Summary Since the beginning of the 1980s, 33 emerging tick-borne agents have been identified in mainland China, including eight species of spotted fever group rickettsiae, seven species in the family ...Anaplasmataceae, six genospecies in the complex Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, 11 species of Babesia , and the virus causing severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome. In this Review we have mapped the geographical distributions of human cases of infection. 15 of the 33 emerging tick-borne agents have been reported to cause human disease, and their clinical characteristics have been described. The non-specific clinical manifestations caused by tick-borne pathogens present a major diagnostic challenge and most physicians are unfamiliar with the many tick-borne diseases that present with non-specific symptoms in the early stages of the illness. Advances in and application of modern molecular techniques should help with identification of emerging tick-borne pathogens and improve laboratory diagnosis of human infections. We expect that more novel tick-borne infections in ticks and animals will be identified and additional emerging tick-borne diseases in human beings will be discovered.
Subduction leads to voluminous arc magmatism at active continental margins; however, the potential far‐field geodynamic connections with coeval magmatism along opposing passive margins, are rarely ...investigated. Here we report large‐scale and parallel mafic dike swarms on the South Qinling passive margin, whose geochemical features record the thick and cold subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath passive margin was gradually replaced by thin and hot one during the early Paleozoic. The subduction of the Proto‐Tethys oceanic lithosphere led to arc magmatism along the active margin, shortly after the rift‐related mafic dike swarms occurred along the passive margin. Subsequent to the continuous oceanic subduction including the ridge‐margin collision, mantle upwelling and slab rollback eventually triggered large‐scale rift‐related magmatism and the opening of new ocean basin at passive margin, and also back‐arc magmatism on the active margin. We highlight slab subduction and pull link the geodynamic processes at active and passive continental margins, which improves our understanding of plate tectonics.
Plain Language Summary
Large‐scale alkali mafic dike swarms on the South Qinling passive continental margin are associated with a series of parallel faults. Based on the estimated pressures and temperatures of the mantle sources of these dike swarms, we found that the thick and cold subcontinental lithospheric mantle beneath the passive continental margin was gradually replaced by thin and hot one during the early Paleozoic. In addition, arc magmatism on the active margin would slightly precede the dike swarms in passive continental margin. We suggest that the subduction of the Proto‐Tethys oceanic lithosphere led to arc magmatism along the active margin, while rift‐related magmatism occurred along the passive margin of South Qinling. Subsequent to the continuous oceanic subduction including the ridge‐margin collision, mantle upwelling and slab rollback increased the tensional forces on the passive margin, eventually triggering large‐scale rift‐related magmatism and the opening of the ocean. Thus, we suggest the slab pull associated with subduction, and mantle upwelling geodynamicaly link the active and passive continental margin magmatism and leading to the opening of new ocean basins at passive margin.
Key Points
Large‐scale parallel mafic dike swarms on South Qinling passive continental margin record thinning of the SCLM during Paleozoic
Arc magmatism on the active margin of North Qinling and Erlangping Arc slightly precede the dike swarms in South Qinling
Slab subduction, pull and mantle upwelling geodynamicaly link the active and passive continental margins
Black phosphorus (black P), which is a promising candidate as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries, was synthesized by a high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) method from white and red ...phosphorus. The study revealed the electrochemical activity of pure black P under different pressures and temperatures systematically. The sample shows higher crystallinity and purity by the HPHT method. Lithium-ion batteries containing black phosphorus as anode materials exhibited a high specific capacity and excellent cycling performance. Black phosphorus obtained from white phosphorus exhibited the highest first discharge and charge capacities of 2505 and 1354 mAh·g–1 at 4 GPa and 400 °C and that obtained from red phosphorus exhibited the highest first discharge and charge capacities of 2649 and 1425 mAh·g–1 at 4.5 GPa and 800 °C. Black P was characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.
Extensive investigations into long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in various diseases and cancers, including acute myocardial infarction (AMI) have been conducted. The current study aimed to investigate ...the role of lncRNA solute carrier family 8 member A1 antisense RNA 1 (SLC8A1‐AS1) in myocardial damage by targeting solute carrier family 8 member A1 (SLC8A1) via cyclic guanosine 3′,5′‐monophosphate‐protein kinase G (cGMP‐PKG) signaling pathway in AMI mouse models. Differentially expressed lncRNA in AMI were initially screened and target relationship between lncRNA SLC8A1‐AS1 and SLC8A1 was then verified. Infarct size, levels of inflammatory factors, biochemical indicators, and the positive expression of the SLC8A1 protein in AMI were subsequently determined. The expression of SLC8A1‐AS1, SLC8A1, PKG1, PKG2, atrial natriuretic peptide, and brain natriuretic peptide was detected to assess the effect of SLC8A1‐AS1 on SLC8A1 and cGMP‐PKG. The respective contents of superoxide dismutase, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and malondialdehyde (MDA) were detected accordingly. Microarray data GSE66360 provided evidence indicating that SLC8A1‐AS1 was poorly expressed in AMI. SLC8A1 was verified to be a target gene of lncRNA SLC8A1‐AS1. SLC8A1‐AS1 upregulation decreased levels of left ventricular end‐systolic diameter, −dp/
dt
max, interleukin 1β (IL‐1β), IL‐6, transforming growth factor α, nitric oxide, inducible nitric‐oxide synthase, endothelial nitric‐oxide synthase, infarct size, LDH activity and MDA content, and increased IL‐10, left ventricular end‐diastolic pressure and +
dp/
dt
max. Furthermore, the overexpression of SLC8A1‐AS1 was noted to elicit an inhibitory effect on the cGMP‐PKG signaling pathway via SLC8A1. In conclusion, lncRNA SLC8A1‐AS1, by downregulating SLC8A1 and activating the cGMP‐PKG signaling pathway, was observed to alleviate myocardial damage, inhibit the release of proinflammatory factors and reduce infarct size, ultimately protecting against myocardial damage.
In conclusion, long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) solute carrier family 8 member A1 antisense RNA 1 (SLC8A1‐AS1), by downregulating solute carrier family 8 member A1 (SLC8A1) and activating cyclic guanosine 3′,5′‐monophosphate‐protein kinase G (cGMP‐PKG) signaling pathway, was observed to alleviate myocardial damage, inhibit the release of proinflammatory factors and reduce infarct size, ultimately protecting against myocardial damage.
•A novel deep neural network architecture called DBEN is presented for time series prediction.•The deep model contains a pre-train network and a novel regression layer.•The ESN methodology is ...introduced in the regression layer to perform a local fine-tuning.•Experimental results show considerable improvements in the prediction performance, learning speed and STM.
Deep belief network (DBN) has attracted many attentions in time series prediction. However, the DBN-based methods fail to provide favorable prediction results due to the congenital defects of the back-propagation method, such as slow convergence and local optimum. To address the problems, we propose a deep belief echo-state network (DBEN) for time series prediction. In the new architecture, DBN is employed for feature learning in an unsupervised fashion, which can effectively extract hierarchical data features. An innovative regression layer, embedding an echo-state learning mechanism instead of the traditional back-propagation method, is built on top of DBN for supervised prediction. To our best knowledge, this is the first paper that applies the echo state network methodology to deep learning. The resulted model, combining the merits of DBN and ESN, provides a more robust alternative to conventional deep neural networks for the superior prediction capacity. Extensive experimental results show that our DBEN can achieve a significant enhancement in the prediction performance, learning speed, and short-term memory capacity.
Aim
Surgical treatment is the first‐line treatment for patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage 0 or A1 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and postoperative monitoring improves long‐term ...survival. We aimed to establish a reasonable short‐interval follow‐up duration for patients with HCC.
Methods
The cohort for this retrospective study included 1396 HCC patients with BCLC stage 0 or A1 disease who underwent curative resection from 2013 to 2016 at five centers in China. Hazard rates for recurrence were calculated using the hazard function.
Results
The recurrence rates in patients with BCLC stage 0 and A1 HCC were 46.4% and 58.0%, respectively. The hazard curve for stage 0 patients was relatively flat, and the hazard rate was consistently low (peak hazard rate 0.0163). The hazard rate curve for recurrence was initially high (peak hazard rate 0.0441) in patients with BCLC stage A1 disease and showed a rapid decreasing trend within 1 year, followed by a slow decreasing trend, reaching a low level (<0.0163) at approximately 36 months. The time to low risk was 47, 41, and 51 months in patients with cirrhosis, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, and satellite lesions, respectively.
Conclusions
A short‐interval follow‐up of 1 year is sufficient for HCC patients with BCLC stage 0 disease, whereas a short‐interval follow‐up time of 3 years should be considered for patients with stage A1 disease. The follow‐up period should be appropriately prolonged for patients with cirrhosis, HBV infection, and satellite lesions.
This article presents an uncertainty analysis method for systems with hybrid stochastic and fuzzy uncertainty parameters based on polynomial chaos expansion (PCE). Parameters in the system are ...described by probability boxes, interval numbers, and fuzzy sets, respectively, based on the differences in their limited stochastic knowledge. First, this method transforms the uncertain parameters into standard normal distribution and interval variables through equal probability transformation or α$$ \alpha $$‐cut operations. Second, the Legendre and Hermite polynomials are used as the PCE model's primary functions, and the expansion coefficients are calculated by the Galerkin projection method based on sparse grid numerical integration. Then, the system response bounds under the pre‐defined confidence level can be obtained using a genetic algorithm to solve the optimization problem constructed based on PCE models. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the method are illustrated by taking the tank bi‐directional stabilized system and the double‐pendulum‐controlled system as examples. The numerical results show that the system response bounds obtained by the PCE model optimization algorithm are consistent with the Monte Carlo simulation. Still, the computational efficiency is much higher. The proposed method effectively combines fuzzy sets and probability boxes and dramatically simplifies the analysis process of uncertain systems. The method exhibits fine precision even in high‐dimensional uncertainty analysis problems.
Background and Purpose
Gut microbiota dysbiosis induced by acute pancreatitis (AP) exacerbates pancreatic injury and systemic inflammatory responses. The alleviation of gut microbiota dysbiosis ...through faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is considered a potential strategy to reduce tissue damage and inflammation in many clinical disorders. Here, we aim to investigate the effect of gut microbiota and microbiota‐derived metabolites on AP and further clarify the mechanisms associated with pancreatic damage and inflammation.
Experimental Approach
AP rat and mouse models were established by administration of caerulein or sodium taurocholate in vivo. Pancreatic acinar cells were exposed to caerulein and lipopolysaccharide in vitro to simulate AP.
Key Results
Normobiotic FMT alleviated AP‐induced gut microbiota dysbiosis and ameliorated the severity of AP, including mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative damage and inflammation. Normobiotic FMT induced higher levels of NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide)‐associated metabolites, particularly nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN). NMN administration mitigated AP‐mediated mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative damage and inflammation by increasing pancreatic NAD+ levels. Similarly, overexpression of the NAD+‐dependent mitochondrial deacetylase sirtuin 3 (SIRT3) alleviated the severity of AP. Furthermore, SIRT3 deacetylated peroxiredoxin 5 (PRDX5) and enhanced PRDX5 protein expression, thereby promoting its antioxidant and anti‐inflammatory activities in AP. Importantly, normobiotic FMT‐mediated NMN metabolism induced SIRT3–PRDX5 pathway activation during AP.
Conclusion and Implications
Gut microbiota‐derived NMN alleviates the severity of AP by activating the SIRT3–PRDX5 pathway. Normobiotic FMT could be served as a potential strategy for AP treatment.
To evaluate induction chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin, and fluorouracil (TPF) followed by surgery and postoperative radiotherapy versus up-front surgery and postoperative radiotherapy in ...patients with locally advanced resectable oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).
A prospective open-label phase III trial was conducted. Eligibility criteria included untreated stage III or IVA locally advanced resectable OSCC. Patients received two cycles of TPF induction chemotherapy (docetaxel 75 mg/m(2) on day 1, cisplatin 75 mg/m(2) on day 1, and fluorouracil 750 mg/m(2) on days 1 to 5) followed by radical surgery and postoperative radiotherapy (54 to 66 Gy) versus up-front radical surgery and postoperative radiotherapy. The primary end point was overall survival (OS). Secondary end points included local control and safety.
Of the 256 patients enrolled onto this trial, 222 completed the full treatment protocol. There were no unexpected toxicities, and induction chemotherapy did not increase perioperative morbidity. The clinical response rate to induction chemotherapy was 80.6%. After a median follow-up of 30 months, there was no significant difference in OS (hazard ratio HR, 0.977; 95% CI, 0.634 to 1.507; P = .918) or disease-free survival (HR, 0.974; 95% CI, 0.654 to 1.45; P = .897) between patients treated with and without TPF induction. Patients in the induction chemotherapy arm with a clinical response or favorable pathologic response (≤ 10% viable tumor cells) had superior OS and locoregional and distant control.
Our study failed to demonstrate that TPF induction chemotherapy improves survival compared with up-front surgery in patients with resectable stage III or IVA OSCC.
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