Epidemiology of Ocular Thelaziosis in Domestic Dogs in Beijing.

Thelazia callipaeda is a zoonotic parasitic nematode that lives in the ocular conjunctival sac of domestic and wild carnivores, lagomorphs, and humans, with Phortica spp. as its intermediate host. At present, the important role that domestic dogs play in thelaziosis has been studied in many countries. However, Beijing, which is the first city in China to experience human thelaziosis, has not yet conducted a comprehensive epidemiological analysis of the disease. In this study, we analyzed risk factors (region, season, age, sex, breed, size, living environment, diet, country park travel history, immunization history, anthelmintic treatment history, and ocular clinical symptoms) associated with the prevalence of thelaziosis in domestic dogs in Beijing. The overall prevalence of T. callipaeda in the study area was 3.17% (102/3215 domestic dogs; 95% CI 2.57-3.78%). The results of the risk factor analysis showed that thelaziosis in domestic dogs from Beijing was significantly correlated with regional distribution, seasonal distribution, country park travel history, and anthelmintic treatment history (p < 0.05). In summer and autumn, domestic dogs living in mountainous areas, with a history of country park travel and without deworming were 4.164, 2.382, and 1.438 times more infected with T. callipaeda than those living in plain areas without a history of country park travel and with a history of deworming (OR = 4.164, OR = 2.382, OR = 1.438, respectively). T. callipaeda-infected domestic dogs did not always show any ocular clinical symptoms, while symptomatic domestic dogs were mainly characterized by moderate symptoms. The results indicate that in summer and autumn, preventive anthelmintic treatment should be strengthened for domestic dogs with a country park travel history or those living in mountain areas. At the same time, we should be vigilant about taking domestic dogs to play in country parks or mountainous areas during summer and autumn because this may pose a potential risk of the owner being infected with T. callipaeda.

The Effect of Intracameral Triamcinolone Acetonide on Controlling Common Complications following Phacoemulsification in Dogs.

The intracameral injection of triamcinolone acetonide (TA) has achieved favorable clinical effects in controlling intraocular inflammatory reactions in humans after cataract surgery. However, the effect of this method remains unclear in veterinary practice. In this paper, 18 dogs with bilateral cataracts were randomly divided into three groups, with 6 dogs in each group. Phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation were performed on the 36 eyes of these dogs. A total of 0.1 mL of TA solution was injected into the oculus dexter (OD) anterior chambers. All oculus sinister (OS) anterior chambers of these dogs were used as controls. The results demonstrated that the corneal edema severity scores of the OD (1.5 mg TA) were lower than those of the OS from the 1st to 7th day after surgery, with a significant difference on the 3rd day after surgery (p = 0.033). The corneal edema severity scores in the OD (1.5 mg TA) were significantly lower than those in the OD (0.5 mg TA) on the 3rd day after surgery (p = 0.036). The aqueous humor protein concentration of the OD (1.5 mg TA) had a lower concentration than the OS on the 1st day after surgery (p = 0.004). Furthermore, on the 5th and 10th days, the aqueous humor protein concentration of the OD (1.5 mg TA) was lower than that of the OS (p = 0.038 and p = 0.044, respectively). The aqueous humor PGE2 concentration of the OD (1.5 mg TA) had a lower concentration than the OS on the 1st day after surgery (p = 0.026). The aqueous humor PGE2 concentrations in the OD (1.0 mg TA) and OD (1.5 mg TA) were lower compared to that in the OD (0.5 mg TA) on the 1st day after surgery (p = 0.041 and p = 0.037, respectively). It was demonstrated that TA-based treatment can be safely employed to effectively control common complications after phacoemulsification in dogs.

Guidewire Ablation within the Coronary Venous System for Epicardial or Intramural Ventricular Arrhythmia: A Preclinical Study of Biophysical Characterization.

Background: Catheter ablation failure poses a clinical challenge for epicardial or intramural ventricular arrhythmia (VA); however, guidewire ablation within the coronary venous system (CVS) may be effective and safe for targeting VAs. Methods: The ex vivo phase included four steps. In step 1, the steam pop incidence rates during guidewire ablation at power settings of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 W were analyzed using 10 mm- and 20 mm-tip guidewires. In step 2, guidewire ablation was performed for application durations of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 90 s, and the lesion size was measured. In step 3, the effects of saline infusion (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 mL/min) on lesion dimensions and steam pop formation were examined. In step 4, an orthogonal array was constructed to obtain the optimal guidewire ablation parameters. In the in vivo phase, guidewire ablation within the CVS was performed in three dogs, and the lesion features in 10 days after ablation were observed. Results: In step 1, the steam pop incidence rates at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 W were 0%, 0%, 12.5%, 62.5%, and 100% using the 10 mm-tip guidewires and 0%, 0%, 0%, 25%, and 75% using the 20 mm-tip guidewires, respectively. In step 2, we found that the lesion areas increased with an increase in the ablation duration (the maximum lesion diameters at 30, 60, and 90 s were 4.9 ± 0.4, 7.0 ± 0.8, and 9.2 ± 0.7 mm in the 10 mm group and 3.2 ± 0.5, 4.5 ± 0.4, and 5.3 ± 0.7 mm in the 20 mm-tip group, respectively). In step 3, we observed that saline infusion was negatively correlated with ablation lesions but had a lower risk of steam pop. The optimal parameters for the 20 mm-tip guidewire ablation were 15 W, 50 s, and 2 mL/min or 20 W, 70 s, and 2 mL/min. In the in vivo phase, effective ablation lesions with maximum and minimum diameters of 3.2 ± 0.3 and 2.8 ± 0.5 mm, respectively, were created by the guidewires during the 10-day observation period after ablation. Conclusion: This novel radiofrequency guidewire ablation technique can feasibly create effective lesions within the CVS, which may improve the efficacy of catheter ablation for challenging epicardial or intramural VA.

A mutation in CsDWF7 gene encoding a delta7 sterol C-5(6) desaturase leads to the phenotype of super compact in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.).

KEY MESSAGE: A novel super compact mutant, scp-3, was identified using map-based cloning in cucumber. The CsDWF7 gene encoding a delta7 sterol C-5(6) desaturase was the candidate gene of scp-3. Mining dwarf genes is important in understanding stem growth in crops. However, only a small number of dwarf genes have been cloned or characterized. Here, we characterized a cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) dwarf mutant, super compact 3 (scp-3), which displays shortened internodes and dark green leaves with a wrinkled appearance. The photosynthetic rate of scp-3 is significantly lower than that of the wild type. The dwarf phenotype of scp-3 mutant can be partially rescued by the exogenous brassinolide (BL) application, and the endogenous brassinosteroids (BRs) levels in the scp-3 mutant were significantly lower compared to the wild type. Microscopic examination revealed that the reduced internode length in scp-3 resulted from a decrease in cell size. Genetic analysis showed that the dwarf phenotype of scp-3 was controlled by a single recessive gene. Combined with bulked segregant analysis and map-based cloning strategy, we delimited scp-3 locus into an 82.5 kb region harboring five putative genes, but only one non-synonymous mutation (A to T) was discovered between the mutant and its wild type in this region. This mutation occurred within the second exon of the CsGy4G017510 gene, leading to an amino acid alteration from Leu156 to His156. This gene encodes the CsDWF7 protein, an analog of the Arabidopsis DWF7 protein, which is known to be involved in the biosynthesis of BRs. The CsDWF7 protein was targeted to the cell membrane. In comparison to the wild type, scp-3 exhibited reduced CsDWF7 expression in different tissues. These findings imply that CsDWF7 is essential for both BR biosynthesis as well as growth and development of cucumber plants.

Measurement of Accumulation of Antibiotics to Staphylococcus aureus in Phagosomes of Live Macrophages.

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) has evolved the ability to persist after uptake into host immune cells. This intracellular niche enables S. aureus to potentially escape host immune responses and survive the lethal actions of antibiotics. While the elevated tolerance of S. aureus to small-molecule antibiotics is likely to be multifactorial, we pose that there may be contributions related to permeation of antibiotics into phagocytic vacuoles, which would require translocation across two mammalian bilayers. To empirically test this, we adapted our recently developed permeability assay to determine the accumulation of FDA-approved antibiotics into phagocytic vacuoles of live macrophages. Bioorthogonal reactive handles were metabolically anchored within the surface of S. aureus, and complementary tags were chemically added to antibiotics. Following phagocytosis of tagged S. aureus cells, we were able to specifically analyze the arrival of antibiotics within the phagosomes of infected macrophages. Our findings enabled the determination of permeability differences between extra- and intracellular S. aureus, thus providing a roadmap to dissect the contribution of antibiotic permeability to intracellular pathogens.

Performance of SHOX2 and RASSF1A methylation assay in supernatants and matched cell pellets for the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion.

BACKGROUND: It is difficult to distinguish between malignant pleural effusion (MPE) and benign pleural effusion (BPE). The purpose of this study was to determine the best specimen type by evaluating the DNA methylation status of SHOX2 and RASSF1A in 3 matched PE components. METHODS: In total, 94 patients were enrolled, including 45 MPE, 35 BPE, and 14 undefined PE (UPE) with malignancies. PE samples were processed into supernatants, fresh-cell pellets, and formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded (FFPE) cell blocks, respectively. A quantitative real-time PCR was used to detect the methylation status of SHOX2 and RASSF1A. RESULTS: SHOX2 and RASSF1A methylation levels were significantly higher in the 3 MPE sample types than those of BPE (P < 0.05). The area under the curve using cell-free DNA (cf-DNA) was the highest. The detection sensitivity of SHOX2 and RASSF1A in fresh-cell DNA, cf-DNA and FFPE cell-block were 71.1% (32/45), 97.8% (44/45) and 66.7% (28/42), respectively, with specificities of 97.1% (34/35), 94.3% (33/35), and 96.9% (31/32). Notably, a combination of the cytological analysis and cf-DNA methylation assay showed an increase in positivity rate from 75.6% to 100%. CONCLUSIONS: The SHOX2 and RASSF1A methylation assay using cf-DNA, the primary recommended specimen type, can excellently increase the diagnostic sensitivity of MPE. A combination of methylation assay with cytological analysis can be used for auxiliary diagnosis of PE.

A novel degradable PCL/PLLA strapping band for internal fixation of fracture.

Early fracture fixation is the critical factor in fracture healing. Common internal fracture implants are made of metallic materials, which often affects the imaging quality of CT and MRI. Most patients will choose secondary surgery to remove the internal fixation implants, which causes secondary damage to them. The development of new degradable internal fracture implants has attracted more and more attention from orthopedic surgeons and researchers. Based on these problems, we improved the various properties of medical grade polycaprolactone (PCL) by adding poly(L-lactide) (PLLA). We produced PCL/PLLA strapping bands with different mass ratios by injection molding. We compared the mechanical properties, degradation properties, cell biocompatibility, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) adhesion, proliferation, osteogenic differentiation and fracture fixation effect of these strapping bands. The results showed that the tensile strength and yield force of the strapping bands increased with the increase of the content of PLLA. The addition of PLLA could significantly improve the mechanical strength in the early stage and accelerate the degradation rate of the strapping band. PCL/PLLA (80/20) strapping band had no significant cytotoxicity toward rBMSCs and could promote osteogenic differentiation of rBMSCs. The strapping band could ensure femoral fracture healing of beagles in 3 months and didn't cause damage to the surrounding tissues and main organs. This study will provide some new insights into the biodegradable products of PCL/PLLA blends for internal fixation of fracture. We produced novel degradable PCL/PLLA strapping bands with different mass ratios by injection molding. We tested the biological safety of the prepared internal fixation strapping bands for fracture, such as cell experiment in vitro and animal experiment, and studied the degradation behavior in vitro. The strapping bands could ensure femoral fracture healing of beagles. This study will provide some new insights into the biodegradable products of PCL/PLLA blends for internal fixation of fracture. A Immunofluorescence staining of rBMSCs (live cells: green; dead cells: red). B Young's modulus change curve during strapping bands degradation. C The implantation process of strapping bands. D Micro-CT images of the beagle's fracture recovery after the operation.

Amino Pyridine Iodine as an Additive for Defect-Passivated Perovskite Solar Cells.

Defect passivation of the perovskite surface and grain boundary (GBs) has become a widely adopted approach to reduce charge recombination. Research has demonstrated that functional groups with Lewis acid or base properties can successfully neutralize trap states and limit nonradiative recombination. Unlike traditional Lewis acid-base organic molecules that only bind to a single anionic or cationic defect, zwitterions can passivate both anionic and cationic defects simultaneously. In this work, zwitterions organic halide salt 1-amino pyridine iodine (AmPyI) is used as a perovskite for defect passivation. It is found that a pair of amino lone electrons in AmPyI can passivate defects surface and GBs through hydrogen bonding with perovskite, and the introduced I- can bind to uncoordinated Pb2+ while also controlling the surface morphology of the film and improving the crystallinity. In the presence of the AmPyI additive, we obtained about 1.24 µm of amplified perovskite grains and achieved an efficiency of 23.80% with minimal hysteresis.

Effects of parameters on radiofrequency guidewire ablation: In vitro and in vivo experiments.

BACKGROUND: A novel ablation technique with guidewire has emerged as a promising approach for mapping and ablation of arrhythmias originating from left ventricular summit. However, its biophysical characteristics have not been fully clarified. METHODS AND RESULTS: In the in vitro experiment, guidewire ablation (GA) was performed in vessel models of 1.17 and 2.24 mm to determine the maximum safety power. Then with the maximum safety power, the predictive value of generator impedance (GI) drop on lesion radius was explored. In the in vivo experiment, the feasibility of the maximum safety power and lesion formation was verified in the living swine. It was found that in both groups, the incidence of steam pops increased along with the raise of ablation power, and the maximum safety power was 10 W for the 1.17-mm group and 15 W for the 2.24-mm group. There was a strong linear correlation between GI drop and maximum lesion radius (in 1.17 mm-10-W group: r = .961; in 2.24 mm-15-W group: r = .918). In the in vivo experiment, besides ventricular fibrillation happened once, no other complications were observed, and lesions were found at both 48-h and 8-week groups. CONCLUSIONS: The safety power of GA should be adjusted according to the diameter of the vessel. Besides, the GI drop can predict the lesion radius during GA.

Comparison between Hematology and Serum Biochemistry of Qinling and Sichuan Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis and sichuanensis).

Giant pandas are the flagship species in world conservation, and include two subspecies, Ailuropoda melanoleuca qinlingensis (A. m. qinlingensis) and Ailuropoda melanoleuca sichuanensis (A. m. sichuanensis). Hematology and serum biochemistry studies are crucial to protecting giant pandas. Even though research on hematology and serum biochemistry are well-established in A. m. sichuanensis, research in A. m. qinlingensis is scarce. The study aimed to (1) establish a baseline for hemogram and reference intervals (RIs) for hematological and serum biochemical parameters in A. m. qinlingensis, (2) assess the possible variations in these parameters of A. m. qinlingensis based on age, gender, and storage condition of blood samples, and (3) compare the parameters to those of A. m. sichuanensis. Blood samples (n = 42) were collected from healthy A. m. qinlingensis (n = 21) housed in Shaanxi (Louguantai) Rare Wildlife Rescue and Breeding Research Center, and hematological (n = 25) and serum biochemical parameters (n = 18) were analyzed in March and December of 2019. The results showed no significant abnormality in the blood smears of all individuals in this study, except for a few serrated red blood cells, platelet aggregations, and occasionally giant platelets. Between sub-adult and adult A. m. qinlingensis, there were significant differences in five hematological and one serum biochemical parameter (p < 0.05), whereas six serum biochemical parameters were present when α = 0.1 (p < 0.1). Gender influenced % NEU, % LYM, % EOS, LYM, EOS, GGT, and CHOL of A. m. qinlingensis. The majority of the hematological and serum biochemical parameters of A. m. qinlingensis were different from those of A. m. sichuanensis regarding age and gender. The anticoagulant whole blood samples of A. m. qinlingensis stored at 2-8 °C for 24 h and the serum samples stored at -18 °C for 48 h had little influence on the values of hematological and serum biochemical parameters. In conclusion, this study provided a baseline of hemogram and established RIs for hematological and serum biochemical parameters of A. m. qinlingensis. RIs of A. m. sichuanensis reported before were not completely fit for A. m. qinlingensis, and age, gender, or the storage condition of blood samples influenced some of the parameters of A. m. qinlingensis. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of a hemogram baseline and RIs for hematological and serum biochemical parameters of A. m. qinlingensis.

Simultaneous diagnosis of tuberculous pleurisy and malignant pleural effusion using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS).

BACKGROUND: Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) has become a powerful tool for pathogen detection, but the value of human sequencing reads generated from it is underestimated. METHODS: A total of 138 patients with pleural effusion (PE) were diagnosed with tuberculous pleurisy (TBP, N = 82), malignant pleural effusion (MPE, N = 35), or non-TB infection (N = 21), whose PE samples all underwent mNGS analysis. Clinical TB tests including culture, Acid-Fast Bacillus (AFB) test, Xpert, and T-SPOT, were performed. To utilize mNGS for MPE identification, 25 non-MPE samples (20 TBP and 5 non-TB infection) were randomly selected to set human chromosome copy number baseline and generalized linear modeling was performed using copy number variant (CNV) features of the rest 113 samples (35 MPE and 78 non-MPE). RESULTS: The performance of TB detection was compared among five methods. T-SPOT demonstrated the highest sensitivity (61% vs. culture 32%, AFB 12%, Xpert 35%, and mNGS 49%) but with the highest false-positive rate (10%) as well. In contrast, mNGS was able to detect TB-genome in nearly half (40/82) of the PE samples from TBP subgroup, with 100% specificity. To evaluate the performance of using CNV features of the human genome for MPE prediction, we performed the leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) in the subcohort excluding the 25 non-MPE samples for setting copy number standards, which demonstrated 54.1% sensitivity, 80.8% specificity, 71.7% accuracy, and an AUC of 0.851. CONCLUSION: In summary, we exploited the value of human and non-human sequencing reads generated from mNGS, which showed promising ability in simultaneously detecting TBP and MPE.

Spatio-Temporal-Based Identification of Aggressive Behavior in Group Sheep.

In order to solve the problems of low efficiency and subjectivity of manual observation in the process of group-sheep-aggression detection, we propose a video streaming-based model for detecting aggressive behavior in group sheep. In the experiment, we collected videos of the sheep's daily routine and videos of the aggressive behavior of sheep in the sheep pen. Using the open-source software LabelImg, we labeled the data with bounding boxes. Firstly, the YOLOv5 detects all sheep in each frame of the video and outputs the coordinates information. Secondly, we sort the sheep's coordinates using a sheep tracking heuristic proposed in this paper. Finally, the sorted data are fed into an LSTM framework to predict the occurrence of aggression. To optimize the model's parameters, we analyze the confidence, batch size and skipping frame. The best-performing model from our experiments has 93.38% Precision and 91.86% Recall. Additionally, we compare our video streaming-based model with image-based models for detecting aggression in group sheep. In sheep aggression, the video stream detection model can solve the false detection phenomenon caused by head impact feature occlusion of aggressive sheep in the image detection model.

Review of Wireless RFID Strain Sensing Technology in Structural Health Monitoring.

Strain-based condition evaluation has garnered as a crucial method for the structural health monitoring (SHM) of large-scale engineering structures. The use of traditional wired strain sensors becomes tedious and time-consuming due to their complex wiring operation, more workload, and instrumentation cost to collect sufficient data for condition state evaluation, especially for large-scale engineering structures. The advent of wireless and passive RFID technologies with high efficiency and inexpensive hardware equipment has brought a new era of next-generation intelligent strain monitoring systems for engineering structures. Thus, this study systematically summarizes the recent research progress of cutting-edge RFID strain sensing technologies. Firstly, this study introduces the importance of structural health monitoring and strain sensing. Then, RFID technology is demonstrated including RFID technology's basic working principle and system component composition. Further, the design and application of various kinds of RFID strain sensors in SHM are presented including passive RFID strain sensing technology, active RFID strain sensing technology, semi-passive RFID strain sensing technology, Ultra High-frequency RFID strain sensing technology, chipless RFID strain sensing technology, and wireless strain sensing based on multi-sensory RFID system, etc., expounding their advantages, disadvantages, and application status. To the authors' knowledge, the study initially provides a systematic comprehensive review of a suite of RFID strain sensing technology that has been developed in recent years within the context of structural health monitoring.

[Fetal ECG Detection System Based on WiFi Data Transmission].

Fetal ECG monitoring is a routine clinical detection method that can reflect the changes of fetal heart in utero in real time. At present, most of the clinical fetal heart rate detection adopts the ultrasonic Doppler method, which is technically difficult and highly specialized in operation and expensive. This study introduces a fetal ECG detection system based on the maternal abdominal electrode method. The weak fetal ECG changes are sensed through the maternal abdominal electrode, and the mixed ECG signal is obtained through the corresponding amplification and filtering circuit. Finally, the obtained signal is passed through WiFi, transmitted to the host computer. The host computer uses the adaptive filtering algorithm to estimate the fetal ECG signal. The system has strong feasibility, low operation expertise, low cost, and is more convenient.

Targeting LncRNA LLNLR-299G3.1 with antisense oligonucleotide inhibits malignancy of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells in vitro and in vivo.

Accumulating evidence has indicated that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play critical roles in the development and progression of cancers, including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). However, the mechanisms of lncRNAs in ESCC are still incompletely understood and therapeutic attempts for in vivo targeting cancer-associated lncRNA remain a challenge. By RNA-sequencing analysis, we identified that LLNLR-299G3.1 was a novel ESCC-associated lncRNA. LLNLR-299G3.1 was up-regulated in ESCC tissues and cells and promoted ESCC cell proliferation and invasion. Silencing of LLNLR-299G3.1 with ASO (antisense oligonucleotide) resulted in opposite effects. Mechanistically, LLNLR-299G3.1 bound to cancer-associated RNA binding proteins and regulated the expression of cancer-related genes, including OSM, TNFRSF4, HRH3, and SSTR3. ChIRP-seq (chromatin isolation by RNA purification and sequencing) revealed that these genes contained enriched chromatin binding sites for LLNLR-299G3.1. Rescue experiments confirmed that the effects of LLNLR-299G3.1 on ESCC cell proliferation were dependent on interaction with HRH3 and TNFRSF4. Therapeutically, intravenous delivery of placental chondroitin sulfate A binding peptide-coated nanoparticles containing antisense oligonucleotide (pICSA-BP-ANPs) strongly inhibited ESCC tumor growth and significantly improved animal survival in vivo. Overall, our results suggest that LLNLR-299G3.1 promotes ESCC malignancy through regulating gene-chromatin interactions and targeting ESCC by pICSA-BP-ANPs may be an effective strategy for the treatment of lncRNA-associated ESCC.

High accuracy epidermal growth factor receptor mutation prediction via histopathological deep learning.

BACKGROUND: The detection of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in patients with non-small cell lung cancer is critical for tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. EGFR detection requires tissue samples, which are difficult to obtain in some patients, costing them the opportunity for further treatment. To realize EGFR mutation prediction without molecular detection, we aimed to build a high-accuracy deep learning model with only haematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained slides. METHODS: We collected 326 H&E-stained non-small cell lung cancer slides from Beijing Chest Hospital, China, and used 226 slides (88 with EGFR mutations) for model training. The remaining 100 images (50 with EGFR mutations) were used for testing. We trained a convolutional neural network based on ResNet-50 to classify EGFR mutation status on the slide level. RESULTS: The sensitivity and specificity of the model were 76% and 74%, respectively, with an area under the curve of 0.82. When applying the double-threshold approach, 33% of the patients could be predicted by the deep learning model as EGFR positive or negative with a sensitivity and specificity of 100.0% and 87.5%. The remaining 67% of the patients got an uncertain result and will be recommenced to perform further examination. By incorporating adenocarcinoma subtype information, we achieved 100% sensitivity in predicting EGFR mutations in 37.3% of adenocarcinoma patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates the potential of a deep learning-based EGFR mutation prediction model for rapid and cost-effective pre-screening. It could serve as a high-accuracy complement to current molecular detection methods and provide treatment opportunities for non-small cell lung cancer patients from whom limited samples are available.

Performance evaluation of plastic optical fiber communication using micro-lens coupling and computational temporal ghost imaging algorithm.

Plastic optical fiber communication (POFC) systems are particularly sensitive to signal performance and power budget. In this paper, we propose what we belive to be a novel scheme to jointly enhance the bit-error-ratio (BER) performance and coupling efficiency for multi-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-M) based POFC systems. The computational temporal ghost imaging (CTGI) algorithm is developed for PAM4 modulation for the first time to resist the system distortion. The simulation results reveal that enhanced BER performance and clear eye diagrams are acquired by using CTGI algorithm with an optimized modulation basis. Experimental results also investigate and show, with CTGI algorithm, the BER performance for 180 Mb/s PAM4 signals is enhanced from 2.2 × 10-2 to 8.4 × 10-4 over 10 m POF by using a 40 MHz photodetector. The POF link is equipped with micro-lenses at its end faces by using a ball-burning technique, which helps to increase the coupling efficiency from 28.64% to 70.61%. Both simulation and experimental results show that the proposed scheme is feasible to achieve a cost-effective and high-speed POFC system with short reach.

Ultrathin Carbon-Shell-Encapsulated Cobalt Nanoparticles with Balanced Activity and Stability for Lithium-Sulfur Batteries.

High-performance metal-based catalysts are pursued to improve the sluggish reaction kinetics in lithium-sulfur batteries. However, it is challenging to achieve high catalytic activity and stability simultaneously due to the inevitable passivation of the highly active metal nanoparticles by lithium polysulfides (LiPSs). Herein, we show a design with well-balanced activity and stability to solve the above problem, that is, the cobalt (Co) nanoparticles (NPs) encapsulated with ultrathin carbon shells prepared by the one-step pyrolysis of ZIF-67. With an ultrathin carbon coating (∼1 nm), the direct exposure of Co NPs to LiPSs is avoided, but it allows the fast electron transfer from the highly active Co NPs to LiPSs for their conversion to the solid products, ensuring the efficient suppression of shuttling in long cycling. As a result, the sulfur cathode with such a catalyst exhibited good cycling stability (0.073% capacity fading over 500 cycles) and high sulfur utilization (638 mAh g-1 after 180 cycles under a high sulfur mass loading of 7.37 mg cm-2 and a low electrolyte/sulfur ratio of 5 µL mg-1). This work provides insights into the rational design of a protection layer on a metal-based catalyst to engineer both high catalytic activity and stability toward high-energy and long-life Li-S batteries.

A Method to Predict CO2 Mass Concentration in Sheep Barns Based on the RF-PSO-LSTM Model.

In large-scale meat sheep farming, high CO2 concentrations in sheep sheds can lead to stress and harm the healthy growth of meat sheep, so a timely and accurate understanding of the trend of CO2 concentration and early regulation are essential to ensure the environmental safety of sheep sheds and the welfare of meat sheep. In order to accurately understand and regulate CO2 concentrations in sheep barns, we propose a prediction method based on the RF-PSO-LSTM model. The approach we propose has four main parts. First, to address the problems of data packet loss, distortion, singular values, and differences in the magnitude of the ambient air quality data collected from sheep sheds, we performed data preprocessing using mean smoothing, linear interpolation, and data normalization. Second, to address the problems of many types of ambient air quality parameters in sheep barns and possible redundancy or overlapping information, we used a random forests algorithm (RF) to screen and rank the features affecting CO2 mass concentration and selected the top four features (light intensity, air relative humidity, air temperature, and PM2.5 mass concentration) as the input of the model to eliminate redundant information among the variables. Then, to address the problem of manually debugging the hyperparameters of the long short-term memory model (LSTM), which is time consuming and labor intensive, as well as potentially subjective, we used a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to obtain the optimal combination of parameters, avoiding the disadvantages of selecting hyperparameters based on subjective experience. Finally, we trained the LSTM model using the optimized parameters obtained by the PSO algorithm to obtain the proposed model in this paper. The experimental results show that our proposed model has a root mean square error (RMSE) of 75.422 µg·m-3, a mean absolute error (MAE) of 51.839 µg·m-3, and a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.992. The model prediction curve is close to the real curve and has a good prediction effect, which can be useful for the accurate prediction and regulation of CO2 concentration in sheep barns in large-scale meat sheep farming.

A 5.5-kb LTR-retrotransposon insertion inside phytochrome B gene (CsPHYB) results in long hypocotyl and early flowering in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.).

KEY MESSAGE: The novel spontaneous long hypocotyl and early flowering (lhef) mutation in cucumber is due to a 5551-bp LTR-retrotransposon insertion in CsPHYB gene encoding PHYTOCHROME B, which plays a major role in regulating photomorphogenic hypocotyl growth and flowering. Hypocotyl length and flowering time are important for establishing high-quality seedlings in modern cucumber production, but little is known for the underlying molecular mechanisms of these two traits. In this study, a spontaneous cucumber long hypocotyl and early flowering mutant was identified and characterized. Based on multiple lines of evidence, we show that cucumber phytochrome B (CsPHYB) is the candidate gene for this mutation, and a 5551-bp LTR-retrotransposon insertion in the first exon of CsPHYB was responsible for the mutant phenotypes. Uniqueness of the mutant allele at CsPHYB was verified in 114 natural cucumber lines. Ectopic expression of the CsPHYB in Arabidopsis phyB mutant rescued the long hypocotyl and early flowering phenotype of phyB-9 mutant. The wild-type CsPHYB protein was localized on the membrane and cytoplasm under white light condition, whereas in the nucleus under red light, it is consistent with its roles as a red-light photoreceptor in Arabidopsis. However, the mutant csphyb protein was localized on the membrane and cytoplasm under both white and red-light conditions. Expression dynamics of CsPHYB and several cell elongation-related genes were positively correlated with hypocotyl elongation; the transcription levels of key positive and negative regulators for flowering time were also consistent with the anthesis dates in the mutant and wild-type plants. Yeast two hybrid and bimolecular fluorescence complementation assays identified physical interactions between CsPHYB and phytochrome interacting factor 3/4 (CsPIF3/4). These findings will provide new insights into the roles of the CsPHYB in cucumber hypocotyl growth and flowering time.