oxides, but how does labile Fe(III) influence the electron transfer from Fe(II) to oxidant environmental pollutant during this Fe(II)-Fe(III) interaction is unclear. In this work, the dynamic change of Fe(II,III) (oxyhydr)oxides at the same time scale is simulated by synthesizing Fe(III)-Fe(II)-I (Fe(III)+NaOH+Fe(II)+NaOH) with different Fe(II)/Fe(III) ratios. CCl4 is used as a convenient probe to test the reduction kinetics of mixed valence Fe(II,III)(oxyhydr)oxides with different Fe(II):Fe(III) ratios. The Mössbauer spectra results reveal the Fe(III)labile in the solid phase is in octahedral coordination. The electron-donating capability of Fe(II) was improved with increasing Fe(III) content, but suppressed when [Fe(III)] ≥ 30 mM. The reductive dechlorination of CT by Fe(III)-Fe(II)-I decreased gradually with the increase of Fe(III) content, because more amount Fe(III)labile in solid phase is accumulated. This shows that the electron transfer from Fe(II) to Fe(III)labile rather than to CT is enhanced with increasing Fe(III) content. FTIR data shows that the hydroxylation of Fe(II) with Fe(OH)3 occurs preferentially in the non-hydrogen bonded hydroxyl group, causing the decrease of its reductive reactivity. The presence of [Fe(III)-O-Fe(II)]+ in Fe(III)-Fe(II)-I can stabilize the dichlorocarbene anion (:CCl2-), favouring the conversion of CT to CH4 (13.1%). The aging experiment shows that Fe(III)labile surface may maintain the reductive reactivity of Fe(II) during aging when [Fe(III)] = 5-20 mM. This study deepens our understanding of the mass transfer pathway of iron oxyhydroxides induced by Fe(II) and its impact on the reductive dechlorination of CT.

General Synthesis of Carbon Dot-Based Composites with Triple-Mode Luminescence Properties and High Stability.

Carbon dot (CD)-based luminescent materials have attracted great attention in optical anti-counterfeiting due to their excellent photophysical properties in response to ultraviolet-to-visible excitation. Hence, there is an urgent need for the general synthesis of CD-based materials with multimode luminescence properties and high stability; however, their synthesis remains a formidable challenge. Herein, CDs were incorporated into a Yb,Tm-doped YF3 matrix to prepare CDs@YF3:Yb,Tm composites. The YF3 plays a dual role, not only serving as a host for fixing rare earth luminescent centers but also functioning as a rigid matrix to stabilize the triplet state of the CDs. Under the excitation of 365 nm ultraviolet light and 980 nm near-infrared light, CDs@YF3:Yb,Tm exhibited blue fluorescence and green room-temperature phosphorescence of CDs and upconversion luminescence of Tm3+, respectively. Due to the strong protection of the rigid matrix, the stability of CDs@YF3:Yb,Tm is greatly improved. This work provides a general synthesis strategy for achieving multimode luminescence and high stability of CD-based luminescent materials and offers opportunities for their applications in advanced anti-counterfeiting and information encryption.

Chemoenzymatic synthesis of (+)-isoagatholactone, (+)-spongian-16-one, and 3-deoxychavalone A via biocatalytic polyene cyclization.

The stereoselective cyclization of geranylgeraniol catalysed by squalene-hopene cyclase (SHC) was investigated. By use of this transformation, spongiane diterpenoids (+)-isoagatholactone and (+)-spongian-16-one, and meroterpenoid 3-deoxychavalone A were synthesized in a concise and redox-economic manner. This work showcases the application of SHC-catalysed cyclization as a key step in terpenoid synthesis.

Charging and discharging of humic acid geobattery induced by green rust and oxygenation: Impact on the fate and degradation of tribromophenol in redox-alternating groundwater environments.

Humic acid (HA) and ferrous minerals (e.g. green rust, GR) are abundant in groundwater. HA acts as a geobattery that take up and release electrons in redox-alternating groundwater environments. However, the impact of this process on the fate and transformation of groundwater pollutants is not fully understood. In this work, we found that the adsorption of HA on GR inhibited the adsorption of tribromophenol (TBP) under anoxic conditions. Meanwhile, GR could donate electrons to HA, causing the electron donating capacity of HA rapidly increase from 12.7% to 27.4% in 5 min. The electron transfer process from GR to HA significantly increased the yield of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) and the degradation efficiency of TBP during GR-involved dioxygen activation process. Compared to the limited electronic selectivity (ES) of GR for •OH production (ES = 0.83%), GR-reduced HA improves the ES by an order of magnitude (ES = 8.4%). HA-involved dioxygen activation process expands the •OH generation interface from solid phase to aqueous phase, which is conducive to the degradation of TBP. This study not only deepens our understanding on the role of HA in •OH production during GR oxygenation, but also provides a promising approach for groundwater remediation under redox-fluctuating conditions.

A study of the influence of sports venues on the intra-city population layout based on multi-source data-Taking Xi'an city and Zhengzhou city as examples.

Revealing the influence of sports sports venues on the population in the built-up areas of cities contributes to the high-quality development of cities and the well-being of people. This study applies kernel density estimation to characterize the distribution of sports venues using reclassified POI (Point of Information) data, visualizes the distribution of intra-city population using population raster data from the WorldPop database, and analyses the distribution of sports venues and the urban population in Xi'an and Zhengzhou cities in 2020 from both the general and local perspectives based on various regression methods, such as MGWR, GWR, and linear fitting. The results show that the distribution of sports venues in Xi'an and Zhengzhou cities in 2020 was a good indicator of the population. The spatial distribution of sports venues and the population within the cities have a centre-periphery structure. From the global perspective, the distribution of sports venues is positively correlated with the intra-city population, and the promoting effect is significant. From the local perspective, the effect is spatially heterogeneous. Finally, this study explores the rationality of the complex impact and indicates that the research methodology can provide a reliable reference for other cities.

Highly efficient CsPbBr3@glass@polyurethane composite film as flexible liquid crystal display backlight.

Inorganic lead halide perovskite quantum dots (CsPbX3 QDs (X = Cl, Br, or I)) have attracted more and more attention due to their high absorption coefficient, narrow emission band, high quantum efficiency, and tunable emission wavelength. However, CsPbX3 QDs are decomposed when exposed to bright light, heat, moisture, etc., which leads to severe luminous attenuation and limits their commercial application. In this paper, CsPbBr3@glass materials were successfully synthesized by a one-step self-crystallization method, including melting, quenching and heat treatment processes. The stability of CsPbBr3 QDs was improved by embedding CsPbBr3 QDs into zinc-borosilicate glass. Then, the CsPbBr3@glass was combined with polyurethane (PU) to form a flexible composite luminescent film CsPbBr3@glass@PU. This strategy enables the transformation of rigid perovskite quantum dot glass into flexible luminescent film materials and further improves the photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) from 50.5% to 70.2%. The flexible film has good tensile properties, and its length can be strained 5 times as long as the original length. Finally, a white LED was encapsulated by combining CsPbBr3@glass@PU film and red phosphor K2SiF6:Mn4+ with a blue LED chip. The good performance of the obtained CsPbBr3@glass@PU film indicates that it has potential application in flexible liquid crystal displays (LCDs) as a backlight source.