The tuberculosis (TB) burden remains a significant global public health concern, especially in less developed countries. While pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) is the most common form of the disease, ...extrapulmonary tuberculosis, particularly intestinal TB (ITB), which is mostly secondary to PTB, is also a significant issue. With the development of sequencing technologies, recent studies have investigated the potential role of the gut microbiome in TB development. In this review, we summarized studies investigating the gut microbiome in both PTB and ITB patients (secondary to PTB) compared with healthy controls. Both PTB and ITB patients show reduced gut microbiome diversity characterized by reduced
and elevated opportunistic pathogens colonization;
and
were reported with opposite alteration in PTB and ITB patients. The alteration reported in TB patients may lead to a disequilibrium in metabolites such as short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) production, which may recast the lung microbiome and immunity
the "gut-lung axis". These findings may also shed light on the colonization of
in the gastrointestinal tract and the development of ITB in PTB patients. The findings highlight the crucial role of the gut microbiome in TB, particularly in ITB development, and suggest that probiotics and postbiotics might be useful supplements in shaping a balanced gut microbiome during TB treatment.
Characterizing urban expansion patterns is of great significance to planning and decision-making for urban agglomeration development. This study examined the urban expansion in the entire Yangtze ...River Delta Region (YRDR) with its land-use data of six years (1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2018). On the basis of traditional methods, we comprehensively considered the four aspects of urban agglomeration: expansion speed, expansion difference, expansion direction, and landscape pattern, as well as the interconnection of and difference in the expansion process between each city. The spatiotemporal heterogeneity of urban expansion development in this region was investigated by using the speed and differentiation indices of urban expansion, gravity center migration, landscape indices, and spatial autocorrelations. The results show that: (1) over the 23 years, the expansion of built-up land in the Yangtze River Delta Region was significant, (2) the rapidly expanding cities were mainly located along the Yangtze River and coastal areas, while the slowly expanding cities were mainly located in the inland areas, (3) the expansion direction of each city varied and the gravity center of the urban agglomeration moved toward the southwest, and (4) the spatial structure of the region became more clustered, the shape of built-up land turned simpler, and fragmentation decreased. This study unravels the spatiotemporal change of urban expansion patterns in this large urban agglomeration, and more importantly, can serve as a guide for formulating urban agglomeration development plans.
Plant protection unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become popular in mountain orchards, but due to the differences in planting structures, the chances of heavy spraying, missed spraying and ...pesticide drift are increasing. To mitigate the adverse effects of these phenomena, it is necessary to clarify the effective deposition range of aerial spray droplets. This study proposed an effective spray swath determination method for the effective spraying range of mountainous orchards with UAVs equipped with a mist nozzle (bilateral 1% coverage). This approach focused on exploring the effects of flight height (unidirectional flight modes of 2, 3 and 4 m), spray nozzle atomization performance (reciprocating flight modes of 20, 30 and 40 µm) and flight route (treetop flying and inter-row flying) on the spraying range in a mountain setting. In addition, the study analysed the relationship between the droplet-size spectrum and the effective swath position. The results showed that it is feasible to use the bilateral 1% coverage evaluation method to determine the effective spray swath of a UAV adapted with a mist nozzle for aerial operation in a mountainous Nangguo Pear orchard. With the increase in UAV flight height (2–4 m), the effective unidirectional spray swath also increased, and with the increase in atomization level (20–40 μm), the effective reciprocating spray swath showed a decreasing trend. Moreover, the average effective swath width measured by the UAV for treetop flight was greater than that measured for inter-row flight. The study also found that the proportion of small droplets (droplet size less than 100 µm) below the UAV route was lower (approximately 50%) than along the sides of the route (approximately 80%), and the spray swath was not symmetrically distributed along the flight route but shifted laterally by approximately 3 to 4 m in the downhill direction.
Metamaterials and metasurfaces have been widely developed recently for extraordinary acoustic and elastic wave control at a deep subwavelength scale. Perfect wave absorption as an extreme case to ...totally absorb the impinged waves has gained great attention, whereas most existing designs based on local resonance lack tunabilities, making perfect absorption be observed at a single frequency. To overcome this drawback, in this work, we design and fabricate a tunable inductance-resistance (LR) shunted mechanical resonator
via
a bonded piezoelectric patch for perfect flexural wave absorption at low frequency. The LR shunted absorber could be reconfigured to a broad frequency range for perfect flexural wave absorption. The tunable perfect absorption performances are validated through experiments and unit absorption is achieved in experiments. In the end, to further highlight the advantages of shunted damping we numerically demonstrate that the absorption spectrum could be enhanced to broadband absorption with a negative capacitance and an inductance-resistance circuit (NC-LR) connected in parallel. The approach proposed provides an alternative solution to achieve perfect wave absorption in the low-frequency range and enables practical application in complex engineering structures.
Accurate brain tissue extraction on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data is crucial for analyzing brain structure and function. While several conventional tools have been optimized to handle human ...brain data, there have been no generalizable methods to extract brain tissues for multimodal MRI data from rodents, nonhuman primates, and humans. Therefore, developing a flexible and generalizable method for extracting whole brain tissue across species would allow researchers to analyze and compare experiment results more efficiently. Here, we propose a domain-adaptive and semi-supervised deep neural network, named the Brain Extraction Net (BEN), to extract brain tissues across species, MRI modalities, and MR scanners. We have evaluated BEN on 18 independent datasets, including 783 rodent MRI scans, 246 nonhuman primate MRI scans, and 4601 human MRI scans, covering five species, four modalities, and six MR scanners with various magnetic field strengths. Compared to conventional toolboxes, the superiority of BEN is illustrated by its robustness, accuracy, and generalizability. Our proposed method not only provides a generalized solution for extracting brain tissue across species but also significantly improves the accuracy of atlas registration, thereby benefiting the downstream processing tasks. As a novel fully automated deep-learning method, BEN is designed as an open-source software to enable high-throughput processing of neuroimaging data across species in preclinical and clinical applications.
Polycystic liver disease (PLD) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder including two genetically and clinically distinct forms: autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) and isolated ...polycystic liver disease (PCLD). The main manifestation of ADPKD is kidney cysts, while PCLD has predominantly liver presentations with mild or absent kidney cysts. Over the past decade,
,
,
, and
have been candidate genes of PCLD. Recently, more candidate genes such as
,
, and
were also reported in PCLD patients. This review focused on all candidate genes of PCLD, including the newly established novel candidate genes. In addition, we also discussed some other genes which might also contribute to the disease.
Satellite vibration is an important factor that can seriously reduce the image quality of remote sensing imaging. In this paper, the influence of the random vibration of the payload on the ...frame-by-frame imaging quality of the area-array CMOS camera is studied. Firstly, the mode of the camera’s dynamic frame-by-frame imaging is established; secondly, the curvature mapping function between the ground and camera focal planes is derived based on the invariance of the field of view (FOV). The frequency domain-filtered template of random vibration is constructed. Then, the distortion and degradation images, of single-frame images at different attitude angles, are inversed; finally, the influence of attitude angle, exposure time, and the error of velocity, caused by random vibrations on dynamic frame-by-frame imaging, are analyzed. The simulation results show that the degree of image edge distortion gets larger when the attitude angle increases from 0° to 50°. At the same time, the MTF decreases rapidly with the increase of the error of velocity and the attitude angle. Meanwhile, when the output-image SSIM decreases by 0.1, the MSE increases by 18.5. The experimental results show that the field of view (FOV) of dynamic imaging should be reasonably set, and the error of velocity should be effectively reduced to obtain high-quality remote sensing images.
In order to analyze the impact of multisource vibration on the imaging quality of aerospace optical payload during camera scanning, a dynamic imaging quality degradation model fused with satellite ...vibration filter templates is established. Firstly, according to the motion scanning process of the TDI camera, a filter template combining the amplitude and frequency of the vibration source is designed; Secondly, a piecewise function of satellite vibration with a frequency range of 1 Hz to 1000 Hz is obtained by curve fitting, and the amplitudes of different frequency ranges are brought into the image filter template to simulate the output image affected by the vibration. Finally, the output degraded image is analyzed through structural similarity and mean square error. The simulation results show that during the imaging process of the aerospace scanning mirror, the line frequency of the camera changes regularly with the scanning speed. When platform vibration frequency is similar to the camera's exposure frequency, it will have a large impact on image quality. Therefore, when the camera's exposure frequency is 110 Hz, vibration at a frequency of 110 Hz will further degrade the image quality. This article is expected to provide guidance for spatial vibration suppression and image quality degradation assessment in the imaging process of aerospace scanning mirrors.
Human societal growth has greatly pressured available land resources. The key to reducing land pressure and fostering regional synergistic development is revealing the transmission effect of land ...pressure. We used a modified gravity model to construct a spatial correlation network (SCN) of the land pressure in the Yangtze River Delta region (YRDR) for the years 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020. To examine how the land pressure is transmitted throughout the cities in the YRDR, we used a social network analysis to examine the overall network structure, individual network characteristics and spatial clustering characteristics. Finally, the center of gravity-GTWR model that coupled the inter-city interactions and the temporal non-smoothness further revealed the spatiotemporal evolution and the different patterns of the influencing factors. The results revealed that (1) the spatial correlation structure of the land pressure in the YRDR was relatively stable. Nanjing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Changzhou played a significant role as linkages. (2) The YRDR was beyond the geographical limit for the land pressure transmission effect and each block had a considerable and mostly steady transmission impact. (3) The center of gravity-GTWR model that coupled the inter-city interactions and the temporal non-stationarity was a viable method for analyzing the factors that influence the land pressure. (4) There were significant regional and temporal variations in the factors influencing land pressure. The influencing factors differed in intensity and direction from city to city. Our results can provide a new perspective on relieving land pressure from the perspective of urban agglomerations and help accomplish the sustainable development of regional land resources.
While hypertension is a well-recognized risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the specific roles of various common blood pressure measurements diastolic blood pressure (DBP), ...systolic blood pressure (SBP), pulse pressure (PP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) in detecting NAFLD and evaluating the associated risk in adults remain unclear.
A retrospective analysis was conducted on 14,251 adult participants undergoing health screenings in the NAfld in the Gifu Area, Longitudinal Analysis project (NAGALA). Following the Z-transformation of the independent variables, we evaluated the relationships between the four blood pressure indices and NAFLD through multivariable logistic regression models. This analysis documented the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for each standard deviation (SD) increase. Additionally, the effectiveness of these indices in identifying NAFLD was comparatively analyzed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.
After adequately adjusting for confounders, all blood pressure indices except PP showed a positive correlation with NAFLD. For each SD increment, MAP had the strongest association with NAFLD compared to SBP and DBP. This finding was confirmed in populations without exercise habits, under 60 years of age, with normal blood pressure, and in non-obese groups. Furthermore, based on ROC analysis, MAP was found to have the highest accuracy in identifying NAFLD compared to the other three blood pressure indices.
Among the four blood pressure indices evaluated, MAP demonstrates the greatest efficacy in identifying NAFLD and assessing its associated risk. These findings underscore the potential of MAP as the most promising blood pressure index for screening NAFLD.
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