•Bank retreat, bed-form migration and riprap failure occur at bridges during floods.•Key factors include flow contraction ratio, flow pressurization and undercutting.•Four bed-form propagation types ...are observed.•Failed riprap countermeasures may cause channel subsidence and embankment failure.•A framework is proposed to evaluate risks in a river section with multiple bridges.
Fluvial morphology in compound river channels usually undergoes drastic variation during extreme floods due to scour and erosion processes. Those processes can be highly dynamic consisting of multiple elements (e.g. bed-form migration, bank erosion, riprap break-down, etc) that are inter-dependent. The existence of bridge abutments and embankments that lead to flow contraction on the floodplain brings more complexity and uncertainty. The present study investigated flood-related processes around bridge sites in a compound channel with different abutment/embankment configurations. Results show that a longer abutment/embankment pushes the high-shearing zone on the floodplain (around abutment toe) further towards the bank slope and causes a higher risk of undercutting at the toe area, while vertical flow pressurization had a more significant effect on enhancing general bed shearing. The main channel bank tends to retain a constant slope (2:1) as scour progresses gradually during floods. The channel bed scour is closely related to the unit discharge contraction ratio determined by both lateral and vertical flow contractions. Regarding the interaction between dynamic processes, migrating bed-forms enhanced sediment erosion by cyclic “embedment–winnowing” processes when they met destabilized loose riprap rocks. Thus, rocks sliding into the main channel may cause a higher risk of bed subsidence and then embankment failure. In total, four bed-form migration types (i.e. interaction types) are observed for different abutment/embankment lengths and flow intensities. In general, the observed processes provide a clear picture of how channel morphology is altered dynamically by multiple factors during extreme floods. Additionally, the findings in this study are integrated under a framework to evaluate the potential scour and erosion hazards in a real river section. It is found that those hazards may go beyond individual sites, affecting each other and then the morphological evolution at a catchment scale. A more comprehensive study in the future will enable this framework to performed more quantitative analysis.
Image semantic segmentation has been applied more and more widely in the fields of satellite remote sensing, medical treatment, intelligent transportation, and virtual reality. However, in the ...medical field, the study of cerebral vessel and cranial nerve segmentation based on true-color medical images is in urgent need and has good research and development prospects. We have extended the current state-of-the-art semantic-segmentation network DeepLabv3+ and used it as the basic framework. First, the feature distillation block (FDB) was introduced into the encoder structure to refine the extracted features. In addition, the atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module was added to the decoder structure to enhance the retention of feature and boundary information. The proposed model was trained by fine tuning and optimizing the relevant parameters. Experimental results show that the encoder structure has better performance in feature refinement processing, improving target boundary segmentation precision, and retaining more feature information. Our method has a segmentation accuracy of 75.73%, which is 3% better than DeepLabv3+.
LncRNAs are involved in the initiation and progression of cancer. However, the molecular mechanism and diverse clinical prognosis of MIR31HG in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) are still ...unclear. Our previous microarray analysis showed that lncRNA MIR31HG interacted with HIF1A may play an oncogenic role in laryngeal squamous cell cancer (LSCC). To determine whether lncRNA MIR31HG served as a poor prognosis factor and targeted HIF1A to facilitate cell proliferation and tumorigenesis in human HNSCC, we found MIR31HG and HIF1A were overexpressed in LSCC, MIR31HG overexpression or co-expression of HIF1A-positive and p21-negative could serve as a poor prognostic factor for LSCC patients. We further confirmed that MIR31HG promoted cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, and inhibited cell apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. The ingenuity pathway analysis and Western blot indicated that MIR31HG regulated cell cycle progression via HIF1A and p21 in HNSCC. The current results provide evidences for the role of MIR31HG in promoting HNSCC progression and identify MIR31HG as a prognostic biomarker and putative therapeutic target in HNSCC.
•Design principles of silicon-based aerogel thermal insulation materials are introduced.•Performance optimization strategies of SA-TIMs are elaborated in detail.•Relationship between the composition ...and final properties of SA-TIMs is reported.•Five different microstructures composed of second phase materials and SA are reported.•Future research direction of SA-TIMs are analyzed according to their practical applications.
Silicon-based aerogel (SA) has attracted increasingly more attention in the field of thermal insulation as its extraordinary properties such as ultralight, ultra-low thermal conductivity, and strong designability. However, SA thermal insulation materials (SA-TIMs) have several intrinsic defects such as low strength and poor toughness, which make their processing and handling difficult and restrict their practical applications. Composition optimization and microstructure reconstruction are the most convincing and effective strategies to improve their mechanical and thermal insulation properties, achieve more functions, and reduce cost. This review encompasses a complete survey of scientific achievements related to the two strategies, describing their characteristics, microstructures, and properties. The influence of different compositions and various assembly structures on the final properties of SA-TIMs is thoroughly reported. The main focus of this review is to point out the design principles of SA-TIMs and discuss the most promising development trends towards their widespread applications.
A sensitive and selective formic acid sensor could be useful in detecting this corrosive acid in industrial, medical, and environmental settings. Herein, we present a film for detection of formic ...acid. We introduced chitosan as a film-forming factor to creatively overcome the problem that chitosan dissolves in acids. A carboxylic acid-carbon dot solution was used to replace the strong acid solution and prepare a luminescent film in which the color changed from green to blue when it was exposed to formic acid. Integrated data analysis of the film was used to distinguish vapor from formic acid/water solutions at different concentrations and with a detection limit of 0.01% v/v. The selectivity of the sensor was also investigated. After fumigation with ethanol and other common solvents, there was no response similar to that for formic acid. It is believed that films based on lanthanide complexes and chitosan could prevent corrosion and injury from formic acid.
Abstract
Background
During the course of their illness, people with Parkinson’s disease may see changes in their insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) and serum homocysteine (Hcy) indices. In this ...study, patients with intermediate to severe Parkinson’s disease were examined for how Resagiline and levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride affected their motor performance, serum levels of homocysteine (Hcy), and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1).
Methods
From June 2020 to December 2021, a total of 100+ cases of Parkinson’s patients over 60 years old in the middle and late stages of Parkinson’s were seen in the outpatient and inpatient departments of the Third People’s Hospital of Chengdu City and had a detailed observation record, and according to the inclusion criteria, the patients who met the criteria were randomly grouped into a clinical observation group and a control group. The subjects in the control group received only levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride treatment, while the observation group was treated with Resagiline in combination with the clinical control group. The total treatment observation period was 1 year for both groups, and the motor function and serum Hcy and IGF-1 indexes of both groups were compared after the end of treatment.
Results
We randomly and evenly grouped 64 patients who met the requirements of the inclusion criteria into a clinical observation group and a control group, each with 32 patients, from among 168 patients over 60 years of age with detailed observation records in the middle and late stages of Parkinson’s. After the 1-year observation period, we found that the total effective rate after treatment in the clinical observation group (93.75%) and significantly higher than that in the control group (68.75%) (
P
< 0.05); after 1 year of treatment, the UPDRS score decreased in both groups, and the observation group was significantly lower than the control group (
P
< 0.05); after treatment, serum Hcy decreased and IGF-1 increased in both groups, and the observation group was higher than the control group mean values (
P
< 0.05).
Conclusions
In patients with Parkinson’s disease who are in the middle and late stages of the disease, the administration of Resagiline combined with levodopa and benserazide hydrochloride can significantly lower the body’s serum Hcy level, significantly raise IGF-1 levels, and significantly improve motor function in patients with Parkinson’s disease. It can also have significant therapeutic effects.
Exercise and diet are treatments for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and prediabetes, however, how exercise and diet interventions impact gut microbiota in patients is incompletely ...understood. We previously reported a 8.6-month, four-arm (Aerobic exercise, n = 29; Diet, n = 28; Aerobic exercise + Diet, n = 29; No intervention, n = 29) randomized, singe blinded (for researchers), and controlled intervention in patients with NAFLD and prediabetes to assess the effect of interventions on the primary outcomes of liver fat content and glucose metabolism. Here we report the third primary outcome of the trial-gut microbiota composition-in participants who completed the trial (22 in Aerobic exercise, 22 in Diet, 23 in Aerobic exercise + Diet, 18 in No Intervention). We show that combined aerobic exercise and diet intervention are associated with diversified and stabilized keystone taxa, while exercise and diet interventions alone increase network connectivity and robustness between taxa. No adverse effects were observed with the interventions. In addition, in exploratory ad-hoc analyses we find that not all subjects responded to the intervention in a similar manner, when using differentially altered gut microbe amplicon sequence variants abundance to classify the responders and low/non-responders. A personalized gut microbial network at baseline could predict the individual responses in liver fat to exercise intervention. Our findings suggest an avenue for developing personalized intervention strategies for treatment of NAFLD based on host-gut microbiome ecosystem interactions, however, future studies with large sample size are needed to validate these discoveries. The Trial Registration Number is ISRCTN 42622771.
A dual‐mode dielectric resonator antenna based on a microstrip line‐slot coupling feed, operating in both the GMS‐900 and GMS‐1800 frequency bands, is presented. The antenna structure consists of a ...rectangular dielectric substrate and a cylindrical dielectric resonator, which is fed by a microstrip line‐slot coupling. The cylindrical resonant cavity and the dual‐stub coupling slot are designed so that the HEM111 and HEM311 modes are excited simultaneously, resulting in resonance at the two desired frequency points. The gain of the antenna is 3.74 and 7.63 dBi at 0.9 and 1.8 GHz respectively, and the efficiency of the antenna is greater than 70% in both operating bands.
Cylindrical resonant cavity, dielectric resonator antenna, dual‐mode
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most malignant tumors. Invasion and metastasis can occur in the early stage of pancreatic cancer, contributing to the poor prognosis. Accordingly, in this study, we ...evaluated the molecular mechanisms underlying invasion and metastasis. Using mass spectrometry, we found that Integrin alpha 6 (ITGA6) was more highly expressed in a highly invasive pancreatic cancer cell line (PC-1.0) than in a less invasive cell line (PC-1). Through in vitro and in vivo experiments, we observed significant decreases in invasion and metastasis in pancreatic cancer cells after inhibiting ITGA6. Based on data in TCGA, high ITGA6 expression significantly predicted poor prognosis. By using Co-IP combined mass spectrometry, we found that ribosomal protein SA (RPSA), which was also highly expressed in PC-1.0, interacted with ITGA6. Similar to ITGA6, high RPSA expression promoted invasion and metastasis and indicated poor prognosis. Interestingly, although ITGA6 and RPSA interacted, they did not mutually regulate each other. ITGA6 and RPSA affected invasion and metastasis via the PI3K and MAPK signaling pathways, respectively. Inhibiting ITGA6 significantly reduced the expression of p-AKT, while inhibiting RPSA led to the downregulation of p-ERK1/2. Compared with the inhibition of ITGA6 or RPSA alone, the downregulation of both ITGA6 and RPSA weakened invasion and metastasis to a greater extent and led to the simultaneous downregulation of p-AKT and p-ERK1/2. Our research indicates that the development of drugs targeting both ITGA6 and RPSA may be an effective strategy for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
•ITGA6 and RPSA can promote the invasion and metastasis of pancreatic cancer.•ITGA6 and RPSA synergistically activate PI3K and MAPK signaling pathways.•Simultaneous targeting of ITGA6 and RPSA may better for treating pancreatic cancer.
Feeding stimulates robust increases in muscle protein synthesis (MPS); however, ageing may alter the anabolic response to protein ingestion and the subsequent aminoacidaemia. With this as background, ...we aimed to determine in the present study the dose-response of MPS with the ingestion of isolated whey protein, with and without prior resistance exercise, in the elderly. For the purpose of this study, thirty-seven elderly men (age 71 (sd 4) years) completed a bout of unilateral leg-based resistance exercise before ingesting 0, 10, 20 or 40 g of whey protein isolate (W0-W40, respectively). Infusion of l-1-13Cleucine and l-ring-13C6phenylalanine with bilateral vastus lateralis muscle biopsies were used to ascertain whole-body leucine oxidation and 4 h post-protein consumption of MPS in the fed-state of non-exercised and exercised leg muscles. It was determined that whole-body leucine oxidation increased in a stepwise, dose-dependent manner. MPS increased above basal, fasting values by approximately 65 and 90 % for W20 and W40, respectively (P < 0·05), but not with lower doses of whey. While resistance exercise was generally effective at stimulating MPS, W20 and W40 ingestion post-exercise increased MPS above W0 and W10 exercised values (P < 0·05) and W40 was greater than W20 (P < 0·05). Based on the study, the following conclusions were drawn. At rest, the optimal whey protein dose for non-frail older adults to consume, to increase myofibrillar MPS above fasting rates, was 20 g. Resistance exercise increases MPS in the elderly at all protein doses, but to a greater extent with 40 g of whey ingestion. These data suggest that, in contrast to younger adults, in whom post-exercise rates of MPS are saturated with 20 g of protein, exercised muscles of older adults respond to higher protein doses.
PDF
