Additive partitioning of multispecies distributional aggregation of local assemblages.

The distribution of species is not random in space. At the finest-resolution spatial scale, that is, field sampling locations, distributional aggregation level of different species would be determined by various factors, for example spatial autocorrelation or environmental filtering. However, few studies have quantitatively measured the importance of these factors. In this study, inspired by the statistical properties of a Markov transition model, we propose a novel additive framework to partition local multispecies distributional aggregation levels for sequential sampling-derived field biodiversity data. The framework partitions the spatial distributional aggregation of different species into two independent components: regional abundance variability and the local spatial inertia effect. Empirical studies from field amphibian surveys through line-transect sampling in southwestern China (Minya Konka) and central-southern Vietnam showed that local spatial inertia was always the dominant mechanism structuring the local occurrence and distributional aggregation of amphibians in the two regions with a latitudinal gradient from 1200 to nearly 4000 m. However, regional abundance variability is still nonnegligible in highly diverse tropical regions (i.e. Vietnam) where the altitude is not higher than 2000 m. In summary, we propose a novel framework that shows that the multispecies distributional aggregation level can be structured by two additive components. The two partitioned components could be theoretically independent. These findings are expected to deepen our understanding of the local community structure from the perspective of both spatial distribution and regional diversity patterns. The partitioning framework might have potential applications in field ecology and macroecology research.

Ciliary neurotrophic factor overexpression protects the heart against pathological remodelling in angiotensin II-infused mice.

BACKGROUND: Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), which is a neural peptide, has been reported to confer cardioprotective effects. However, whether CNTF-based gene therapy could prevent cardiac remodelling remains incompletely clear. In this study, we used adeno-associated viral vector serotype 9 (AAV9)-based cardiac gene therapy to test the effects of CNTF overexpression on adverse ventricular remodelling in angiotensin II (Ang II)-infused mice. METHODS: First, AAV9-EGFP and AAV9-CNTF constructs were generated with virus concentration at 5 × 1012 vg/ml. Next, postnatal (P3-P10) mice with C57BL/6J background were administered with 5 × 1011 vg of AAV9 recombinant genome diluted in 50 µl of saline, and delivered through intraperitoneal injection. Implantation of osmotic minipumps was performed in 8-week-old male mice and human Ang II solution was administrated in the mice subcutaneously for 14 days through the pumps. Finally, we evaluated the effects of CNTF overexpression on mouse cardiac function, hypertrophy and fibrosis, as well as investigated the possible mechanisms. RESULTS: Our data showed that CNTF overexpression in mouse cardiomyocytes prevents cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis induced by chronic Ang II stimulation. Mechanistic study found that CNTF overexpression upregulated NFE2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) antioxidant pathway, coupled with decreased ROS level in the cardiac tissues. Additionally, inflammatory cytokines were found to be reduced upon cardiac CNTF overexpression in response to chronic Ang II stimulation. CONCLUSIONS: Altogether, these results provide further evidence that CNTF can alleviate the condition of cardiac remodelling induced by chronic Ang II stimulation. Therefore, our results suggest a potential therapeutic role of CNTF in cardiac pathological remodelling.

An Embeddable Algorithm for Automatic Garbage Detection Based on Complex Marine Environment.

With the continuous development of artificial intelligence, embedding object detection algorithms into autonomous underwater detectors for marine garbage cleanup has become an emerging application area. Considering the complexity of the marine environment and the low resolution of the images taken by underwater detectors, this paper proposes an improved algorithm based on Mask R-CNN, with the aim of achieving high accuracy marine garbage detection and instance segmentation. First, the idea of dilated convolution is introduced in the Feature Pyramid Network to enhance feature extraction ability for small objects. Secondly, the spatial-channel attention mechanism is used to make features learn adaptively. It can effectively focus attention on detection objects. Third, the re-scoring branch is added to improve the accuracy of instance segmentation by scoring the predicted masks based on the method of Generalized Intersection over Union. Finally, we train the proposed algorithm in this paper on the Transcan dataset, evaluating its effectiveness by various metrics and comparing it with existing algorithms. The experimental results show that compared to the baseline provided by the Transcan dataset, the algorithm in this paper improves the mAP indexes on the two tasks of garbage detection and instance segmentation by 9.6 and 5.0, respectively, which significantly improves the algorithm performance. Thus, it can be better applied in the marine environment and achieve high precision object detection and instance segmentation.

LCST and UCST in One: Double Thermoresponsive Behavior of Block Copolymers of Poly(ethylene glycol) and Poly(acrylamide-co-acrylonitrile).

The change in thermoresponsive behavior from a single phase transition of upper critical solution temperature (UCST)-type of an acrylamide-acrylonitrile copolymer (AAm-co-AN) to a double responsive behavior (LCST-UCST-type (LCST, lower critical solution temperature)) in water by the introduction of a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) block is highlighted in the present work. The polymer is synthesized in a simple way by free-radical polymerization of acrylamide and acrylonitrile using a poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) macro-azoinitiator. The dual thermoresponsive behavior was observed in a wide range of concentrations repeatable for many cycles with very small hysteresis depending upon the ratio of AAm, AN and PEG. Static light scattering (SLS) and dynamic light scattering (DLS) together with turbidity photometry and transmission electron microscopy confirmed a unique phase transition behavior due to the temperature dependent change in the morphology from micelles to agglomerates. The low cytotoxicity and two-in-one thermoresponsive behavior makes the polymer promising for biomedical applications in the future.

Balancing High-performance and Lightweight: HL-UNet for 3D Cardiac Medical Image Segmentation.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging is a crucial tool for analyzing, diagnosing, and formulating treatment plans for cardiovascular diseases. Currently, there is very little research focused on balancing cardiac segmentation performance with lightweight methods. Despite the existence of numerous efficient image segmentation algorithms, they primarily rely on complex and computationally intensive network models, making it challenging to implement them on resource-constrained medical devices. Furthermore, simplified models designed to meet the requirements of device lightweighting may have limitations in comprehending and utilizing both global and local information for cardiac segmentation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We propose a novel 3D high-performance lightweight medical image segmentation network, HL-UNet, for application in cardiac image segmentation. Specifically, in HL-UNet, we propose a novel residual-enhanced Adaptive attention (REAA) module that combines residual-enhanced connectivity with an adaptive attention mechanism to efficiently capture key features of input images and optimize their representation capabilities, and integrates the Visual Mamba (VSS) module to enhance the performance of HL-UNet. RESULTS: Compared to large-scale models such as TransUNet, HL-UNet increased the Dice of the right ventricular cavity (RV), left ventricular myocardia (MYO), and left ventricular cavity (LV), the key indicators of cardiac image segmentation, by 1.61%, 5.03% and 0.19%, respectively. At the same time, the Params and FLOPs of the model decreased by 41.3 M and 31.05 G, respectively. Furthermore, compared to lightweight models such as the MISSFormer, the HL-UNet improves the Dice of RV, MYO, and LV by 4.11%, 3.82%, and 4.33%, respectively, when the number of parameters and computational complexity are close to or even lower. CONCLUSION: The proposed HL-UNet model captures local details and edge information in images while being lightweight. Experimental results show that compared with large-scale models, HL-UNet significantly reduces the number of parameters and computational complexity while maintaining performance, thereby increasing frames per second (FPS). Compared to lightweight models, HL-UNet shows substantial improvements across various key metrics, with parameter count and computational complexity approaching or even lower.

PIM3 regulates myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury via ferroptosis.

BACKGROUND: Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury is closely related with cardiovascular diseases; however, the underlying pathogenic mechanisms remain not fully understood. This study sought to investigate the effect and mechanisms of PIM3 implicated in myocardial I/R injury using a rat model of myocardial I/R injury and a cell model of oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) induction. METHODS: The morphology changes were detected by HE staining while cell viability was accessed by the CCK-8 method. The characteristics of ferroptosis were evaluated by ROS production, MDA content, SOD level, iron content, TfR1, FTH1, and GPX4 expression. RESULTS: Myocardial I/R operation increased myocardial tissue damage in rats, while OGD/R treatment reduced the viability of H9c2 cells. Both myocardial I/R operation and OGD/R stimulation increased ferroptosis, as demonstrated by elevated ROS, MDA, iron content, decreased SOD level, upregulation of TfR1, and downregulation of FTH1 and GPX4. Additionally, myocardial I/R modeling or OGD/R treatment enhanced the expression of PIM3. Silencing of PIM3 inhibited ferroptosis, which resulted in alleviated myocardial I/R-induced damage and improved H9c2 cell survival. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight a vital role of PIM3 in myocardial I/R injury, indicating that PIM3-targeting ferroptosis may be a promising target for the development of novel therapies of myocardial I/R injury-associated diseases.

Multifunctional Bletilla striata polysaccharide/copper/peony leaf sponge for the full-stage wound healing.

Conventional wound dressings fail to satisfy the requirements and needs of wounds in various stages. It is challenging to develop a multifunctional dressing that is hemostatic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, and promotes wound healing. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a multifunctional sponge dressing for the full-stage wound healing based on copper and two natural products, Bletilla striata polysaccharide (BSP) and peony leaf extract (PLE). The developed BSP-Cu-PLE sponges were characterized by SEM, XRD, FTIR, and XPS to assess micromorphology and elemental composition. Their properties and bioactivities were also verified by the further experiments, whereby the findings revealed that the BSP-Cu-PLE sponges had improved water absorption and porosity while exhibiting excellent antioxidative, biocompatible, and biodegradable properties. Moreover, the antibacterial test revealed that BSP-Cu-PLE sponges had superior antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli. Furthermore, the hemostatic activity of BSP-Cu-PLE sponges was significantly enhanced in a rat liver trauma model. Most notably, further studies have demonstrated that the BSP-Cu-PLE sponges could significantly (p < 0.05) accelerate the healing process of skin wounds by stimulating collagen deposition, promoting angiogenesis, and decreasing inflammatory cells. In summary, the BSP-Cu-PLE sponges could provide a new strategy for application in clinical setting for full-stage wound healing.

The main influencing factors of customer satisfaction and loyalty in city express delivery.

At present, customers' low satisfaction and loyalty to city express service have restricted the development of city express. It is particularly important to analyze the factors causing customers' low satisfaction and loyalty, which will promote the development of city express industry effectively. Based on SERVQUAL model and CCSI model, this paper constructs a new evaluation index system from the perspective of service quality. Through this new system, this paper first explores the factors that affect customers' satisfaction and loyalty, respectively, by fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and hierarchical regression analysis, taking the expected and perceived service quality as conversion variables. And then it analyzes the common factors that affect customers' satisfaction and loyalty comprehensively. These two analyses will provide reference for solving the problem of low customer satisfaction and loyalty of city express enterprises. The results show that popularity and credibility, delivery time commitment, and mailing security are the common main factors affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty. Easy-to-understand receipts, the three-level index corresponding to the empathy dimension, is the most significant factor affecting customers' loyalty in city express industry; Delivery time commitment, the three-level index corresponding to the reliability dimension, is the most significant factor affecting customers' loyalty in city express industry.

Preparation of chitosan/peony (Paeonia suffruticosa Andr.) leaf extract composite film and its application in sustainable active food packaging.

Considering the problem of food perishability and the environmental pollution of plastic packaging, the natural active packaging prepared by incorporating plant leaf (e.g. peony leaf) extract into biodegradable food packaging materials may be a key to addressing these issues. In the study, a novel green bioactive composite film (CS-PLE) with antioxidant and antibacterial propertiese was developed by blending peony leaf extract (PLE) into chitosan (CS) film through the solution casting method. The physical properties and biological activities of a series of films, including CS film and CS-PLEs incorporated with different concentrations of PLE, were studied by appropriate experimental protocols. The results demonstrated that addition of PLE improved thermal stability, the barrier performance of UV-A and total phenolic content of CS film, and the antioxidant activities of CS-PLEs increased by 60.6 % ~ 73.2 % with the appending proportion of PLE from 0.1 wt% ~ 0.7 wt% compared to CS film. Furthermore, CS-PLEs had better inhibiting effect on bacteria. Notably, CS-PLE (0.7 wt%) wrapping apples showed the least degree of browning among all the groups. Hence, the study of CS-PLEs can provide a new strategy for the preparation of food packaging materials that are green alternatives and reduce environmental pollution.

[Transmission chains of clusters of COVID-19 associated with a market in Beijing].

Objective: To investigate the clusters of COVID-19 associated with a market (market Y) in Haidian District, Beijing, and analyze the chain of transmission and provide reference for effective prevention and control of COVID-19. Methods: The investigation of field epidemiology and cluster epidemic was used to describe the distributions of all COVID-19 cases. The time sequence diagram of the cases, disease onset was drawn and transmission chains were analyzed. Real-time RT-PCR assay was conducted for SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid test by using the respiratory samples of the cases. Results: The COVID-19 epidemic, originated from a wholesale farm produce market (market X) in Fengtai District, Beijing, was introduced by a marketer in the market Y who had exposed to market X, causing 8 clusters of 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and one asymptomatic case, including 8 men and 13 women, in market Y, surrounding communities, food plaza, companies,families and other places. The incidence peaked during June 10-14, 2020; the median age of the cases was 45 years, ranging from 5 years to 87 years. The initial symptoms of the cases included fever (10/20) and pharynx discomfort (7/20). The median of incubation period was 5 days (IQR:3-8). The median of serial interval between primary case and secondary cases was 5 days with a secondary attack rate of 3.7%(20/538), and the secondary attack rate in household close-contacts was 14.0% (7/50). Conclusions: The clusters of COVID-19 associated with market Y were caused by several modes of transmission, including human-to-human, contaminated material-to-human, etc. The combined public-health response measures were effective to control the COVID-19 epidemic in Haidian district of Beijing.

Biodegradation of methyl parathion by Acinetobacter radioresistens USTB-04.

Biodegradation of methyl parathion (MP), a widely used organophosphorus pesticide, was investigated using a newly isolated bacterium strain Acinetobacter radioresistens USTB-04. MP at an initial concentration of 1200 mg/L could be totally biodegraded by A. radioresistens USTB-04 as the sole carbon source less than 4 d in the presence of phosphate and urea as phosphorus and nitrogen sources, respectively. Biodegradation of MP was also achieved using cell-free extract of A. radioresistens USTB-04. MP at an initial concentration of 130 mg/L was completely biodegraded in 2 h in the presence of cell-free extract with a protein concentration of 148.0 mg/L, which was increased with the increase of pH from 5.0 to 8.0. Contrary to published reports, no intermediate or final degradation metabolites of MP could be observed. Thus we suggest that the cleavage of C-C bond on the benzene ring other than P-O bond may be the biodegradation pathway of MP by A. radioresistens USTB-04.

Unusual and Superfast Temperature-Triggered Actuators.

A superfast actuator based on a bilayer fibrous mat shows folding/unfolding and the formation of 3D structures in a fraction of a second. The actuation is reversible for many cycles without losing its form and size, with unfolding at room temperature and folding above 35 °C. The system is promising for making 3D bioscaffolds, electrodes, and micro-/macroactuators.

Zinc supplementation alleviates diabetic peripheral neuropathy by inhibiting oxidative stress and upregulating metallothionein in peripheral nerves of diabetic rats.

We investigated the effect of zinc supplementation on the expression of metallothionein, lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde, MDA), and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) in the sciatic nerve, motor nerve conduction velocity of the left sciatic posterior tibial nerve in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Twenty-four male rats were equally divided into four groups. The first group served as untreated controls although the second group received 5 mg/kg/day zinc chloride. The third group was treated with STZ to induce diabetes, and the fourth group was treated with STZ and supplemented with zinc. A gradual but insignificant decline in motor nerve conduction velocity was observed at 2 weeks of induction of diabetes. Zinc supplementation markedly attenuated the decrease in motor nerve conduction velocity at week 8 post-induction of diabetes. Furthermore, the tactile response threshold of diabetic rats receiving normal saline was lower than that of diabetic rats receiving zinc supplementation. Additionally, zinc supplementation accentuated the increase in the mRNA transcript levels of metallothionein but attenuated the increase in the mRNA transcript levels of PARP-1. At week 8 post-induction of diabetes, diabetic rats receiving normal saline had markedly higher MDA contents than diabetic rats receiving zinc supplementation. In conclusion, the present study shows that zinc has a protective effect against diabetes-induced peripheral nerve damage by stimulating metallothionein synthesis and downregulating oxidative stress.