bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Actinoplanes aureus sp. nov., a novel protease-producing actinobacterium isolated from soil
Authors: Sun Xiujun , Luo Xianxian , He Chuan , Huang Zhenzhen , Zhao Junwei , He Beiru , Du Xiaowen , Xiang Wensheng , Song Jia , Wang Xiangjing
Published: April 2021

A novel protease-producing actinobacterium, designated strain NEAU-A11T, was isolated from soil collected from Aohan banner, Chifeng, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China, and characterised using a polyphasic approach. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain NEAU-A11T was indicated to belong to the genus Actinoplanes and was most closely related to Actinoplanes rectilineatus JCM 3194T (98.9 %). Cell walls contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and the whole-cell sugars were arabinose, xylose and glucose. The phospholipid profile contained diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol and two phosphatidylinositol mannosides. The predominant menaquinones were MK-9(H4), MK-9(H6) and MK-9(H8). The major fatty acids were C18:0, C16:0, C18:1 ω9c, C17:0 and C15:0. Genome sequencing revealed a genome size of 10,742,096 bp, a G + C content of 70.5 % and 9,514 protein-coding genes (CDSs), including 102 genes coding for protease. Genome mining analysis using antiSMASH 5.0 led to the identification of 20 putative gene clusters responsible for the production of diverse secondary metabolites. Phylogenetic analysis using the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the strain formed a stable clade with A. rectilineatus JCM 3194T in the genus Actinoplanes. However, whole-genome average nucleotide identity (ANI) value and the levels of digital DNA-DNA (dDDH) hybridization between strain NEAU- A11T and A. rectilineatus JCM 3194T was 81.1 % and 24.6 % (22.2–27.0 %), respectively. The values were well below the criteria for species delineation of 70% for dDDH and 95–96% for ANI, suggesting that the isolate differed genetically from its closely related type strain. In addition, evidences from phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic studies indicate that strain NEAU-A11T represents a novel species of the genus Actinoplanes, for which the name Actinoplanes aureus sp. nov. is proposed, with NEAU-A11T (= CCTCC AA 2019063T = JCM 33971T) as the type strain.
Adapting to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on a randomized controlled trial examining lifestyle behaviors on cognitive functioning in obese African American adults: Building Research in Diet and Cognition (BRIDGE)
Authors: Fitzgibbon Marian , Blumstein Lara , Schiffer Linda , Antonic Mirjana , McLeod Andrew , Dakers Roxanne , Restrepo Leo , Boots Elizabeth , Sanchez-Flack Jennifer , Tussing-Humphreys Lisa , Lamar Melissa
Published: April 2021

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered the research landscape for clinical trials, requiring thoughtful consideration regarding how to handle the risks and benefits of continuing them. Design. This brief report describes the experience of adapting the Building Research in Diet and Cognition (BRIDGE) study, a randomized clinical trial examining the effects of the Mediterranean Diet, with and without weight loss, on cognitive functioning in 185 older obese African American adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. Measurement. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) developed an expedited amendment process for research shifting to remote data collection. For the Cohort 3, 14-month data collection period, we adapted our protocol to allow data collection via telephone and e-mail. We were unable to collect certain measures that required face-to face contact. Results. For measures that could be collected remotely, 14-month retention was similar for Cohort 3 and earlier cohorts: data were collected for 86.9% of cohort 3 (remote) and 87.9% of cohorts 1 and2 (face to face), p = .84. Conclusions. In order to preserve the integrity of our clinical trial and ensure the safety of our participants and staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to carefully and efficiently adapt our data collection procedures. The procedures put in place allowed us to collect our primary outcomes and the majority of our secondary outcomes and will enable us to examine the role of dietary intake, with and without weight loss, on cognitive functioning in a vulnerable and high-risk population. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03129048
The rooting ability of in-vitro shoot cultures established from a UK collection of the common ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) and their ex-vitro survival
Authors: Fenning Trevor Malcolm , O’Donnell Margaret , Preedy Katharine , Bézanger Aurélia , Kenyon David , Lopez Gustavo
Published: April 2021

There is renewed in the tissue culture of the European ash in response to ash dieback disease. Shoot cultures were established for 135 clones from 13 ash mother trees from the UK’s national collection, on DKW medium with 3ppm of BAP. Most were generated from hypocotyl pieces excised from sterile germinating mature ash seeds. Another 24 clones were lost to bacterial contamination, which was identified as Bacillus megaterium or possibly a close relative. These cultures were disposed of as it was difficult to eliminate the bacterium from them. The ability of all of the cultures to produce rooted plants capable of normal growth under nursery conditions was tested by exposing excised shoots to DKW medium with 3ppm IBA for 2 weeks, followed by 4–6 weeks on hormone-free medium. Across all experiments 41.5% of uncontaminated plants and 11.6% of contaminated plants produced roots in-vitro. Although differences were observed in the rooting ability between clones, families and from trial to trial, the only significant effect was whether the shoots were contaminated or not. In addition, 92.6% of the uncontaminated plants survived the transfer to the nursery as opposed to 62.1% of the contaminated plants. We show here that a single methodology can be successfully used to produce large numbers of clonal ash plants on demand from a wide cross-section of the UK’s ash breeding population, although contamination issues will need to be closely monitored for this approach to be used as part of the strategy for combating overcoming ash dieback disease.
Improvement of the LbCas12a-crRNA system for efficient gene targeting in plants
Authors: Vu Tien Van , Doan Duong Thi Hai , Tran Mil Thi , Sung Yeon Woo , Song Young Jong , Kim Jae-Yean
Published: April 2021

Plant gene targeting (GT) can be utilized to precisely replace up to several kilobases of a plant genome. Recent studies using the powerful clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated (Cas) nucleases significantly improved plant GT efficiency. However, GT for loci without associated selection markers is still inefficient. We previously utilized Lachnospiraceae bacterium Cas12a (LbCas12a) in combination with a replicon for tomato GT and obtained high GT efficiency with some selection markers. In this study, we optimize and advance our GT system by using a temperature-tolerant LbCas12a (ttLbCas12a) in combination with various crRNA forms and chemical treatments to suppress the canonical non-homologous end-joining pathway in tomato. Our work demonstrates the significance of the selection of gene scissors, the appropriate design and number of LbCas12a crRNAs, the use of chemical treatments, and the establishment of favorable experimental conditions for further enhancement of plant HDR to enable efficient GT in tomato.
Parkinson's Detection Based On Combined CNN And LSTM Using Enhanced Speech Signals With Variational Mode Decomposition
Authors: ER Mehmet Bilal , ISIK Esme , ISIK Ibrahim
Published: April 2021

The dysfunction of the cells in the brain that contain the substance known as dopamine, which enables brain cells to interact with each other, results in Parkinson's disease (PD). PD can cause many non-motor and motor symptoms such as speech and smell. One of the difficulties that Parkinson’s patients can experience is a change in speech or speaking difficulties. Therefore, the right diagnosis in the early period is important in reducing the possible effects of speech disorders caused by the disease. Speech signal of Parkinson patients shows major differences compared to normal people. In this study, a new approach based on pre-trained deep networks and Long short-term memory (LSTM) by using mel-spectrograms obtained from denoised speech signals with Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) for detecting PD from speech sounds is proposed. The proposed model consists of four stages. In the first step, the noise is removed by applying VMD to the signals. In the second stage, Mel-spectrograms are extracted from the enhanced sound signals with VMD. In the third stage, pre-trained deep networks are preferred to extract deep features from the Mel-spectrograms. For this purpose, ResNet-18, ResNet-50 and ResNet-101 models are used as pre-trained deep network architecture. In the last step, the classification process is occured by giving these features as input to the LSTM model, which is designed to define sequential information from the extracted features. Experiments are performed with the PC-GITA dataset, which consists of two classes and is widely used in the literature. The results obtained from the proposed method are compared with the latest methods in the literature, it is seen that it has a better performance in terms of classification performance.
Factor Graph Weight Particles aided Distributed Underwater Cooperative Positioning Algorithm
Authors: zhang lingling , yu baoguo , Tang Chengkai , zhang yi , Song Houbing
Published: April 2021

The growing scale of marine exploration requires high-resolution underwater localization, which necessitates cooperation among underwater network nodes, considering the channel complexity and power efficiency. In this paper, we proposed factor graph weight particles aided distributed underwater nodes cooperative positioning algorithm (WP-DUCP). It capitalized on the factor graph and sum-product algorithm to decompose the global optimization to the product of several local optimization functions. Combined with the Gaussian parameters to construct the weighted particles and to realize the belief transfer, it shows low complexity and high efficiency, suitable to the energy-restricted and communication distance-limited underwater networks. In terms of convergence, localization resolution, and computation complexity, we conducted the simulation and real-test with comparison to the existing co-localization methods. The results verified a higher resolution of the proposed method with no extra computation burden.
Two determinantal inequalities for positive semidefinite matrices
Authors: Hong Yan , Qi Feng
Published: April 2021

Let A,B,C ∈ Cnxn be positive semidefinite matrices. In this paper, the authors prove two determinantal inequalities|A+B+C|+|C|≥|A+C|+|B+C|+(3n −2 n+1+1)|ABC|1/3and|A+B+C|+|A|+|B|+|C|≥|A+B|+|A+C|+|B+C|+3(3n−1−2n+1)|ABC|1/3.These two inequalities improve known ones.
Contribution of Soil and Litter Nutrient Characteristics to Plant Nutrients in a Natural Secondary Mixed Forest in the Qinling Mountains, China
Authors: Pang Yue , Tian Jing , Liu Lanxin , Han Lina , Wang Dexiang
Published: April 2021

Soil and litter play important roles in ecosystem nutrient stroage and cycling, which both affect plant growth and ecosystem productivity. However, the potential contributions of soil and litter nutrient characteristics to the nutrient characteristics of different plant functional groups (PFGs) remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations of different organs of three PFGs (trees, shrubs and herbs), litter and soil in nine natural secondary mixed forests in the Qinling Mountains. The results showed that leaves had the highest N and P concentrations and N:P ratios at the organ level, whereas the C:N and C:P values were lowest in leaves. At the PFG level, the N and P concentrations of the same organs in herbaceous plants were significantly higher than those in woody species, while the N:P ratio was significantly lower in herb leaves than in tree and shrub leaves. Tree organs had significantly higher C concentrations and C:N and C:P ratios than shrub and herb organs. The leaf N:P ratios of all PFGs were less than 14, suggested that plant growth was limited by N in the study region. The nutrient contents and stoichiometric ratios in plant organs had different degrees of linkages with those in litter and soil. Soil nutrient characteristics were the main factors affecting the nutrient characteristics of the different PFGs, and litter nutrient characteristics also had important contributions to the nutrient characteristics of PFGs, showing the following order: herbs > trees > shrubs. Our results indicate that the functional difference in plant organs resulted in diverse nutrient concentrations; and varied nutrient connections exist among different ecosystem components. Furthermore, nutrient characteristics of litter and soil can together affect the nutrient characteristics of PFGs.
MacroH2A histone variants modulate enhancer activity to repress oncogenic programs and cellular reprogramming
Authors: Ismail Wazim Mohammed , Mazzone Amelia , Kaur Jagneet , Safgren Stephanie , Moore-Weiss John , Buciuc Marina , Shimp Lynzie , Duarte Luis , Nagi Chandandeep , Carcamo Saul , Chung Chi-Yeh , Hasson Dan , Dadgar Neda , Revzin Alexander , Zhong Jian , Lee Jeong-Heon , Ordog Tamas , Bernstein Emily , Gaspar-Maia Alexandre
Published: April 2021

Considerable efforts have been made to characterize active enhancer elements, which can be annotated by accessible chromatin and H3 lysine 27 acetylation (H3K27ac). However, apart from poised enhancers that are observed in early stages of development and putative silencers, the functional significance of cis-regulatory elements lacking H3K27ac is poorly understood. Here we show that macroH2A histone variants mark a subset of enhancers in normal and cancer cells, which we coined ‘macroH2A-Bound Enhancers’, that negatively modulate enhancer activity. We find macroH2A variants enriched at enhancer elements that are devoid of H3K27ac in a cell type-specific manner, indicating a role for macroH2A at inactive enhancers to maintain cell identity. In following, reactivation of macro-bound enhancers is associated with oncogenic programs in breast cancer and its repressive role is correlated with the activity of macroH2A2 as a negative regulator of BRD4 chromatin occupancy. Finally, through single cell epigenomic profiling, we show that the loss of macroH2A2 leads to increased cellular heterogeneity that may help to explain the role of macroH2A variants in defining oncogenic transcriptional dependencies.
Research on recognition of human lying posture based on Kinect sensor
Authors: Wang Qi , Meng Xianyu , Li Cong , Liu Hongsheng , Yu Xiquan
Published: April 2021

As a high-tech intelligent product, the intelligent nursing bed largely meets the needs of the disabled for self-care, and saves a lot of manpower and material resources. In order to improve the safety and reliability of the intelligent nursing bed and ensure the safety of the user, this paper adds the recognition of the human body's lying posture as a part of the movement signal of the nursing bed. The Kinect sensor is used to track human bones, record human bone data, and preprocess human bone data. Use the pattern recognition toolbox in Matlab to classify the processed data to realize the recognition of the human body's lying posture. The average recognition rate of the five postures is 98.1%. The results show that the model used in this experiment has a high degree of recognition and can greatly improve the safety and reliability of the intelligent nursing bed.
Resilient supply chain network design under disruption and operational risks
Authors: Shi Honghua , Ni Yaodong
Published: April 2021

Nowadays, supply chain resilience has drawn widespread attention from academics and practitioners due to the high likelihood of operational risk and the destructive consequence of disruption risk. However, the studies on resilient supply chain design considering these two types of risks are limited. Furthermore, how to quantify the uncertainty arising from the lack of historical data in the planing stage is not sufficiently studied. Aiming at these problems, this paper presents two uncertain programming models that optimize the strategic decisions before disruptions and supply chain operations after disruptions. The presented models introduce p-robustness measure to bound the cost in disruption scenarios. Besides, uncertainty theory is adopted to handle parameter uncertainty in the absence of historical data. Later, these two programming models are converted into their corresponding deterministic equivalents, which can be solved by cplex. Finally, we illustrate the validity and feasibility of the proposed models and explore the impact of critical parameters on the optimal solution by implementing a series of randomly generated instances and a practical case. The observations may provide some interesting managerial insights for decision-making in reality.
Common and Mutation Specific Phenotypes of KRAS and BRAF Mutations in Colorectal Cancer Cells Revealed by Integrative-Omics Analysis
Authors: Kundu Snehangshu , Ali Muhammad Akhtar , Handin Niklas , Conway Louis P. , Rendo Veronica , Artursson Per , He Liqun , Globisch Daniel , Sjöblom Tobias
Published: April 2021

BackgroundGenes in the Ras pathway have somatic mutations in at least 60 % of colorectal cancers. Despite activating the same pathway, the BRAF V600E mutation and the prevalent mutations in codon 12 and 13 of KRAS have all been linked to different clinical outcomes, but the molecular mechanisms behind these differences largely remain to be clarified.MethodsTo characterize the similarities and differences between common activating KRAS mutations and between KRAS and BRAF mutations, we used genome editing to engineer KRAS G12C/D/V and G13D mutations in colorectal cancer cells that had their mutant BRAF V600E allele removed and subjected them to transcriptome sequencing, global proteomics and metabolomics analyses.ResultsBy intersecting differentially expressed genes, proteins and metabolites, we uncovered (i) two-fold more regulated genes and proteins when comparing KRAS to BRAF mutant cells to those lacking Ras pathway mutation, (ii) five differentially expressed proteins in KRAS mutants compared to cells lacking Ras pathway mutation (IFI16, S100A10, CD44, GLRX and AHNAK2) and 6 (CRABP2, FLNA, NXN, LCP1, S100A10 and S100A2) compared to BRAF mutant cells, (iii) 19 proteins expressed differentially in a KRAS mutation specific manner versus BRAF V600E cells, (iv) regulation of the Integrin Linked Kinase pathway by KRAS but not BRAF mutation, (v) regulation of amino acid metabolism, particularly of the tyrosine, histidine, arginine and proline pathways, the urea cycle and purine metabolism by Ras pathway mutations, (vi) increased free carnitine in KRAS and BRAF mutant RKO cells.ConclusionsThis comprehensive integrative-omics analysis confirms known and adds novel genes, proteins and metabolic pathways regulated by mutant KRAS and BRAF signaling in colorectal cancer. The results from the new model systems presented here can inform future development of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches targeting tumors with KRAS and BRAF mutations.
Effect of Spectral CT on Tumor Microvascular Angiogenesis in Renal Cell Carcinoma
Authors: Zhang Bei , Wu Qiong , Qiu Xiang , Ding Xiaobo , Wang Jin , Li Jing , Sun Pengfei , Hu Xiaohan
Published: April 2021

Background: To examine the value of spectral CT quantitative parameters in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) microvascular angiogenesis.Methods: The authors evaluated 32 patients with pathologically confirmed RCC who underwent triple-phase contrast-enhanced CT with spectral CT imaging mode from January 2017 to December 2019. Quantitative parameters including the parameters derived from iodine concentration (IC) and water concentration (WC) of 120 keV monochromatic images. The microvascular density (MVD), microvascular area (MVA) and etc. al. of specimens were evaluated. The correlation between IC and WC (including average values and random values) with microvascular parameters were analyzed using Pearson or Spearman rank correlation coefficients.Results: The MVD of all tumors was 26.00 (15.00-43.75) vessels per field at ×400 magnification. The MVD of RCC correlated positively with the mean IC, mean WC, mean NWC, mean NIC, random IC, random NIC in renal cortical phase, WCD1, WCD2, NWCD2 and ICD1 (Spearman rank correlation coefficients, r range, 0.362–0.533; all p < 0.05). The MVA of all tumors was (16.16±8.98) % per field at ×400 magnification. The MVA of RCC correlated positively with the mean IC, mean WC, mean NWC, mean NIC, random IC, random NIC in renal cortical, mean WC and mean NWC in renal parenchymal phase, WCD1, WCD2, WCD3, NWCD2, and NWCD3 (Pearson or Spearman rank correlation coefficients, r range, 0.357–0.576; all p < 0.05). Microvascular grading correlated positively with the mean NWC, mean NIC and random NIC in renal cortical phase, mean NWC in renal parenchymal phase, NWCD2, WCD3, NWCD3, NICD2 and NICD3 (Spearman rank correlation coefficients, r range, 0.367–0.520; all p < 0.05). As for tumor diameter (55.19±19.15), μm, only NWCD3 was associated with it (Spearman rank correlation coefficients, r = 0.388; p < 0.05). Conclusions: IC and WC indexes derived from spectral CT, especially the renal cortical phase, difference between renal cortical phase and parenchymal phase were useful indicators for evaluating tumor angiogenesis. Moreover, the difference of the derived parameters of WC in different phases has stronger correlation with tumor angiogenesis than that of IC.
Heterologous Expression and Biochemical Characterization of a Peanut Bowman-Birk Type Inhibitor
Authors: Cheng Lei , Tian Kangming , Mchunu Nokuthula Peace , Niu Dandan , Zhang Meng , Wang Zheng-Xiang
Published: April 2021

Objectives To heterologously express peanut ( Arachis ipaensis ) Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI) and characterize its properties. Results A putative BBI gene from peanut was overexpressed in Pichia pastoris with the maximal yield of 11.1 mg/L in a 250-mL shaking flask fermentation. The recombinant peanut BBI (rPBBI) was purified and its molecular weight was estimated to be 9 kDa. Purified rPBBI showed 5223.6 TIA/mg inhibitory activity toward trypsin. It retained more than 95% of its inhibitory activity over wide range of temperatures (40 to 90 o C) and pH (2.0 to 10.0) after incubation for 60 min. When presence of 100 mM dithiothreitol, rPBBI lost more than 80% inhibitory activity in 30 min. Conclusion The current investigation expressed a peanut BBI with stable inhibitory activity against trypsin and exposed the potential of heterologous overexpression approach in large scale production of BBI.
On Opening Crack Propagation in Viscoelastic Solids
Authors: Persson Bo
Published: April 2021

We show that the Persson-Brener theory of crack propagation in viscoelastic solids gives a viscoelastic fracture energy factor G/G0 = 1 + f which is nearly the same as the viscoelastic factor obtained using the cohesive-zone model. We also discuss finite-size effects and comment on the use of crack propagation theories for “solids” with a viscoelastic modulus that vanishes at zero frequency.
Exploring the Enablers and Barriers to Social Prescribing for People Living With Long-Term Neurological Conditions: A Focus Group Investigation
Authors: Simpson Suzanne , Furlong Moira , Giebel Clarissa
Published: April 2021

Background
People living with Long Term Neurological Conditions (LTNCs) value peer support and social activities. Psychological support and wellbeing enables them to manage their condition. Social prescribing is a formal process of referring patients to a link worker to co-design a plan to improve their health and wellbeing. Intervention involves supporting participation in activities based within the individual’s local community. This study aimed to explore the barriers and enablers to accessing social prescribing for people living with LTNCs (plwLTNCs).
Methods
A total of four focus groups were carried out with 17 participants, including different neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Fragile X Syndrome, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury. Two participants were family carers and supported people living with epilepsy and motor neurone disease. Findings were analysed using thematic analysis.
Results
Five themes were identified: (1) Lack of knowledge; (2) Service provision difficulties; (3) Benefits of social prescribing activities; (4) Physical barriers and (5) Psychological barriers. There was a lack of knowledge about social prescribing and what it actually was. Participants anticipated service provision difficulties relating to funding, link workers need for knowledge of LTNC’s and for activities to be varied and individualised. The potential benefits of social prescribing activities were recognised across the groups especially its potential to tackle loneliness and to offer plwLTNC’s purpose. Participants highlighted a number of physical barriers such as transport and accessibility; and psychological barriers such as anxiety and stigma.
Conclusion
Social prescribing aims to address the health inequalities of those living with long-term conditions, however currently it is likely to exclude plwLTNCs. Recommendations for future research are made.
A Meta-analysis of the Therapeutic Effect of Intranasal Salmon Calcitonin on Osteoporosis
Authors: Li Ning , Gong Yi Chen
Published: April 2021

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of intranasal salmon calcitonin in the treatment of osteoporosis.Methods: eight Chinese and English databases were searched by electronic search (from the establishment of the database to October 2019). The literature was screened according to the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria, the quality was evaluated according to Cochrane software, and the Review Manager 5.2 software was used for statistical analysis. Results: a total of 374 documents were retrieved and 12 (12 original studies) were included after the screening, with a total sample capacity of 1068 cases. Meta-analysis showed that the intranasal salmon calcitonin had obvious advantages in reducing blood calcium, improving the ratio of serum creatinine and alkaline phosphatase. In addition, The intranasal, salmon calcitonin had no obvious advantages in other indicators, It can't be illustrated that the combination of BCS and other conventional drugs is more effective than the simple use of conventional drugs. Conclusion: The intranasal salmon calcitonin is superior to conventional drugs in reducing blood calcium, increasing creatinine ratio, and alkaline phosphatase, but its advantages in other indicators such as improving the bone density of lumbar vertebrae and hip have not been confirmed, and it is not clear that the combination of intranasal salmon calcitonin and other conventional drugs is better than the simple conventional drugs.
Bioinformatics Analyses of Serine Acetyltransferase (SAT) Gene Family in Rice (Oryza sativa) and their Expressions under Salt Stress
Authors: Kurt Fırat , Filiz Ertugrul , Aydın Adnan
Published: April 2021

Assimilation of sulfur to cysteine occurs in the presence of serine acetyltransferase (SAT). In this study, SAT genes in rice (Oryza sativa) were identified and analyzed using bioinformatics approaches. Also, these genes were tested under salt stress. OsSATs have two common motifs, bacterial transferase hexapeptide and acetyltransferase and underwent purifying selection. They have more similar protein sequences compared to Arabidopsis. However, there is structural and functional divergence among OsSATs which may be driven by the segmental and tandem duplications. Purifying selection and gene duplications may also have effect leading to variation of specificity and selectivity of OsSATs. In this regard, Asp (D), His (H), Gly (G), Thr (T), Arg (R), Ala (A), and Leu (L) are identified as well-conserved residues in their active sites which have an indicator role on their functions. The OsSATs expressions in different tissues, organs and under hormones showed that jasmonic acid was main hormone inducing the expressions of OsSAT1;1, OsSAT2;1, and OsSAT2;2 whereas auxin and abscisic acid only triggered OsSAT1;1 expression. On the other hand, wet-lab expressions of OsSATs in this study indicated that OsSAT1;1, OsSAT1;2 and OsSAT1;3 genes were upregulated under different exposure times of salt stress. OsSAT1;1 is the only OsSAT induced by various situmuli. The findings can be used by plant breeders and genetic engineers to develop new rice varieties having optimal growth and stress tolerance.
Association Between Body Mass Index, Its Change And Cognitive Impairment Among Chinese Older Adults: A Community-Based, 9-Year Prospective Cohort Study
Authors: Wu Shanshan , Lv Xiaozhen , Shen Jie , Chen Hui , Ma Yuan , Jin Xurui , Yang Jiaxi , Cao Yaying , Zong Geng , Wang Huali , Yuan Changzheng
Published: April 2021

Objective To examine the association of baseline body mass index (BMI) and BMI change with cognitive impairment among older adults in China. Methods The study included data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study, a national community-based prospective cohort study from 2002-2018. Baseline BMI and BMI change measurements were available for 12,027 adults aged older than 65 years. Cognitive impairment was defined as Chinese version of the Mini Mental State Examination score less than 18. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard model was used.Results Among 12027 participants (mean age was 81.23 years old and 47.48% were male), the proportion of underweight, normal, overweight and obese at baseline was 33.87%, 51.39%, 11.39% and 3.34%, respectively. During an average of 5.9 years’ follow-up, 3086 participants (4.35 per 100 person-years) with incident cognitive impairment were identified. Compared with normal weight group, adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) for cognitive impairment was 0.86 (95% CI 0.75-0.99) among overweight group, whereas corresponding AHR was 1.02 (95% CI 0.94-1.10) in underweight and 1.01 (95% CI 0.80-1.28) in obese. Large weight loss (<-10%) was significantly associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment (AHR, 1.42, 95% CI 1.29-1.56), compared to stable weight status group (-5%~5%). In the restricted cubic spline models, BMI change showed a L-shaped association with cognitive impairment. Conclusions BMI-defined overweight is associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment among Chinese older adults, while large weight loss is associated with increased risk. More attention should be paid to older adults with significant weight loss.
Development of Prevention Strategies Against Bath-related Deaths Based on Epidemiological Surveys of Inquest Records: A Model Study in Kagoshima Prefecture
Authors: Katsuyama Midori , Higo Eri , Miyamoto Machiko , Nakamae Takuma , Onitsuka Daiko , Fukumoto Akiko , Yatsushiro Masahiko , Hayashi Takahito
Published: April 2021

Sudden death in the bathroom (bath-related death) occurs more frequently in Japan than in other countries, especially among the elderly. To clarify the epidemiological characteristics of bath-related deaths, we reviewed inquest records of deaths in Kagoshima Prefecture from 2006 to 2019. We identified 2,689 cases of bath-related death. Of these cases, 90% were among people aged ≥65 years. The majority of cases occurred in a home bathtub between 16:00 and 20:00. Most deaths (52.0%) occurred in winter (December to February), and there was a significant negative correlation with the environmental temperature (maximum, minimum, and mean) on the day of death. We identified the environmental temperature that bath-related deaths were likely to occur in each region of Kagoshima. The causes of death were cardiac death in 1,231 cases and drowning in 855 cases. Forensic autopsies were performed in only 29 cases. Although autopsies are essential to elucidate the pathogenesis of bath-related deaths, it is difficult to increase the rate of autopsies under the current Japanese death investigation system. Therefore, we suggest that the best way to prevent bath-related death is establishing an “Alert system” based on our results, and to have people refrain from bathing on dangerous days.
A Novel Architecture for 10-bit 40MSPS Low Power Pipelined ADC using Simultaneous Capacitor and Op-amp Sharing Technique
Authors: Sam Shylu , Moni D. Jackuline , Paul P.Sam , Nirmal D.
Published: April 2021

This work presents a low power 10-bit 40 MSPS Pipelined ADC with 1.8V supply voltage in a 180nm silicon based CMOS process. Simultaneous capacitor sharing and op-amp sharing technique is used between two successive stages of a Sample-and Hold Ampifier (SHA) to reduce the power consumption.The memory effect in the proposed ADC is eliminated by a low input capacitance variable gm op-amp. The differential and integral nonlinearity of the converter are within LSB.Simulation results show that the required Signal-Furious-Dynamic range (SFDR) of 70dB, Signal-to -Noise-plus Distortion Ratio (SNDR) of 56.1dB and 9.02 Effective Number of Bits ( ENOB ) has been achieved with a 2MHz, 1-Vp−p,diff input signal while consuming only 7.3mW power from 1.8V supply.
Silver Nanoparticles as A Highly Viricidal Agent to Deter Plant-Infecting Viruses and Disrupt their Acquisition and Transmissibility by Vector Aphid
Authors: Gamal Ahmed El , Tohamy Mohamed Reda , Abou-Zaid Mohamed Ibrahim , Atia Mahmoud Mohamed , Sayed Tarek El , Farroh Khaled
Published: April 2021

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are a potentially effective tool for deterring viral plant pathogens. This study was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of AgNPs to defeat Bean yellow mosaic virus (BYMV) on faba bean plants from the host, virus and vector aphid tripartite interactions side. The antiviral capabilities were evaluated during a foliar protective and curative scheme. Furthermore, the efficiency of AgNPs on virus acquisition and transmission by its vector aphid was investigated. Results indicated that the AgNPs had greatly exhibited curative viricidal activities for inactivation BYMV when applied 48 h post-virus inoculation. The disease occurrence was entirely inhibited with AgNPs rate as low as 100 mg.l− 1, while the infectivity was completely arrested when plants were preventively exposed to 200 mg.l− 1 24 h pre-virus inoculation. AgNPs proved high bio-reactivity by binding to viral particles, suppressing their replication and accumulation within the plant tissues. Moreover, it was noticeably showed to upregulate the pathogenesis-related gene (PR-1) and promote the defense-related enzymes and protein profiles in treated plants irrespective of concentration. Exposure of aphids to AgNPs-treated plants before virus acquisition excitingly reduced the BYMV acquisition and transmission efficiency by 40.65% up to 100 % 24 h post-application and the virus acquisition was affected for 10 days by 6.89 Up to 79.64 % depending on the AgNPs rate. These results concluded that the AgNPs have a high curing viricidal activity by targeting the virus envelop, and more excitingly it can affect the virus-vector combination, suggesting that it may contribute to alleviating the natural disease occurrence and virus transmission under field conditions. Therefore, according to the available literature, this study provides the first report on the deterring activity of nanomaterials against plant virus acquisition and transmission by its vector insects.
Partial Policy Hiding Attribute-Based Encryption in Vehicular Fog Computing
Authors: Gan Tingyun , Liao Yongjian , Liang Yikuan , Zhou Zijun , Zhang Ganglin
Published: April 2021

Vehicular fog computing (VFC), combing vehicle ad hoc networks (VANET) with fog computing, is an efficient vehicle communication architecture. However, the user data is often threatened since VFC is an open environment. Attribute-based encryption (ABE) is suitable for open scenarios, such as cloud and Internet of Things (IoT), because of its confidentiality and access control characteristics. However, the traditional ABE has disadvantages, such as the inability to hide the attributes in the access policy, and the use of computationally inefficient composite order bilinear pairing groups to prove adaptive security. Traditional ABE is not practical in VFC. We summarized the existing schemes of full policy hiding ABE and partial policy hiding ABE, then concluded that partial policy hiding ABE is more suitable for VFC. We combine policy hiding technology and the technology of converting bilinear pairing cryptography schemes into prime-order bilinear pairing cryptography schemes and propose an efficient and partial policy-hiding ciphertext-policy ABE (CP-ABE) scheme suitable for VFC. Experiments have proved that our scheme is computationally more efficient than previous policy hiding ABE schemes.
Development of a Prediction Score for In-Hospital Mortality in COVID-19 Patients with Acute Kidney Injury: A Machine Learning Approach
Authors: Ponce Daniela , de Andrade Luis Gustavo Modelli , Granado Rolando Claure-Del , Fuentes Alejandro Ferrero , Lombardi Raul
Published: April 2021

Introduction: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is frequently associated to COVID-19, and is considered an indicator of severity of disease and is thus associated with increased mortality risk”. Objective: The aim of the study was to develop and validate a prognostic score at hospital admission for predicting in-hospital mortality in COVID-19 patients with AKI (AKI-COV score).Design: Cross-sectional multicenter prospective cohort study.Setting: The Latin America AKI COVID-19 Registry has been conducted in 57 cities in 12 countries from Latin America. Model training was performed on a cohort of patients admitted from May 1 to December 31, 2020. Participants: Eight hundred and seventy COVID-19 patients with AKI defined according KDIGO serum creatinine criteria were included between 01 May to 31 December 2020.Material and Methods: We evaluated four categories of predictor variables available at the time of AKI diagnosis: (1) demographic data; (2) comorbidities and condition at admission; (3) laboratory exams at admission; (4) characteristics and causes of AKI. We used a machine learning approach to fit models in the training set using 10-fold-cross validation. Predictors with more than 30% missing were removed. We select the best model and confirm the accuracy in a validation cohort using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC). Main Outcome Measured: In-hospital mortality.Results: There were 544 (62.5%) in-hospital deaths. Increasing age, mechanical ventilation, use of vasopressors, leukocytes number[RC1] transaminases levels, hypertension, severe condition at admission, AKI ethiology, and need kidney replacement therapies (KRT) were associated with increased risk of death. Longer time from symptoms to hospitalization or to AKI diagnosis, and higher urine output were associated with reduced risk of death. The coefficients of the best model (Elastic Net) were used to build the predictive ImAgeS score. The final model has an AUC-ROC of 0.823 [95% CI 0.761 – 0.885] in the validation cohort. Conclusion: We developed a predictive model using only demographic data, comorbidities, hospital admission condition, laboratory variables and causes of AKI that shows good accuracy and is easily applicable. The use of AKI-COV score may assist health-care workers in identifying hospitalized COVID-19 patients with AKI that may require more intensive monitoring and can be used for resource allocation.
Scalp Acupuncture Protects Against Neuronal Ferroptosis by Activating the P62-Keap1-Nrf2 Pathway in ICH Rat Models
Authors: Li Ming yue , Dai Xiaohong , Yu Xueping , Zou Wei , Teng Wei , Liu Peng , Yu Xinyang , An Qi , Wen Xin
Published: April 2021

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a devastating disease and different patients have varying degrees of neurological impairment despite after treatment. However, the therapeutic strategies targeting currently known cell death pathways of the secondary injury fail to effectively improve neurological deficits after ICH. As a new form of cell death, ferroptosis is closely related to neurological deficits after ICH. Moreover, increasing evidence has shown that scalp acupuncture (SA) has a neuroprotective effect on ICH rats by mediating different molecular pathways. Our study sought to investigate the effect of SA treatment on neurological function and elucidate whether SA could alleviate secondary injury after ICH by regulating ferroptosis, alongside analyzing its underlying mechanisms. First, our results demonstrated that SA treatment (Baihui [DU20] acupoint-penetrating-Qubin [GB7] acupoint, on the lesion side) could attenuate neurological functional impairment in ICH rats, according to the Ludmila Belayev test, and improve pathological injury according to hematoxylin-eosin staining. Second, perihematomal brain tissues from different groups were collected to detect the biological characteristics of neuronal ferroptosis including iron overload, lipid peroxidation accumulation, mitochondrial morphology changes and the decreased NeuN expression levels. Results revealed that SA treatment could attenuate neuronal ferroptosis in ICH rats to a remarkable degree. Furthermore, consistent with deferoxamine (DFX) being one of the main inhibitors of ferroptosis, there were no significant differences between the effects of SA treatment and DFX administration. The molecular mechanism studies found that SA treatment triggered the antioxidant effect alongside activating the p62/Keap1/Nrf2 pathway and up-regulating levels of ferritin heavy chain 1 (FTH1) and glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4), which contributed to reduced iron overload and oxidative stress in ICH rats. These results suggest that the p62/Keap1/Nrf2 signaling pathway is responsible for alleviating ferroptosis lipid peroxidation injury after ICH, thereby providing new theoretical basis with regards to SA treatment of ICH.
Analysis of the Effect of DRG Medical Insurance Payment on the Performance of Hospital Service in Hunan Province
Authors: Wang Yi-ting , Lu Xiao-qin , Peng Lin-lin , Chen Qiong , Wang Jian-qiang , Zhang Fu-feng
Published: April 2021

Background: Performance evaluation is an important means to promote the hospital's medical ability and management ability. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the effect of DRG payment mode on the performance of inpatient services in large tertiary hospitals. Methods: Based on the relevant report data of DRG pilot hospital and control hospital from 2015 to 2020, CN-DRG was used as grouping method, and case mix index (CMI), DRG group number, cost consumption index, time consumption index, low-risk group mortality and other indicators were used to analyze the impact of DRG on hospital inpatient service performance from the aspects of medical service ability, medical service efficiency, medical safety. Results: The average annual growth rate of DRG group was 4.07%, the average annual growth rate of CMI was 0.95%, the time consumption index and cost consumption index were lower than 1, and the mortality rate of low-risk group decreased by 27.56%. Conclusions: DRG medical insurance payment can improve the performance of inpatient service in the process of hospital management.
High Fibular Osteotomy Ameliorates Medial Compartment Knee Osteoarthritis in a Rabbit Model
Authors: Yan Feihua , Zhao Xujun , Duan Shisheng , Maimaiti Aini , Qi Yong , Li Maozhao , Maimaiti Muteli , Li Wenqiang
Published: April 2021

Purpose Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a common and severe disease characterized by articular cartilage degeneration, subchondral bone remodeling and inflammation. This study aimed to investigate the therapeutic effects of high fibular osteotomy (HFO) in a KOA rabbit model and to examine the molecular mechanisms involved in medial compartment KOA protective effects.Methods A rabbit model of destabilization of the medial meniscus was used to induce post-traumatic KOA. The effectiveness of HFO on protection against KOA was tested. Hematoxylin and eosin staining, Safranin O/Fast green staining and micro-CT analysis were performed to evaluate structural and morphological changes. The expression of metalloproteinase (MMP)-1, MMP-3, MMP-13, collagen type II (Col2), a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain with thrombospondin motifs (ADAMTS)-5, aggrecan, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α was assessed by real time PCR, western blotting and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Additionally, western blotting was performed to test the expression of NFκB p65, phospho-IκBα and IκBα. Results HFO delayed the progression of articular cartilage damage and suppressed subchondral bone remodeling. HFO also decreased MMP-1, MMP-3, MMP-13 and ADAMTS-5 expression, and increased Col2 and aggrecan expression. In parallel, HFO attenuated the expression of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α. Furthermore, the molecular mechanism underlying the protective effect of HFO in medial compartment KOA was related to the NFκB signaling pathway. Conclusion HFO may be a novel therapeutic approach to treating medial compartment KOA.
Association Between Plasma Level of Superoxide Dismutase and Survival of Patients with Acute-On-Chronic Liver Failure
Authors: Tian Zhen , Yao Naijuan , Wu Yuchao , Wang Fei , Zhao Yingren
Published: April 2021

Fewer than 50% patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) recover spontaneously, and ACLF patients have high mortality without liver transplantation. Oxidative stress has been shown to mediate hepatic inflammation during liver failure. The aim of this study is to investigate whether a biomarker of oxidative stress exists in assessing severity and outcomes of patients with ACLF. Between January 2015 and September 2018, a retrospective cohort of 124 ACLF patients, together with healthy individuals, liver cirrhosis and acute liver failure (ALF) patients were analyzed. Plasma Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) level was measured using a commercial ELISA kit, survival analysis was carried out using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results indicated that patients with ACLF had statistically higher plasma SOD levels compared to controls (healthy controls and cirrhosis patients). A level of SOD > 428 U/mL was associated with a statistically increase in risk for mortality or liver transplantation due to ACLF. Combination of plasma SOD level and MELD score had improved performance in assessing severity and outcomes of ACLF. In conclusion, this research revealed that plasma SOD level measured at hospital admission can be used to assign patients with ACLF into high- and low-risk groups. Combination of plasm SOD level and MELD score was more closely associated with patient outcome than either value alone. This system might be used to determine patient prognoses and prioritize patients for liver transplantation.