Through his phenomenological interpretation of Paul’s letters, Martin Heidegger developed the Lutheran idea about Christian life experience as an experience of conversion, and argues that the ...Christian religiosity is rooted in the temporality of primordial Christian life experience as the expectation towards the Parousia. Heidegger also suggests that the Hellenic metaphysics are alien to primordial Christianity, therefore he is devoted to erasing Hellenic metaphysics from Christianity. Through his phenomenological interpretation of Saint Augustine, Heidegger deconstructs the value system and theology originated from Hellenic metaphysics by illustrating the existence of Dasein. In this article we will inspect Heidegger’s religious phenomenon and propose our own views about the essence of Heidegger’s primordial Christianity.
Stroke, characterized as a neurological deficit of cerebrovascular cause, is very common in older adults. Increasing evidence suggests stroke contributes to the risk and severity of cognitive ...impairment. People with cognitive impairment following stroke often face with quality-of-life issues and require ongoing support, which have a profound effect on caregivers and society. The high morbidity of post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI) demands effective management strategies, in which preventive strategies are more appealing, especially those targeting towards modifiable risk factors. In this review article, we attempt to summarize existing evidence and knowledge gaps on PSCI: elaborating on the heterogeneity in current definitions, reporting the inconsistent findings in PSCI prevalence in the literature, exploring established or less established predictors, outlining prevention and treatment strategies potentially effective or currently being tested, and proposing promising directions for future research.
Chimp optimization algorithm (ChOA) is a recently proposed metaheuristic. Interestingly, it simulates the social status relationship and hunting behavior of chimps. Due to the more flexible and ...complex application fields, researchers have higher requirements for native algorithms. In this paper, an enhanced chimp optimization algorithm (EChOA) is proposed to improve the accuracy of solutions. First, the highly disruptive polynomial mutation is used to initialize the population, which provides the foundation for global search. Next, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of the chimps with the lowest social status is calculated with respect to the leader chimp. To reduce the probability of falling into the local optimum, the beetle antennae operator is used to improve the less fit chimps while gaining visual capability. Three strategies enhance the exploration and exploitation of the native algorithm. To verify the function optimization performance, EChOA is comprehensively analyzed on 12 classical benchmark functions and 15 CEC2017 benchmark functions. Besides, the practicability of EChOA is also highlighted by three engineering design problems and training multilayer perceptron. Compared with ChOA and five state-of-the-art algorithms, the statistical results show that EChOA has strong competitive capabilities and promising prospects.
The phytotoxicity of herbicides on crops is a major dilemma in agricultural production. Fortunately, the emergence of herbicide safeners is an excellent solution to this challenge, selectively ...enhancing the performance of herbicides in controlling weeds while reducing the phytotoxicity to crops. But owing to their potential toxicity, only a tiny proportion of safeners are commercially available. Natural products as safeners have been extensively explored, which are generally safe to mammals and cause little pollution to the environment. They are typically endogenous signal molecules or phytohormones, which are generally difficult to extract and synthesize, and exhibit relatively lower activity than commercial products. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt rational design approaches to modify the structure of natural safeners. This paper reviews the application, safener effects, structural characteristics, and modifications of natural safeners and provides insights on the discovery of natural products as potential safeners in the future.
Plant invasion has been reported to modify ecosystem carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling processes and pools. The aims of this work were to identify the consequences of plant invasion on C and N ...dynamics in soil organic matter (SOM) and its fractions following invasion chronosequence. In this study, we investigated the soil C and N contents and the δ13C and δ15N values of the SOM, free light fraction (LF), intra-aggregate particulate organic matter (iPOM) and mineral-associated organic matter (mSOM) in invasive 6-, 10-, 17- and 20-year-old Spartina alterniflora communities and compared with bare flat land in a coastal wetland of eastern China. S. alterniflora invasion significantly increased soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil organic nitrogen (SON) contents in SOM fractions compared with the bare flat land. The SOC, iPOM-C and iPOM-N progressively increased, but the SON, mSOM-C and mSOM-N did not significantly change following S. alterniflora invasion chronosequence. The proportion of C in iPOM gradually increased, whereas that in mSOM decreased following S. alterniflora invasion chronosequence except for the 20-year-old S. alterniflora soil. The highest proportion of S. alterniflora-derived C in SOM and its fractions was found in 17-year-old soil covered by S. alterniflora. The decay rate of old C decreased and the mean residence time of C increased in SOM and its fractions following S. alterniflora invasion chronosequence. The δ15N values of soil under S. alterniflora were more enriched than were those in bare flat land, whereas the δ15N values depleted following invasion chronosequence. Our results show that S. alterniflora invasion significantly altered SOC dynamics following invasion chronosequence by changing C physical distribution in SOM, S. alterniflora-derived C input and C decomposition, ultimately having a greater impact on SOC incorporation relative to SON accumulation in a coastal wetland of eastern China.
•Soil organic C stock increased with S. alterniflora invasion from 6 to 17years.•Soil organic N stock unchanged with S. alterniflora invasion from 6 to 20years.•S. alterniflora-derived C input was the highest in 17years S. alterniflora soil.•SOM decomposition decreased with S. alterniflora invasion from 6 to 20years.•Soil N cycling rate decreased with S. alterniflora invasion from 6 to 20years.
Intracranial atherosclerosis (ICAS) is a predictable and preventable condition, but existing evidence concerning its risk factors has not been quantitatively assessed. The aim of this meta-analysis ...is to identify the non-modifiable and modifiable risk factors for ICAS.
PubMed and EMBASE were searched (1995–May 15, 2018) for cross-sectional and longitudinal studies exploring risk factors for ICAS. The risk estimates and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) in multivariate analysis were aggregated using random-effect models.
Thirty-four studies comprising 59,736 subjects met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review involving thirty-one risk or protective factors. Seven factors were associated with ICAS, as suggested by the meta-analysis, including advanced age (odds ratio (OR) 1.05, 95% CI 1.03–1.08), metabolic syndrome (OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.35–3.37), diabetes mellitus (OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.69–2.31), hypertension (OR 1.97, 95% CI 1.69–2.31), dyslipidemia (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.04–1.59), high levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.00–1.12) and high levels of apolipoprotein A1 (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.15–0.75). The subgroup analysis for study populations indicated advanced age, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus and hypertension as an elevated risk of ICAS among community subjects and stroke patients; according to the subgroup analysis for ethnicity, similar associations remained in Asians, but only metabolic syndrome and diabetes mellitus were correlated with ICAS in Caucasians.
Individuals with advanced age, metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus, hypertension and dyslipidemia might have a higher risk of ICAS, whereas high levels of apolipoprotein A1 might protect against ICAS.
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•Seven factors suggested by meta-analyses were associated with the risk of Intracranial atherosclerosis (ICAS).•Four well-established factors elevated risk of ICAS among community subjects and stroke patients.•The discrepancies of well-established risk factors were observed in diverse ethnic origins.•Further evidence is needed for less well-established factors revealed in the current review.
4-Hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (EC 1.13.11.27, HPPD) is one of the most widely studied herbicide targets and has gained significant attention. To identify potential effective HPPD inhibitors, a ...rational multistep virtual screening workflow was built, which included CBP models (based on the receptor–ligand interactions in the crystal complex), Hypogen models with activity prediction ability (according to the derivation of structure–activity relationships from a set of molecules with reported activity values), and a consensus docking procedure (consisting of LibDock, Glide, and CDOCKER). About 1 million molecules containing diketone or β-keto–enol substructures were filtered by Lipinski’s rules, CBP model, and Hypogen model. A total of 12 compounds with similar docking postures were generated by consensus docking. Eventually, four molecules were screened based on the specific binding pattern and affinity of the HPPD inhibitor. The biological evaluation in vivo displayed that compounds III-1 and III-2 exhibited comparable herbicidal activity to isoxaflutole and possessed superior safety on various crops (wheat, rice, sorghum, and maize). The ADMET prediction (absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity) showed that compound III possessed relatively good toxicological results. This work provides a theoretical basis and valuable reference for the virtual screening and molecular design of novel HPPD inhibition herbicides.
Phytoremediation is a promising technology for the remediation of sites co-contaminated with inorganic (heavy metal) and organic pollutants. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to investigate the ...independent and interactive effects of cadmium (Cd) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on the growth of the wetland plant Acorus calamus and its ability to uptake, accumulate, and remove pollutants from soils. Our results showed that growth and biomass of A. calamus were significantly influenced by the interaction of Cd and PAHs after 60 days of growth. The combined treatment of low Cd and low PAHs increased plant biomass and Cd accumulation in plant tissues, thus enhancing Cd removal. Dissipation of PAHs from soils was not significantly influenced by Cd addition or by the presence of plants. Correlation analysis also indicated a positive relationship between residual concentrations of phenantherene and pyrene (PAHs), whereas enzyme activities (dehydrogenase and polyphenol oxidase) were negatively correlated with each other. Cluster analysis was used to evaluate the similarity between different treatments during phytoremediation of Cd and PAHs. Our results suggest that A. calamus might be useful for phytoremediation of co-contaminated soil.
Tembotrione, a 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) inhibitor, has been widely used in many types of plants. Tembotrione has been reported for its likelihood of causing injury and plant death ...to certain corn hybrids. Safeners are co-applied with herbicides to protect certain crops without compromising weed control efficacy. Alternatively, herbicide safeners may effectively improve herbicide selectivity. To address tembotrione-induced Zea mays injury, a series of novel ester-substituted cyclohexenone derivatives were designed using the fragment splicing method. In total, 35 title compounds were synthesized via acylation reactions. All the compounds were characterized using infrared spectroscopy, 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and high-resolution mass spectrometry. The configuration of compound II-15 was confirmed using single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The bioactivity assay proved that tembotrione phytotoxicity to maize could be reduced by most title compounds. In particular, compound II-14 exhibited the highest activity against tembotrione. The molecular structure comparisons as well as absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity predictions demonstrated that compound II-14 exhibited pharmacokinetic properties similar to those of the commercial safener isoxadifen-ethyl. The molecular docking model indicated that compound II-14 could prevent tembotrione from reaching or acting with Z. mays HPPD (PDB: 1SP8). Molecular dynamics simulations showed that compound II-14 maintained satisfactory stability with Z. mays HPPD. This research revealed that ester-substituted cyclohexenone derivatives can be developed as potential candidates for discovering novel herbicide safeners in the future.
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