Impact mechanism of social-related social media use on the job performance of caregivers of older adults.

This study investigated the impact mechanism of social-related social media use on the job performance of caregivers of older adults through mental health and analyzed gender differences. A total of 358 valid questionnaires were collected and analyzed using SPSS and Smart PLS. The results showed that mental health plays an important role in the relationship between social-related social media use and job performance. Such social media use can improve psychological well-being and reduce psychological distress by promoting relaxation experience. Psychological well-being has a significant positive impact on job performance. In addition, significant differences exist in the impact path of social-related social media use on psychological distress among different gender groups. The findings of this study can assist nursing homes in assessing the use of social media within their organizations and provide methodological references for enhancing the job performance of caregivers of older adults.

Crohn's disease-associated IgA nephropathy may prone to better renal outcome.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Renal involvement in Crohn's Disease (CD) was rare in the population. Little was known between IgA nephropathy and CD. This study aimed to investigate the differences in clinical and outcome features of CD-associated IgA nephropathy (CD-IgAN) and primary IgA nephropathy (PIgAN). METHODS: Clinical data of patients diagnosed with IgAN by kidney biopsy were collected in the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from January 1st, 2016 to June 1st, 2023. 17 patients with CD-IgAN and 87 patients with PIgAN were enrolled in this retrospective study. RESULTS: Compared with PIgAN patients, CD-IgAN patients had lower levels of urinary protein excretion (1.57 g per 24 h vs. 0.33 g per 24 h, p < 0.01), but higher levels of estimated glomerular filtration rate (77.63 ± 40.11 ml per min per 1.73m2 vs. 104.53 ± 32.97 ml per min per 1.73m2, p = 0.008). From the point of renal pathology of PIgAN, patients with CD-IgAN had a less incidence of tubular atrophy or interstitial fibrosis (p = 0.001). CD-IgAN patients had a higher incidence of complete remission of proteinuria (45.8% vs. 81.8%, p = 0.031) or hematuria (10.4% vs. 45.4%, p = 0.019) than PIgAN patients after twelve-month treatments. CONCLUSIONS: CD-IgAN manifests a milder progression of renal function than those PIgAN. After the treatment, proteinuria or hematuria are more prone to remit in patients with CD-IgAN.

Tensorized Multi-View Low-Rank Approximation Based Robust Hand-Print Recognition.

Since hand-print recognition, i.e., palmprint, finger-knuckle-print (FKP), and hand-vein, have significant superiority in user convenience and hygiene, it has attracted greater enthusiasm from researchers. Seeking to handle the long-standing interference factors, i.e., noise, rotation, shadow, in hand-print images, multi-view hand-print representation has been proposed to enhance the feature expression by exploiting multiple characteristics from diverse views. However, the existing methods usually ignore the high-order correlations between different views or fuse very limited types of features. To tackle these issues, in this paper, we present a novel tensorized multi-view low-rank approximation based robust hand-print recognition method (TMLA_RHR), which can dexterously manipulate the multi-view hand-print features to produce a high-compact feature representation. To achieve this goal, we formulate TMLA_RHR by two key components, i.e., aligned structure regression loss and tensorized low-rank approximation, in a joint learning model. Specifically, we treat the low-rank representation matrices of different views as a tensor, which is regularized with a low-rank constraint. It models the across information between different views and reduces the redundancy of the learned sub-space representations. Experimental results on eight real-world hand-print databases prove the superiority of the proposed method in comparison with other state-of-the-art related works.

Complete Region of Interest for Unconstrained Palmprint Recognition.

Unconstrained palmprint images have shown great potential for recognition applications due to their lower restrictions regarding hand poses and backgrounds during contactless image acquisition. However, they face two challenges: 1) unclear palm contours and finger-valley points of unconstrained palmprint images make it difficult to locate landmarks to crop the palmprint region of interest (ROI); and 2) large intra-class diversities of unconstrained palmprint images hinder the learning of intra-class-invariant palmprint features. In this paper, we propose to directly extract the complete palmprint region as the ROI (CROI) using the detection-style CenterNet without requiring the detection of any landmarks, and large intra-class diversities may occur. To address this, we further propose a palmprint feature alignment and learning hybrid network (PalmALNet) for unconstrained palmprint recognition. Specifically, we first exploit and align the multi-scale shallow representation of unconstrained palmprint images via deformable convolution and alignment-aware supervision, such that the pixel gaps of the intra-class palmprint CROIs can be minimized in shallow feature space. Then, we develop multiple triple-attention learning modules by integrating spatial, channel, and self-attention operations into convolution to adaptively learn and highlight the latent identity-invariant palmprint information, enhancing the overall discriminative power of the palmprint features. Extensive experimental results on four challenging palmprint databases demonstrate the promising effectiveness of both the proposed PalmALNet and CROI for unconstrained palmprint recognition.

Identification of the function of a key gene NnHCT1 in lignin synthesis in petioles of Nelumbo nucifera.

Leaf petiole or stem strength is an important agronomic trait affecting the growth of underground organs as a channel for material exchange and plays a vital role in the quality and yield of crops and vegetables. There are two different types of petioles in lotus, floating leaf petioles and vertical leaf petioles; however, the internal difference mechanism between these petioles is unclear. In this study, we investigated the differences between the initial vertical leaf petioles and the initial floating leaf petioles based on RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), and >2858 differentially expressed genes were annotated. These genes were chiefly enriched in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, which is the source of the lignin and cellulose in petioles and stems. Lignin biology-related gene NnHCT1 was identified, and subsequent biological function validation demonstrated that the transient overexpression of NnHCT1 significantly increased the lignin and cellulose contents in lotus petioles and tobacco leaves. In contrast, silencing NnHCT1 through virus-induced gene silencing significantly reduced petiole lignin synthesis. Additionally, differentially up-regulated MYB family transcription factors were identified using RNA-seq. Yeast-one-hybrid and dual-luciferase reporter assays demonstrated that MYB4 could bind to the NnHCT1 promoter and up-regulate NnHCT1 expression. These findings demonstrate the significant potential of NnHCT1 to enhance lignin synthesis, thereby improving stem or petiole resistance to stunting and explaining the need for the study of differential petiole relationships in plants.

Exogenous methyl jasmonate treatment induced the transcriptional responses and accumulation of volatile terpenoids in Oenanthe javanica (Blume) DC.

Water dropwort is favored by consumers for its unique flavor and medicinal value. Terpenoids were identified as the main volatile compounds related to its flavor. In this study, water dropwort was treated with different concentrations of exogenous methyl jasmonate (MeJA). The contents of volatile terpenoids were determined under various MeJA treatments. The results indicated that 0.1 mM of MeJA most effectively promoted the biosynthesis of flavor-related terpenoids in water dropwort. Terpinolene accounted the highest proportion among terpene compounds in water dropwort. The contents of jasmonates in water dropwort were also increased after exogenous MeJA treatments. Transcriptome analysis indicated that DEGs involved in the terpenoid biosynthesis pathway were upregulated. The TPS family was identified from water dropwort, and the expression levels of Oj0473630, Oj0287510 and Oj0240400 genes in TPS-b subfamily were consistent with the changes of terpene contents under MeJA treatments. Oj0473630 was cloned from the water dropwort and designated as OjTPS3, which is predicted to be related to the biosynthesis of terpinolene in water dropwort. Subcellular localization indicated that OjTPS3 protein was localized in chloroplast. Protein purification and enzyme activity of OjTPS3 protein were conducted. The results showed that the purified OjTPS3 protein catalyzed the biosynthesis of terpinolene by using geranyl diphosphate (GPP) as substrate in vitro. This study will facilitate to further understand the molecular mechanism of terpenoid biosynthesis and provide a strategy to improve the flavor of water dropwort.

Comprehensive Analysis of Fatty Acid Metabolism in Diabetic Nephropathy from the Perspective of Immune Landscapes, Diagnosis and Precise Therapy.

Objective: Diabetic nephropathy (DN) represents the principal cause of end-stage renal diseases worldwide, lacking effective therapies. Fatty acid (FA) serves as the primary energy source in the kidney and its dysregulation is frequently observed in DN. Nevertheless, the roles of FA metabolism in the occurrence and progression of DN have not been fully elucidated. Methods: Three DN datasets (GSE96804/GSE30528/GSE104948) were obtained and combined. Differentially expressed FA metabolism-related genes were identified and subjected to DN classification using "ConsensusClusterPlus". DN subtypes-associated modules were discovered by "WGCNA", and module genes underwent functional enrichment analysis. The immune landscapes and potential drugs were analyzed using "CIBERSORT" and "CMAP", respectively. Candidate diagnostic biomarkers of DN were screened using machine learning algorithms. A prediction model was constructed, and the performance was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis (DCA). The online tool "Nephroseq v5" was conducted to reveal the clinical significance of the candidate diagnostic biomarkers in patients with DN. A DN mouse model was established to verify the biomarkers' expression. Results: According to 39 dysregulated FA metabolism-related genes, DN samples were divided into two molecular subtypes. Patients in Cluster B exhibited worse outcomes with a different immune landscape compared with those in Cluster A. Ten potential small-molecular drugs were predicted to treat DN in Cluster B. The diagnostic model based on PRKAR2B/ANXA1 was created with ideal predictive values in early and advanced stages of DN. The correlation analysis revealed significant association between PRKAR2B/ANXA1 and clinical characteristics. The DN mouse model validated the expression patterns of PRKAR2B/ANXA1. Conclusion: Our study provides new insights into the role of FA metabolism in the classification, immunological pathogenesis, early diagnosis, and precise therapy of DN.

Selection of suitable reference genes for qPCR normalization in different developmental stages of Oenanthe javanica.

Gene expression analysis is widely used to unravel molecular regulatory mechanisms and identify key genes in plants. Appropriate reference gene is an important prerequisite to ensure the accuracy and reliability of qPCR analysis results. Water dropwort is a plant of the Oenanthe genus in the Apiaceae family, which has high economic benefits. However, the underlying molecular regulatory mechanisms in the growth and development of water dropwort have not been fully understood and the appropriate reference genes in different developmental stages of water dropwort not yet reported. In this study, 10 candidate reference genes (ACTIN, PP2A, SAND, EF-1α, GAPDH, UBQ, MIP, TBP, RPS-18, eIF-4α) were identified and cloned from Oenanthe javanica. The qPCR primers of candidate reference genes were designed and verified. Four statistical algorithms, geNorm, NormFinder, BestKeeper and RefFinder were used to evaluate the expression stability of 10 candidate reference genes in different developmental stages of water dropwort. The results showed that TBP and UBQ were the most stable genes in different developmental stages of water dropwort, while GAPDH was the most unstable gene. The normalization of EXP1 genes at different developmental stages further confirmed the reliability of internal reference genes. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for selecting appropriate internal reference genes in different developmental stages of water dropwort. This study also provides technical support and reliable basis for the expression analysis of key genes in different developmental stages of water dropwort.