bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Osteopontin as a Predictor of Adverse Events in Patients with Comorbid Pathology
Authors: Chyngyshpaev D. , Uzakov O.
Published: November 2022

Information about the results of the examination of 78 women aged 50 to 65 years is given. The nature of comorbid pathology was studied: chronic heart failure, type 2 diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis. It has been established that osteopontin is an independent risk factor for the development of adverse cardiovascular events and bone fractures in women with comorbid pathology. During 36 months of prospective follow-up, patients with comorbid pathology and OPN level >21.4 ng/ml were significantly more likely to have adverse cardiovascular events and osteoporotic fractures. In patients of the 2nd group with an AKI level of >21.4 ng/ml compared with the group with an AKI concentration of ≤21.4 ng/ml, the risk of cumulative (combined frequency of the combined end point of cardiovascular events) was increased (OR = 6.200 [95% CI 2.258-17.024; p=0.001]). Separate analysis showed a significant increase in the risk of adverse events within 36 months at an AKI concentration of >21.4 ng/ml: progression of CHF (OR=4.073 [95% CI 1.575–10.531; p=0.023]) and osteoporotic bone fractures (OR=0 .81 [95% CI 0.72-0.90; p=0.01]); risks of MI (OR=4.343 [95% CI 0.463-40.751; p=0.162]), stroke (OR=1.178 [95% CI 0.315-31.860; p=0.498]), and decompensation of CHF (OR=1.938 [95% CI 0.696-5.391; p=0.083]) increased insignificantly. The level of acute renal failure >21.4 ng/ml (sensitivity-83%, specificity-62%) makes it possible to predict the onset of adverse cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease with type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis with a high probability.
Age-Sex Prevalence of Concomitant Ocular Diseases in Open-angle Glaucoma
Authors: Omorova G.
Published: November 2022

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of cases of primary open-angle glaucoms, which occupy a leading place in the structure of eye diseases. Analysis of age, gender, comorbidities in patients with open-angle glaucoma is required to revise the management of patients, taking into account the chronic progressive course of the disease, in the outcome — complete loss of visual functions. We analyzed the frequency of concomitant diseases in 786 patients with glaucoma who received treatment in the eye microsurgery department no. 2 of the National Hospital of the Ministry of Health of the Kyrgyz Republic by sex and age groups, taking into account the stage of the disease. It should be noted that concomitant ocular diseases occur predominantly more in female patients and in the age group from 60 to 80 years and older. This confirms the need to take into account the background ocular pathology in elderly and senile patients to determine the further tactics of management of patients with glaucoma and the choice of an individual approach.
Obtaining Portland Cement From Coal Ash Alay Deposit
Authors: Aldasheva N. , Childebaev B.
Published: November 2022

In this article, the temperature regime and the amount of heat required for sintering a mixture obtained by burning coal with the addition of natural clay are investigated. The chemical composition of ash and natural clay, which are suitable for use as raw materials for the production of Portland cement and other building materials, has been studied. As a component for the manufacture of heavy, lightweight cellular concrete blocks, mortars and dry mortars. The chemical composition and quantitative content of substances was determined by the complexometric (volumetric) method.
Analysis of the Tourist Potential of the Region
Authors: Kalmuratov B. , Jiemuratov T. , Kalbaeva I.
Published: November 2022

The article discusses the main directions of development of the tourism potential of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. And also studied the use of global information technologies in the tourism sector, the development of tourism infrastructure and the staffing of the tourism industry.
Remote Family Engagement through Virtual Tutoring: An Emergency Response to Support Children, Families, and Students
Authors: Brown Carmen Sherry
Published: November 2022

Family engagement is a reciprocal relationship between educators and families that supports whole child development. In response to the unique contexts and situations created by the COVID-19 pandemic, a faculty member in the School of Education at Hunter College, City University of New York (SOE), and families that had opted in to 100 percent remote instruction for their children conceptualized a remote virtual tutoring model that supplemented and supported asynchronous instruction, learning, and development. The model also gave fieldwork interns in the SOE early childhood program the opportunity to engage in authentic teaching and learning experiences; to plan and implement culturally and linguistically responsive activities; and to assess development, learning, and engagement. In this field note, I discuss the virtual tutoring model and its impact on the participating families, children, and fieldwork interns. I also describe lessons learned during the implementation and provide suggestions for replicating the model.
Improving Social-Emotional Health: Expansion of Teacher and Student Wellbeing during the COVID-19 Crisis in Honduras
Authors: Davis Craig , Páyan-Luna Gustavo
Published: November 2022

The Honduran education system was caught off guard when COVID-19 struck the country. With effectively no training or preparation and very few resources, educators across the country began providing distance learning classes in mid-March 2020. Overnight, educators faced significant obstacles in their quest to keep young people studying—teaching classes to students they could not see and engaging young people who lacked technology. Teachers and students began to experience social-emotional problems. This field note describes how the United States Agency for International Development's Asegurando la Educación project transitioned in-person social and emotional learning (SEL) activities in 135 schools to provide virtual SEL support to hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries across the county. We outline the SEL interventions that contributed to the lowest national dropout rate in five years, and enrollment rates in Asegurando's 135 schools some 5 percent higher than the national average. Finally, we believe this field note will contribute to the evidence base for how SEL can improve mental health and school retention during future crises.
La Mise en Œuvre de la Gratuité de l'Enseignement Primaire en Contexte de Crise : COVID-19 et Réforme de l'Enseignement au Sud Kivu, République Démocratique du Congo
Authors: Falisse Jean-Benoît , Brandt Cyril , Mukengere Basengezi Jean , Gupta Sweta , Kanyerhera Dieudonné , Marion Pierre , Nyabagaza Pacifique , Safari Nyandinda Ibrahim , Marchais Gauthier , Matabishi Samuel
Published: November 2022

En septembre 2019, la République démocratique du Congo a mis en place une nouvelle politique abolissant les frais de scolarité dans l'enseignement primaire. Quelques mois plus tard, les écoles fermaient pour 4.5 mois suite à la pandémie de Covid-19. Comment le confinement a-t-il affecté la mise en place de la politique de gratuité ? A-t-il atténué ou exacerbé ses effets ? Cet article étudie l'expérience des écoles et des enseignants dans deux territoires du Sud-Kivu affectés par les conflits armés. Sur base d'une enquête auprès de 752 enseignants et 637 parents d'élèves et sur 157 entretiens qualitatifs dans 55 écoles, nous montrons que, dopés par la gratuité, l'effectif scolaire reste stable et les relations enseignants-parents ne semblent pas se dégrader –et ce malgré une absence presque totale d'enseignement pendant la période de fermeture. Cependant, les privations liées à la pandémie rendent (encore plus) intenable la position des enseignants sous contrats précaires dont les salaires étaient antérieurement payés grâce aux frais de scolarité. Ceux-ci quittent la profession en nombre, menaçant la stabilité du système éducatif. Ainsi, l'introduction de la gratuité n'est pas une panacée en contexte de crise ; la durabilité d'une telle réforme nécessite une ambitieuse et inclusive refonte des ressources humaines.
Nearest neighbor search on embeddings rapidly identifies distant protein relations
Authors: Schütze Konstantin , Heinzinger Michael , Steinegger Martin , Rost Burkhard
Published: November 2022

Since 1992, all state-of-the-art methods for fast and sensitive identification of evolutionary, structural, and functional relations between proteins (also referred to as “homology detection”) use sequences and sequence-profiles (PSSMs). Protein Language Models (pLMs) generalize sequences, possibly capturing the same constraints as PSSMs, e.g., through embeddings. Here, we explored how to use such embeddings for nearest neighbor searches to identify relations between protein pairs with diverged sequences (remote homology detection for levels of <20% pairwise sequence identity, PIDE). While this approach excelled for proteins with single domains, we demonstrated the current challenges applying this to multi-domain proteins and presented some ideas how to overcome existing limitations, in principle. We observed that sufficiently challenging data set separations were crucial to provide deeply relevant insights into the behavior of nearest neighbor search when applied to the protein embedding space, and made all our methods readily available for others.
Towards mechanobiologically optimized mandible reconstruction: CAD/CAM miniplates vs. reconstruction plates for fibula free flap fixation: A finite element study
Authors: Ruf Philipp , Orassi Vincenzo , Fischer Heilwig , Steffen Claudius , Duda Georg N. , Heiland Max , Kreutzer Kilian , Checa Sara , Rendenbach Carsten
Published: November 2022

Due to their advantages in applicability, patient-specific (CAD/CAM) reconstruction plates are increasingly used in fibula free flap mandible reconstruction. In addition, recently, CAD/CAM miniplates, with further advantages in postoperative management, have been introduced. However, biomechanical conditions induced by CAD/CAM systems remain partially unknown. This study aimed to evaluate the primary fixation stability of CAD/CAM fixators. For a patient-specific scenario, the biomechanical conditions induced in a one segmental fibula free flap stabilized using either a CAD/CAM reconstruction plate or CAD/CAM miniplates were determined using finite element analysis. The main output parameters were the strains between intersegmental bone surfaces and stresses in the fixation systems due to different biting scenarios. CAD/CAM miniplates resulted in higher mechanical strains in the mesial interosseous gap, whereas CAD/CAM reconstruction plate fixation resulted in higher strains in the distal interosseous gap. For all investigated fixation systems, stresses in the fixation systems were below the material yield stress and thus material failure would not be expected. While the use of CAD/CAM miniplates resulted in strain values considered adequate to promote bone healing in the mesial interosseous gap, in the distal interosseous gap CAD/CAM reconstruction plate fixation might result in more beneficial tissue straining. A mechanical failure of the fixation systems would not be expected.
Thymic stromal lymphopoietin-stimulated CD4+ T cells induce senescence in advanced breast cancer
Authors: Boieri Margherita , Marchese Emanuela , Pham Quan Minh , Azin Marjan , Steidl Lauren E. , Malishkevich Anna , Demehri Shadmehr
Published: November 2022

Thymic Stromal Lymphopoietin (TSLP) plays a prominent role in inducing type 2 immune response, commonly associated with atopic diseases. TSLP-activated CD4+ T helper 2 cells block early carcinogenesis by inducing terminal differentiation in spontaneous breast and lung cancer models. However, the impact of TSLP induction on advanced cancer with altered cellular phenotypes is unclear. Using an established MMTV-PyMttg breast cancer cell line, we demonstrate that TSLP-stimulated CD4+ T cells possess an antitumor effect in advanced breast cancer. In contrast to early breast cancer suppression, the antitumor immunity mediated by TSLP-stimulated CD4+ T cells in advanced breast cancer is mediated by the induction of a senescent-like phenotype in cancer cells. Inflammatory CD4+ T cells drive breast cancer cells into senescence by releasing interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-alpha, which directly bind to their receptors on cancer cells. Our findings reveal a novel mechanism of TSLP-activated CD4+ T cell immunity against advanced breast cancer, mediated by cellular senescence as a distinct effector mechanism for cancer immunotherapy.
Gut-kidney axis in IgA nephropathy: Role on mesangial cell metabolism and inflammation
Authors: Luvizotto Mateus Justi , Menezes-Silva Luísa , Woronik Viktoria , Monteiro Renato C. , Câmara Niels Olsen Saraiva
Published: November 2022

IgA Nephropathy (IgAN) is the commonest primary glomerular disease around the world and represents a significant cause of end-stage renal disease. IgAN is characterized by mesangial deposition of IgA-immune complexes and mesangial expansion. The pathophysiological process includes an abnormally glycosylated IgA1, which is an antigenic target. Autoantibodies specifically recognize galactose-deficient IgA1 forming immune complexes that are amplified in size by the soluble IgA Fc receptor CD89 leading to deposition in the mesangium through interaction with non-classical IgA receptors. The local production of cytokines promotes local inflammation and complement system activation, besides the stimulation of mesangial proliferation. The spectrum of clinical manifestations is quite variable from asymptomatic microscopic hematuria to rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis. Despite all the advances, the pathophysiology of the disease is still not fully elucidated. The mucosal immune system is quoted to be a factor in triggering IgAN and a “gut-kidney axis” is proposed in its development. Furthermore, many recent studies have demonstrated that food intake interferes directly with disease prognosis. In this review, we will discuss how mucosal immunity, microbiota, and nutritional status could be interfering directly with the activation of intrinsic pathways of the mesangial cells, directly resulting in changes in their function, inflammation and development of IgAN.
Epimedii Herba: An ancient Chinese herbal medicine in the prevention and treatment of rheumatoid arthritis
Authors: Zhang Liu-Bo , Yan Yu , He Jun , Wang Pei-Pei , Chen Xin , Lan Tian-Yi , Guo Yu-Xuan , Wang Jin-Ping , Luo Jing , Yan Ze-Ran , Xu Yuan , Tao Qing-Wen
Published: November 2022

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, progressive inflammatory and systemic autoimmune disease resulting in severe joint destruction, lifelong suffering and considerable disability. Diverse prescriptions of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) containing Epimedii Herba (EH) achieve greatly curative effects against RA. The present review aims to systemically summarize the therapeutic effect, pharmacological mechanism, bioavailability and safety assessment of EH to provide a novel insight for subsequent studies. The search terms included were “Epimedii Herba”, “yinyanghuo”, “arthritis, rheumatoid” and “Rheumatoid Arthritis”, and relevant literatures were collected on the database such as Google Scholar, Pubmed, Web of Science and CNKI. In this review, 15 compounds from EH for the treatment of RA were summarized from the aspects of anti-inflammatory, immunoregulatory, cartilage and bone protective, antiangiogenic and antioxidant activities. Although EH has been frequently used to treat RA in clinical practice, studies on mechanisms of these activities are still scarce. Various compounds of EH have the multifunctional traits in the treatment of RA, so EH may be a great complementary medicine option and it is necessary to pay more attention to further research and development.
Upconversion rare Earths nanomaterials applied to photodynamic therapy and bioimaging
Authors: Rezende Thaís K. L. , Barbosa Helliomar P. , dos Santos Luiz F. , de O. Lima Karmel , Alves de Matos Patrícia , Tsubone Tayana M. , Gonçalves Rogéria R. , Ferrari Jefferson L.
Published: November 2022

Light-based therapies and diagnoses including photodynamic therapy (PDT) have been used in many fields of medicine, including the treatment of non-oncological diseases and many types of cancer. PDT require a light source and a light-sensitive compound, called photosensitizer (PS), to detect and destroy cancer cells. After absorption of the photon, PS molecule gets excited from its singlet ground state to a higher electronically excited state which, among several photophysical processes, can emit light (fluorescence) and/or generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). Moreover, the biological responses are activated only in specific areas of the tissue that have been submitted to exposure to light. The success of the PDT depends on many parameters, such as deep light penetration on tissue, higher PS uptake by undesired cells as well as its photophysical and photochemical characteristics. One of the challenges of PDT is the depth of penetration of light into biological tissues. Because photon absorption and scattering occur simultaneously, these processes depend directly on the light wavelength. Using PS that absorbs photons on “optical transparency windows” of biological tissues promises deeper penetration and less attenuation during the irradiation process. The traditional PS normally is excited by a higher energy photon (UV-Vis light) which has become the Achilles’ heel in photodiagnosis and phototreatment of deep-seated tumors below the skin. Thus, the need to have an effective upconverter sensitizer agent is the property in which it absorbs light in the near-infrared (NIR) region and emits in the visible and NIR spectral regions. The red emission can contribute to the therapy and the green and NIR emission to obtain the image, for example. The absorption of NIR light by the material is very interesting because it allows greater penetration depth for in vivo bioimaging and can efficiently suppress autofluorescence and light scattering. Consequently, the penetration of NIR radiation is greater, activating the biophotoluminescent material within the cell. Thus, materials containing Rare Earth (RE) elements have a great advantage for these applications due to their attractive optical and physicochemical properties, such as several possibilities of excitation wavelengths – from UV to NIR, strong photoluminescence emissions, relatively long luminescence decay lifetimes (µs to ms), and high sensitivity and easy preparation. In resume, the relentless search for new systems continues. The contribution and understanding of the mechanisms of the various physicochemical properties presented by this system is critical to finding a suitable system for cancer treatment via PDT.
Advances in platinum-based and platinum-free oxygen reduction reaction catalysts for cathodes in direct methanol fuel cells
Authors: Qin Chu , Tian Shijun , Wang Wenjie , Jiang Zhong-Jie , Jiang Zhongqing
Published: November 2022

Direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) have been the focus of future research because of their simple structure, abundant fuel sources, high energy conversion efficiency and low cost. Among the components in DMFC, the activity and stability of the cathode catalyst is the key to the performance and lifetime of the DMFCs. Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is an important electrode reaction on DMFC cathode. It is known that Pt is widely used in the fabrication of ORR catalysts, but the limited earth storage of Pt and its high price limit the use of Pt-based commercial catalysts in DMFCs. To overcome these problems, advances have been made on new low Pt-based catalysts and Pt-free catalysts in recent years. In this article, the development of novel ORR catalysts and the carbon supports is reviewed and discussed.
Study of the anticancer effect of new quinazolinone hydrazine derivatives as receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors
Authors: Mortazavi Motahareh , Divar Masoumeh , Damghani Tahereh , Moosavi Fatemeh , Saso Luciano , Pirhadi Somayeh , Khoshneviszadeh Mehdi , Edraki Najmeh , Firuzi Omidreza
Published: November 2022

The advent of novel receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors has provided an important therapeutic tool for cancer patients. In this study, a series of quinazolinone hydrazide triazole derivatives were designed and synthesized as novel MET (c-MET) receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The antiproliferative effect of the synthesized compounds was examined against EBC-1, A549, HT-29 and U-87MG cells by MTT assay. MET kinase inhibitory effect was tested by a Homogenous Time Resolved Fluorescence (HTRF) assay. The antiproliferative effect of compounds in a three-dimensional spheroid culture was studied by acid phosphatase (APH) assay, while apoptosis induction was examined by Hoechst 33258 staining. We found that compound CM9 bearing p-bromo benzyl pendant inhibited MET kinase activity at the concentrations of 10–50 μM (% Inhibition = 37.1–66.3%). Compound CM9 showed antiproliferative effect against cancer cells, in particular lung cancer cells with MET amplification (EBC-1) with an IC50 value of 8.6 μM. Moreover, this derivative inhibited cell growth in spheroid cultures in a dose-dependent manner and induced apoptosis in cancer cells. Assessment of inhibitory effect of CM9 against a panel of 18 different protein kinases demonstrated that this compound also inhibits ALK, AXL, FGFR1, FLT1 (VEGFR1) and FLT4 (VEGFR3) more than 50% at 25 μM. Finally, molecular docking and dynamics simulation corroborated the experimental findings and showed critical structural features for the interactions between CM9 and target kinases. The findings of this study present quinazolinone hydrazide triazole derivatives as kinase inhibitors with considerable anticancer effects.
An algebra for local histograms
Authors: Sporring Jon , Darkner Sune
Published: November 2022

In this article, we consider local overlapping histograms of functions between discrete domains and codomains. We develop a simple algebra for local histograms. Based on a separation of overlapping domains into non-overlapping domains, we (1) show how these can be used to enumerate the size of the set of possible histograms given the local histogram domains, and (2) enumerate the number of functions, which share a specific choice of a set of local histograms. Finally, we present a decoding algorithm, which given a set of overlapping histograms, and calculate the set of functions, which share these histograms.
A review of the application of virtual reality technology in higher education based on Web of Science literature data as an example
Authors: Ding Xiaoqin , Li Zhe
Published: November 2022

In recent years, with the rapid development of information technology, the visualization and interaction of virtual reality technology has developed, making the application of VR technology in education more and more attractive to scholars. This paper adopts the literature analysis method, focusing on the application of VR technology in the field of higher education, selects 80 empirical studies in the Web of Science literature database, conducts in-depth reading and analysis of the papers, and summarizes the experience of applying VR technology in the field of higher education. In order to deepen the application of VR in higher education. The research results show that the research objects of VR application in higher education are mainly undergraduates, the main majors of application are science, engineering and medical related majors, and the application of humanities and social sciences is relatively rare. At present, the devices used for VR in higher education are mainly computers and headsets, which are not portable enough. In addition, students lack guidance and training in the use of VR equipment before class. Compared with traditional education, most of the studies show that the application of VR to higher education and teaching has positive effects, mainly by affecting students' behaviors to affect students' learning results. The researchers mainly use traditional evaluation methods to evaluate teaching effects, use questionnaires and tests to collect data, and use data analysis methods mainly difference analysis and descriptive analysis. Based on the research results, the researchers put forward some suggestions at the end of the paper.
Videoconferencing fatigue and online student engagement among Filipino senior high school students: A mixed methods study
Authors: Dacillo Mikaela Jasmin F. , Dizon Jhoana Katrina M. , Ong Earl Johann T. , Pingol Althea Mae L. , Cleofas Jerome V.
Published: November 2022

Introduction

The ubiquity of online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic induced the widespread use of videoconferencing applications. However, the prolonged use of these applications can lead to videoconferencing fatigue. Drawing from an online survey sample of 215 senior high school students from a selected private university in Manila, Philippines, this mixed methods study examines videoconferencing fatigue and its relationship with online student engagement (OSE) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Materials and methods

This study utilized a convergent triangulation research design. The quantitative strand was cross-sectional in nature. The constructs were measured using the Zoom Exhaustion and Fatigue Scale and Online Student Engagement Scale. Bivariate and multivariate statistical tests were used to determine the significance of the relationships between variables. The qualitative strand utilized a descriptive design. Narrative data were collected through an open-ended survey question and analyzed using content analysis.

Results

Quantitative results indicate moderate to high levels of videoconferencing fatigue among student respondents. Moreover, higher levels of OSE were observed among those who endured higher visual fatigue and attended videoconferences more days a week. Qualitative findings demonstrate various manifestations of videoconferencing fatigue among students and relate it with decreased energy to perform academic tasks and learning absorption. However, the qualitative analysis also reveals students’ perceived need for videoconferencing to learn online.

Discussion

The nuanced insights from both strands highlight that despite their perceived negative impacts of videoconferencing, students had to tolerate visual videoconferencing fatigue in order to engage meaningfully in online classes.
Climate-informed monthly runoff prediction model using machine learning and feature importance analysis
Authors: Yan Lei , Lei Qingwen , Jiang Cong , Yan Pengtao , Ren Zheng , Liu Bin , Liu Zhangjun
Published: November 2022

Accurate runoff prediction can provide a reliable decision-making basis for flood and drought disaster prevention and scientific allocation of water resources. Selecting appropriate predictors is an effective way to improve the accuracy of runoff prediction. However, the runoff process is influenced by numerous local and global hydrometeorological factors, and there is still no universal approach about the selection of suitable predictors from these factors. To address this problem, we proposed a runoff prediction model by combining machine learning (ML) and feature importance analysis (FIA-ML). Specifically, take the monthly runoff prediction of Yingluoxia, China as an example, the FIA-ML model uses mutual information (MI) and feature importance ranking method based on random forest (RF) to screen suitable predictors, from 130 global climate factors and several local hydrometeorological information, as the input of ML models, namely the hybrid kernel support vector machine (HKSVM), extreme learning machine (ELM), generalized regression neural network (GRNN), and multiple linear regression (MLR). An improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO) is used to estimate model parameters of ML. The results indicated that the performance of the FIA-ML is better than widely-used long short-term memory neural network (LSTM) and seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA). Particularly, the Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency coefficients of the FIA-ML models with HKSVM and ELM were both greater than 0.9. More importantly, the FIA-ML models can explicitly explain which physical factors have significant impacts on runoff, thus strengthening the physical meaning of the runoff prediction model.
Seasonal freeze-thaw characteristics of soil carbon pools under different vegetation restoration types on the Longzhong Loess Plateau
Authors: Liu Shuainan , Wu Jiangqi , Li Guang , Yang Chuanjie , Yuan Jianyu , Xie Mingjun
Published: November 2022

Soil carbon pools are important for maintaining the stability of the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems and regulating climate change. However, it is not clear how soil carbon pools change under different vegetation restoration types at high altitudes during frequent seasonal freeze-thaws (FTs). Therefore, we studied the seasonal FT variability (before freezing, early stages of freezing, stable freeze stage, thawing stage) of soil organic carbon (SOC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), and easily oxidized organic carbon (EOC) under three vegetation restoration types (Grassland, GL; Caragana korshinskii, CK; Xanthoceras sorbifolia, XS) on the Longzhong Loess Plateau region. We found that during the seasonal FT, the 0–40 cm SOC, MBC, DOC, and EOC contents were higher in XS vegetation than in GL and CK vegetation, but the sensitivity index of SOC was lower in XS vegetation (sensitivity index = 2.79 to 9.91). In the 0–40 cm soil layer, the seasonal FT process reduced the MBC content and increased the DOC content in the three vegetation soils. Meanwhile, DOC and EOC contents accumulated obviously in the stable freezing period and decreased significantly in the thawing period. We also found that the SOC, MBC, DOC, and EOC contents were higher in the surface soils (0–10 cm) than in the underlying soils (10–20 and 20–40 cm), while the sensitivity of the soil carbon pool fractions to seasonal FT processes differed considerably between soil depths. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showed that soil total nitrogen, temperature, total phosphorus, and soil water content were important environmental factors influencing soil carbon pool fractions during seasonal FT. This study suggested that in the Longzhong Loess Plateau region, soil MBC and DOC were more susceptible to seasonal FT phenomena and that the soil system of the Xanthoceras sorbifolia vegetation had a stronger soil C sequestration function during the seasonal FT process.
Fragile sites, chromosomal lesions, tandem repeats, and disease
Authors: Mirceta Mila , Shum Natalie , Schmidt Monika H. M. , Pearson Christopher E.
Published: November 2022

Expanded tandem repeat DNAs are associated with various unusual chromosomal lesions, despiralizations, multi-branched inter-chromosomal associations, and fragile sites. Fragile sites cytogenetically manifest as localized gaps or discontinuities in chromosome structure and are an important genetic, biological, and health-related phenomena. Common fragile sites (∼230), present in most individuals, are induced by aphidicolin and can be associated with cancer; of the 27 molecularly-mapped common sites, none are associated with a particular DNA sequence motif. Rare fragile sites (≳ 40 known), ≤ 5% of the population (may be as few as a single individual), can be associated with neurodevelopmental disease. All 10 molecularly-mapped folate-sensitive fragile sites, the largest category of rare fragile sites, are caused by gene-specific CGG/CCG tandem repeat expansions that are aberrantly CpG methylated and include FRAXA, FRAXE, FRAXF, FRA2A, FRA7A, FRA10A, FRA11A, FRA11B, FRA12A, and FRA16A. The minisatellite-associated rare fragile sites, FRA10B, FRA16B, can be induced by AT-rich DNA-ligands or nucleotide analogs. Despiralized lesions and multi-branched inter-chromosomal associations at the heterochromatic satellite repeats of chromosomes 1, 9, 16 are inducible by de-methylating agents like 5-azadeoxycytidine and can spontaneously arise in patients with ICF syndrome (Immunodeficiency Centromeric instability and Facial anomalies) with mutations in genes regulating DNA methylation. ICF individuals have hypomethylated satellites I-III, alpha-satellites, and subtelomeric repeats. Ribosomal repeats and subtelomeric D4Z4 megasatellites/macrosatellites, are associated with chromosome location, fragility, and disease. Telomere repeats can also assume fragile sites. Dietary deficiencies of folate or vitamin B12, or drug insults are associated with megaloblastic and/or pernicious anemia, that display chromosomes with fragile sites. The recent discovery of many new tandem repeat expansion loci, with varied repeat motifs, where motif lengths can range from mono-nucleotides to megabase units, could be the molecular cause of new fragile sites, or other chromosomal lesions. This review focuses on repeat-associated fragility, covering their induction, cytogenetics, epigenetics, cell type specificity, genetic instability (repeat instability, micronuclei, deletions/rearrangements, and sister chromatid exchange), unusual heritability, disease association, and penetrance. Understanding tandem repeat-associated chromosomal fragile sites provides insight to chromosome structure, genome packaging, genetic instability, and disease.
Underwater object detection algorithm based on attention mechanism and cross-stage partial fast spatial pyramidal pooling
Authors: Yan Jinghui , Zhou Zhuang , Zhou Dujuan , Su Binghua , Xuanyuan Zhe , Tang Jialin , Lai Yunting , Chen Jiongjiang , Liang Wanxin
Published: November 2022

For the routine target detection algorithm in the underwater complex environment to obtain the image of the existence of blurred images, complex background and other phenomena, leading to difficulties in model feature extraction, target miss detection and other problems. Meanwhile, an improved YOLOv7 model is proposed in order to improve the accuracy and real-time performance of the underwater target detection model. The improved model is based on the single-stage target detection model YOLOv7, incorporating the CBAM attention mechanism in the model, so that the feature information of the detection target is weighted and enhanced in the spatial dimension and the channel dimension, capturing the local relevance of feature information, making the model more focused on target feature information, improved detection accuracy, and using the SPPFCSPC module, reducing the computational effort of the model while keeping the model perceptual field unchanged, improved inference speed of the model. After a large number of comparison experiments and ablation experiments, it is proved that our proposed ACFP-YOLO algorithm model has higher detection accuracy compared with Efficientdet, Faster-RCNN, SSD, YOLOv3, YOLOv4, YOLOv5 models and the latest YOLOv7 model, and is more accurate for target detection tasks in complex underwater environments advantages.
Advancing real-time pH sensing capabilities to monitor coastal acidification as measured in a productive and dynamic estuary (Ría de Arousa, NW Spain)
Authors: Velo Anton , Padin Xose Antonio
Published: November 2022

Ocean acidification has critical impacts on marine ecosystems, but presents knowledge gaps on the ecological impacts requiring large-scale monitoring of physicochemical conditions to predict biological responses to ocean pH projections. The threat is especially significant in coastal regions like upwelling areas which are more sensitive and appear to respond more rapidly to anthropogenic perturbations. These ecosystems, such as the northwest coast of the Iberian Peninsula are characterized by complex physical and biogeochemical interactions, supporting enormous biological productivity and productive fisheries. The distribution of pH in upwelling systems has high variability on short temporal and spatial scales preventing a complete picture of acidification, which exhibit long-term pH rates markedly different from the measured in open waters. This motivation to significantly expand the coverage of pH monitoring in coastal areas has driven us to develop an autonomous pH monitoring instrument (from now on SURCOM) based on the Honeywell Durafet® pH electrode. A relevant feature is that SURCOM transmits near real-time pH and temperature measurements every 10.5 min through SIGFOX®, a low-power, low-bandwidth network for data transmission. This very careful design allows us to achieve a very low power consumption for the complete system resulting in 3 years of full autonomy with no other need than external cleaning and calibration. In this paper we describe the setup and the data set obtained by a SURCOM instrument over 240 days in a highly productive and dynamic coastal ecosystem, the Ría de Arousa embayment, providing valuable information on the performance of these low-cost and highly stable sensors, with potential for improving the pH variability description in nearshore systems and for reinforcing the monitoring-modeling of coastal acidification.
Evidence of phytoplankton blooms under Antarctic sea ice
Authors: Horvat Christopher , Bisson Kelsey , Seabrook Sarah , Cristi Antonia , Matthes Lisa C.
Published: November 2022

Areas covered in compact sea ice were often assumed to prohibit upper-ocean photosynthesis. Yet, under-ice phytoplankton blooms (UIBs) have increasingly been observed in the Arctic, driven by anthropogenic changes to the optical properties of Arctic sea ice. Here, we show evidence that the Southern Ocean may also support widespread UIBs. We compile 77 time series of water column samples from biogeochemical Argo floats that profiled under compact (80%–100% concentration) sea ice in austral spring–summer since 2014. We find that that nearly all (88%) such measurements recorded increasing phytoplankton biomass before the seasonal retreat of sea ice. A significant fraction (26%) met a observationally determined threshold for an under-ice bloom, with an average maximum chlorophyll-a measurement of 1.13 mg/m3. We perform a supporting analysis of joint light, sea ice, and ocean conditions from ICESat-2 laser altimetry and climate model contributions to CMIP6, finding that from 3 to 5 million square kilometers of the compact-ice-covered Southern Ocean has sufficient conditions to support light-limited UIBs. Comparisons between the frequency of bloom observations and modeled bloom predictions invite future work into mechanisms sustaining or limiting under-ice phytoplankton blooms in the Southern Hemisphere.
Dynamics of extracellular polymeric substances and soil organic carbon with mangrove zonation along a continuous tidal gradient
Authors: Liu Dong-Xi , Mai Zhi-Mao , Sun Cui-Ci , Zhou Yan-Wu , Liao Hui-Huang , Wang You-Shao , Cheng Hao
Published: November 2022

The importance of mangroves in blue carbon storage has been widely reported. However, the potential contribution of microbial extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) to the carbon pool is still poorly understood in mangrove ecosystems. Thus, a natural mangrove reserve located in Gaoqiao was chosen to investigate the linkage between microbial EPS and sediment organic carbon. Sequential resin extraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and 16S high-throughput sequencing were employed to determine the variations in EPS and bacterial taxa in different mangrove communities. Both EPS and EPS-C increased significantly with mangrove zonation from seaward to landward, irrespective of the EPS subfractions (colloidal and bound EPS) and components (extracellular protein and polysaccharide). Moreover, both EPS and EPS-C were found to be positively correlated with soil organic carbon. The present data further showed that EPS-C accounted for 1.84~10.69% of TOC in surface sediments. Multiple functional groups (e.g., O-H, N-H, and C=O), which may provide ligands for particle adsorption and complexation, were identified by FTIR. Consistent with the ascend of EPS with mangrove zonation from seaward to landward, the highest transmittance intensity for all functional groups was consistently exhibited in EPS isolated from landward Rhizophoraceae forest. In addition, the present data also indicated an interesting positive linkage between EPS and the abundance of some specific bacterial taxa, such as Rhizobiales, Corynebacteriales, and Gaiellales. In summary, this study claims the importance of EPS in the carbon pool in mangrove ecosystems. The present study may provide a better understanding of the functions of mangroves in carbon stocks.
Performance evaluation of fiber-reinforced concrete produced with steel fibers extracted from waste tire
Authors: Zeybek Özer , Özkılıç Yasin Onuralp , Çelik Ali İhsan , Deifalla Ahmed Farouk , Ahmad Mahmood , Sabri Sabri Mohanad Muayad
Published: November 2022

With the increasing number of vehicles in the world, the amount of waste tires is increasing day by day. In this case, the disposal of expired tires will cause serious environmental problems. In recent years, instead of disposing of tire wastes, most of them have been started to be recycled to produce fiber-reinforced concrete. Thus, steel fibers recovered from waste tires have been preferred as an alternative to industrial steel fibers due to their environmentally friendly and low-cost advantages. In this study, an experimental study was carried out to explore the effect of fiber content on the fresh and hardened state of the concrete. To achieve this goal, compression, splitting tensile, and flexure tests were carried out to observe the performance of the concrete with tire-recycled steel fibers with the ratios of 1%, 2% and 3%. There is an improvement in the mechanical properties of the concrete with the increase of the volume fraction of the steel fiber. However, a significant reduction in workability was observed after the addition of 2% steel fibers. Therefore, it is recommended to utilize 2% tire-recycled steel fibers in practical applications. Furthermore, experimental results of concrete with tire-recycled steel fibers were collected from the literature and empirical equations based on these results were developed in order to predict the compressive and splitting tensile strengths.
PMMS: Predicting essential miRNAs based on multi-head self-attention mechanism and sequences
Authors: Yan Cheng , Ding Changsong , Duan Guihua
Published: November 2022

Increasing evidence has proved that miRNA plays a significant role in biological progress. In order to understand the etiology and mechanisms of various diseases, it is necessary to identify the essential miRNAs. However, it is time-consuming and expensive to identify essential miRNAs by using traditional biological experiments. It is critical to develop computational methods to predict potential essential miRNAs. In this study, we provided a new computational method (called PMMS) to identify essential miRNAs by using multi-head self-attention and sequences. First, PMMS computes the statistic and structure features and extracts the static feature by concatenating them. Second, PMMS extracts the deep learning original feature (BiLSTM-based feature) by using bi-directional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) and pre-miRNA sequences. In addition, we further obtained the multi-head self-attention feature (MS-based feature) based on BiLSTM-based feature and multi-head self-attention mechanism. By considering the importance of the subsequence of pre-miRNA to the static feature of miRNA, we obtained the deep learning final feature (WA-based feature) based on the weighted attention mechanism. Finally, we concatenated WA-based feature and static feature as an input to the multilayer perceptron) model to predict essential miRNAs. We conducted five-fold cross-validation to evaluate the prediction performance of PMMS. The areas under the ROC curves (AUC), the F1-score, and accuracy (ACC) are used as performance metrics. From the experimental results, PMMS obtained best prediction performances (AUC: 0.9556, F1-score: 0.9030, and ACC: 0.9097). It also outperformed other compared methods. The experimental results also illustrated that PMMS is an effective method to identify essential miRNA.
Using inflammatory index to distinguish asthma, asthma-COPD overlap and COPD: A retrospective observational study
Authors: Ma Haiman , Yang Liu , Liu Lingli , Zhou Ying , Guo Xiaoya , Wu Shuo , Zhang Xiaoxiao , Xu Xi , Ti Xinyu , Qu Shuoyao
Published: November 2022

Background

Although asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are two well-defined and distinct diseases, some patients present combined clinical features of both asthma and COPD, particularly in smokers and the elderly, a condition termed as asthma-COPD overlap (ACO). However, the definition of ACO is yet to be established and clinical guidelines to identify and manage ACO remain controversial. Therefore, in this study, inflammatory biomarkers were established to distinguish asthma, ACO, and COPD, and their relationship with the severity of patients’ symptoms and pulmonary function were explored.

Materials and methods

A total of 178 patients, diagnosed with asthma (n = 38), ACO (n = 44), and COPD (n = 96) between January 2021 to June 2022, were enrolled in this study. The patients’ pulmonary function was examined and routine blood samples were taken for the analysis of inflammatory indexes. Logistic regression analysis was used to establish inflammatory biomarkers for distinguishing asthma, ACO, and COPD; linear regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between inflammatory indexes and symptom severity and pulmonary function.

Result

The results showed that, compared with ACO, the higher the indexes of platelet, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and eosinophil-basophil ratio (EBR), the more likely the possibility of asthma and COPD in patients, while the higher the eosinophils, the less likely the possibility of asthma and COPD. Hemoglobin and lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR) were negatively correlated with the severity of patients’ symptoms, while platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) was negatively correlated with forced expiratory volume in the 1 s/forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) and FEV1 percent predicted (% pred), and EBR was positively correlated with FEV1% pred.

Conclusion

Inflammatory indexes are biomarkers for distinguishing asthma, ACO, and COPD, which are of clinical significance in therapeutic strategies and prognosis evaluation.