Introduction The speckle tracking ultrasound is an innovative technology enabling distinct assessment of diaphragmatic movement, yet the relative data are scarce. In this pilot study, we sought to ...evaluate the predictive value of the weaning outcome of automatic speckle tracking in assessing diaphragm excursion. Methods This is a prospective, multicenter, observational study. A total of 160 critically ill subjects underwent speckle-tracking ultrasonography of the right/left hemidiaphragm before the spontaneous breathing trial. Meanwhile, the diaphragm excursion and velocity values were measured manually by M-mode ultrasound. Patients were divided into weaning-failure and weaning-success groups. The correlation was assessed between automatic and manual measurement, and the diagnostic efficacy of automatic measured excursion and velocity for predicting weaning outcome was analyzed. Results A total of 88 patients completed the follow-up of the weaning outcome. The overall incidence of weaning failure was 43.18%. There was a significant correlation between the automatic measurement of mean excursion and velocity assessed by speckle tracking imaging and manual measurement (R 0.69 and 0.65, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that the mean excursion and diaphragmatic velocity exhibited high diagnostic values for prolonged weaning area under the ROC curve (AUROC) 0.824 and 0.786, respectively. The diaphragmatic excursion showed moderate diagnostic value for predicting both weaning failure and in-hospital death/withdrawal of treatment (AUROC 0.659 and 0.653, respectively). Conclusion Automatic speckle tracking analysis of the diaphragm showed high consistency with conventional manual ultrasound measures. Diaphragmatic excursion and its excursion velocity helped predict mechanical ventilation weaning failure, prolonged weaning, as well as in-hospital adverse outcomes, which served as a reliable tool in guiding clinical weaning strategy. Key message Automatic speckle tracking analysis of the diaphragm showed high consistency with conventional manual ultrasound measures. Diaphragmatic excursion and its excursion velocity helped predict mechanical ventilation weaning failure, prolonged weaning, as well as in-hospital adverse outcomes. Keywords: Speckle tracking ultrasound, Diaphragmatic excursion, Weaning
Cadmium (Cd) is one of the most toxic heavy metals for plant growth in soil. ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters play important roles in biotic and abiotic stresses. However, few ABC transporters ...have been characterized in poplar. In this study, we isolated an ABC transporter gene
from
. The
transcript can be detected in leaves, stems and roots, and the expression in the root was 3.8 and 2 times that in stems and leaves, respectively. The
expression was induced and peaked at 12 h after exposure to Cd stress. Transient expression of
in tobacco showed that PtoABCG36 is localized at the plasma membrane. When overexpressed in yeast and Arabidopsis, PtoABCG36 could decrease Cd accumulation and confer higher Cd tolerance in transgenic lines than in wild-type (WT) lines. Net Cd
efflux measurements showed a decreasing Cd uptake in transgenic Arabidopsis roots than WT. These results demonstrated that PtoABCG36 functions as a cadmium extrusion pump participating in enhancing tolerance to Cd through decreasing Cd content in plants, which provides a promising way for making heavy metal tolerant poplar by manipulating ABC transporters in cadmium polluted areas.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Wood formation is a complex developmental process under multi-level transcriptional control executed by a large set of transcription factors. However, only limited members have been characterized to ...be key regulators of lignin biosynthesis in poplar. Here we report the conserved and unique functions of PtoMYB170, a transcription factor identified from Populus tomentosa (Chinese white poplar), in lignin deposition and drought tolerance in comparison with its duplicate paralog PtoMYB216. PtoMYB170 is preferentially expressed in young leaves and xylem tissues. Overexpression of PtoMYB170 in transgenic poplar plants resulted in stronger lignification and more thickened secondary wall in xylem compared with wild-type plants, whereas the CRISPR/Cas9-generated mutation of PtoMYB170 weakened lignin deposition, thereby leading to a more flexible and collapsed xylem phenotype. Transient expression experiments demonstrated that PtoMYB170 specifically activated the expression of lignin biosynthetic genes, consistent with the function of PtoMYB216. However, GUS staining assays revealed that PtoMYB170 was specifically expressed in guard cells of transgenic Arabidopsis while PtoMYB216 was not. Heterologous expression of PtoMYB170 in Arabidopsis enhanced stomatal closure in the dark and resulted in drought tolerance of the transgenic plants through reduced water loss, indicating a diversified role from PtoMYB216. These results revealed the PtoMYB170-dependent positive transcriptional regulation on lignin deposition in poplar and its coordinated function in enhancing drought tolerance by promoting dark-induced stomatal closure.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Sb-doped tungsten oxides have been synthesized successfully by a hydrothermal method without any surfactant at 120 °C for 24 h. The structure and morphology of product were examined by XRD and SEM. ...The sensing tests reveal that the enhancement to NO2 response by Sb doping is very significant compared to that reported in literatures. Especially, the highest response of 3.5 wt%-Sb doped WO3 exhibits 9 times higher than that of undoped sample. The transient responses of the sample to different concentrations of NO2 were also measured and modeled using L–H heterogeneous reaction mechanism. The mechanism of enhancing sensing performance is also discussed in detail, which attributed to the changes of material intrinsic defects and binding energies and has been confirmed by the room temperature PL and XPS spectra. The first-principle calculations indicate that the dopant as acceptor enter into tungsten oxide resulting in reduce in free electron concentration of system, which is in good agreement with the increase in resistance obtained from experiment measurements.
Sb-doped tungsten oxides have been synthesized successfully by hydrothermal method without any surfactant at 120 °C for 24 h, which not only exhibists high response to NO2, good selectivity to ethanol, acetone, NH3, methanol and CO, but also exhibits good linear responses in the concentration range of 1 ppm to 8 ppm. Display omitted
•Sb-doped hierarchical WO3 was synthesized with the assistance of citric acid.•Sensitivity of WO3 to 8 ppm NO2 at 125 °C is enhanced 9 times by doping 3.5 wt% Sb.•Response time is shortened disproportionately with increasing gas concentration.•The enhanced sensing is attributed to the change of defect and binding energy.•First principle calculations reveal the bandgap of WO3 is widened after Sb doping.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
One primary challenge in face anti-spoofing refers to suffering a sharp performance drop in cross-domain scenes, where training and testing images are collected from different datasets. Recent ...methods have achieved promising results by aligning the features of all images among the available source domains. However, due to significant distribution discrepancies among non-face regions of all images, it is challenging to capture domain-invariant features for these regions. In this paper, we propose a novel Selective Domain-invariant Feature Alignment Network (SDFANet) for cross-domain face anti-spoofing, which aims to seek common feature representations by fully exploring the generalization of different regions of images. Different from previous works that align the whole features directly, the proposed SDFANet leverages multiple domain discriminators with the same architecture to balance the generalization of different regions of the all images. Specifically, we firstly design a multi-grained feature alignment network composed of a local-region and global-image alignment subnetworks to learn more generalized feature space for real faces. Besides, the domain adapter module, which aims to alleviate the large domain discrepancy with the help of the domain attention strategy, is adopted to facilitate the learning of our multi-grained feature alignment network. In addition, a multi-scale attention fusion module is designed in our feature generator to refine the different levels of features effectively. Experimental results show that the proposed SDFANet can greatly improve the generalization ability of face anti-spoofing, and that is superior to the existing methods.
Beclin 1/Atg6 is an essential autophagy gene, and deficiency of this gene in organisms leads to impaired autophagic flux, usually with cell apoptosis; however, the causative mechanism of cell ...apoptosis is not clear. Here, we knocked out the beclin 1 gene in zebrafish and found that autophagic flux is disrupted in mutants. Beclin 1‐deficient zebrafish live through embryogenesis but die at larval stage. We found accumulated protein aggregates and vigorous apoptosis in mutant larvae, predominantly in the liver. The hepatic cell apoptosis in mutants results from an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response; however, it is not the leading cause of mutant larval lethality. Our work proposes that ER stress induces cell apoptosis in Beclin 1‐deficient organisms.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study aimed to explore the effect of retaining inferomedial cortical bone contact and fixation with calcar screws on the dynamic and static mechanical stability of proximal humerus fractures ...treated with a locking plate.
Twelve Synbone prosthetic humeri (SYNBONE-AG, Switzerland) were used for a wedge osteotomy model at the proximal humerus, in four groups. In the cortex contact + screw fixation group and cortex contact group, the inferomedial cortical bone contact was retained. In the screw fixation group and control group, the inferomedial cortical bone contact was not retained. Calcar screw fixation was implemented only in the screw fixation groups. The dynamic and static mechanical stability of the models were tested with dynamic fatigue mechanics testing, quasi-static axial compression, three-point bending, and torsion testing.
The cortex contact + screw fixation group showed the longest fatigue life and the best stability. There was 35% difference in fatigue life between the cortex contact + screw fixation group and the cortex contact group, 43%between the cortex contact + screw fixation group and screw fixation group, and 63% between the cortex contact + screw fixation group and screw fixation group (P < 0.01). The cortex contact + screw fixation group showed the best axial compressive stiffness, bending stiffness, and torsion stiffness; these were successively decreased in the other three groups (P < 0.01).
Retaining inferomedial cortical bone contact and fixation with two calcar screws maintained fracture stability with the highest strength and minimum deformation. Of the two methods, restoration of the inferomedial cortical bone support showed better dynamic and static biomechanical properties than placement of calcar screws alone.
Full text
Available for:
IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Monitoring conductivity changes of discontinuous palladium (Pd) nanostructures upon hydrogenation is becoming one of the most promising approaches toward hydrogen sensing. Development of sensors in ...this type has long been impeded due to strong ubiquitous interfacial adhesion which could distinctly restrict Pd expansion so as to hinder the closing of a nanogap. Herein, graphene underlayers were applied in the fabrication of nanogap-based hydrogen sensors to promote the lateral expansion of a Pd nanowire upon hydrogenation by reducing the adhesion between the metal and the substrate. In order to clarify details as well as mechanisms underlaid of graphene-enhanced Pd expansion, nanowire samples with serial lengths (6–48 μm) and gaps (0–260 nm in width) were controllably prepared on single-layer graphene (SLG), double-layer graphene (DLG), and quadruple-layer graphene (QLG, DLG × 2) via the combination of electron beam lithography (EBL) and electron beam deposition (EBD) technology. Response features and intrinsic analysis in physical sense of the graphene-based discontinuous Pd circuits upon hydrogen were established, in light of which the effects of underlayers on Pd expansion and on nanogap closing process were investigated. Such graphene-promoted expansion was demonstrated through the achievement of the closure of a large gap threshold (G t) up to 260 nm as well as the systematical investigation of its influence on the sensing performance.
Full text
Available for:
IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
The roles of most MYB transcription factors (TFs) in the poplar remain unclear. Here, we demonstrate that PtrSSR1, a salt-stress-regulator in the Populus trichocarpa R2R3 MYB gene family, mediates ...the tolerance of transgenic Arabidopsis plants to salt stress. The transcripts of PtrSSR1 could be induced by salt stress rapidly in poplar. Subcellular localization and yeast assays indicated that PtrSSR1 encoded a nuclear protein with transactivation activity. The Arabidopsis transformants overexpressing PtrSSR1 clearly displayed lateral root emergence (LRE) inhibition compared with wild-type (Wt) under normal conditions; while upon NaCl treatment, the transformants showed improved tolerance, and the LRs emerged faster from salt-induced inhibition. A strong correlation could exist between the LRE mediated by PtrSSR1 and abscisic acid (ABA), mainly because the transformants displayed more sensitivity to exogenous ABA during both seed germination and LRE, and had a distinctly increased level of endogenous ABA. Furthermore, several ABA- and salt-related genes, such as NCED3, ABI1 and CBL1, were up-regulated. Thus, our results suggest that elevation in the endogenous ABA content bring alteration of plant LR development, and that the poplar R2R3 MYB TF PtrSSR1 vitally improve salt stress tolerance by integrating the regulation of LRE and ABA signaling in Arabidopsis.
•The PtrSSR1 functions vitally in the regulation of lateral root emergence, ABA signaling and plant tolerance to saltstress.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
To study the variation trend of potential evapotranspiration (PET) in the Three-River Headwaters (TRH) region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China, we use 2-m temperature and surface pressure ...observation data from 14 meteorological weather stations in the TRH region, and the surface PET is calculated by the Penman-Monteith formula. The global land surface data assimilation system from 2000 to 2018 were used to compare and verify the accuracy and applicability of the calculated PET in the THR region. The results show that in the past 20 years, the PET of 14 weather stations in the TRH region has shown an increasing trend, with annual averaged growth rate of 1.4 ± 1.2 mm·a−1, and the spatial distribution of the annual variation rate of PET has obvious difference. PET is higher in the eastern area of TRH region, and lower in the western area. The drought in this area increased from southeast to northwest, which was consistent with the spatial distribution of precipitation. The aridity index K has fluctuated and increased before 2015, but there was a sudden change in 2018, and the aridity index K in the TRH began to decline after 2018, and the climate changed from dry to wet.
PDF
