Developing an anti-infective shape-memory hemostatic sponge able to guide in situ tissue regeneration for noncompressible hemorrhages in civilian and battlefield settings remains a challenge. Here we ...engineer hemostatic chitosan sponges with highly interconnective microchannels by combining 3D printed microfiber leaching, freeze-drying, and superficial active modification. We demonstrate that the microchannelled alkylated chitosan sponge (MACS) exhibits the capacity for water and blood absorption, as well as rapid shape recovery. We show that compared to clinically used gauze, gelatin sponge, CELOX™, and CELOX™-gauze, the MACS provides higher pro-coagulant and hemostatic capacities in lethally normal and heparinized rat and pig liver perforation wound models. We demonstrate its anti-infective activity against S. aureus and E. coli and its promotion of liver parenchymal cell infiltration, vascularization, and tissue integration in a rat liver defect model. Overall, the MACS demonstrates promising clinical translational potential in treating lethal noncompressible hemorrhage and facilitating wound healing.
Surgical procedures often rely on unaided visual observation or endoscopic assistance, which may pose challenges in cases involving intricate anatomical relationships. Real-time imaging technologies ...capable of intraoperative visualization of target organs have the potential to enhance the precision of surgical procedures by facilitating accurate identification, separation, and protection of vital tissues or organs. Despite these advantages, the widespread adoption of such technologies has been hindered by factors such as the prohibitive cost of equipment. This study aims to optimize and develop a device based on Indocyanine Green (ICG) for fluorescence imaging. The objective is to monitor changes in the average fluorescence intensity of ICG in the bladder, offering valuable guidance for surgeries involving the bladder. 1. Male rabbits were administered 0.01 mg/ml ICG via the renal pelvis and ear vein to obtain fluorescence images of the ureter, bladder, and small intestine. 2. After ligating the bilateral ureters of male rabbits, a retrograde bladder perfusion of 5 ml 0.01 mg/ml ICG was conducted to capture fluorescence images of the bladder over time. The average fluorescence intensity was computed using Image Pro Plus 6.0, and the corresponding curve was generated using Prism 8.0. Using a similar methodology, the average fluorescence intensity of male rabbits without ureteral ligation was measured and plotted over time. 1. The developed device facilitated imaging of the ureter, bladder, and small intestine. 2. The bladder's average fluorescence intensity exhibited changes over time in response to urine production and ureteral ligation, contrasting with observations without ureteral ligation. We have successfully constructed and optimized a modular fluorescence imaging system for organs and tissues. This system proves effective in imaging experiments involving hollow organs in animals and offers valuable insights for relevant surgical procedures.
We obtained shear wave splitting measurements from XKS (SKS and SKKS) phases recorded by the NECESSArray project consisting of 127 seismic stations in Northeast China (NEC). The most salient feature ...of the anisotropy in NE China is the alignment of subduction-parallel fast direction, which can be explained by the background upper mantle flow in the big mantle wedge (BMW). However, the geographical variations of fast direction and delay time, which closely follow the geometry of subducting Pacific slab, suggests that the slab morphology controls the geometry of 3-D mantle flow in the BMW. The most significant finding of this study is the complex anisotropic pattern with most nulls observed in the Changbaishan mountain region (CBM) and southern Songliao basin. At the southern Songliao basin, the small delay times as well as null measurements of shear wave splitting are coincident with the high velocity in the upper mantle down to ~300km from previous studies. The observed anisotropy likely arises from the combination of BMW convection and more localized upper mantle convection, that is, a plume-like mantle upwelling from the mantle transition zone beneath the Changbaishan region triggers the down-welling beneath the southern Songliao basin.
•We obtained shear wave splitting measurements from XKS phases recorded by the NECESSArray project.•We found that most of nulls measurements are observed in the CBM and the southwestern Songliao basin.•The coincidence of the small delay times and null measurements from shear wave splitting with the upper mantle fast anomaly from seismic tomography at the southwestern Songliao basin supports the notion that it is a downwelling limb of a small-scale convection in the upper mantle triggered by the plume-like mantle upwelling from the mantle transition zone to the shallow mantle beneath the Changbaishan and Jingbohu volcanoes.•Our result can be explained by the competing effects of the big mantle wedge convection and mantle vertical upwelling/downwelling of localized upper mantle convection.
Photoperiod sensitivity is a key factor in plant adaptation and crop production. In the short-day plant soybean, adaptation to low latitude environments is provided by mutations at the
locus, which ...confer extended flowering phase and thereby improve yield. The identity of
as an ortholog of
, a component of the circadian evening complex (EC), implies that orthologs of other EC components may have similar roles. Here we show that the two soybean homeologs of LUX ARRYTHMO interact with J to form a soybean EC. Characterization of mutants reveals that these genes are highly redundant in function but together are critical for flowering under short day, where the
double mutant shows extremely late flowering and a massively extended flowering phase. This phenotype exceeds that of any soybean flowering mutant reported to date, and is strongly reminiscent of the "Maryland Mammoth" tobacco mutant that featured in the seminal 1920 study of plant photoperiodism by Garner and Allard W. W. Garner, H. A. Allard, J. Agric. Res. 18, 553-606 (1920). We further demonstrate that the J-LUX complex suppresses transcription of the key flowering repressor
and its two homologs via LUX binding sites in their promoters. These results indicate that the EC-E1 interaction has a central role in soybean photoperiod sensitivity, a phenomenon also first described by Garner and Allard. EC and E1 family genes may therefore constitute key targets for customized breeding of soybean varieties with precise flowering time adaptation, either by introgression of natural variation or generation of new mutants by gene editing.
We obtained a 3‐D crustal radial anisotropy model beneath northeastern (NE) Tibet by joint inversion of Rayleigh and Love dispersion curves from ambient noise tomography. Positive crustal radial ...anisotropy and significant low velocity are dominant beneath the Songpan‐Ganzi Terrane (SGT), indicating the presence of crustal channel flow. The Qilian orogen is characterized by negative radial anisotropy, which could be caused by folding and thrusting due to crustal shortening. This difference in radial anisotropy suggests that crustal shortening deformation may have occurred at a relatively early stage of the plateau evolution (the Qilian orogen) and crustal channel flow at the later stage (the SGT). The crustal radial anisotropy clearly defines the NE crustal boundary of the expanding Tibetan Plateau, which is roughly situated along the north Qilian frontal thrust from 97° to 103.5°E in the north and turns north‐south, passing the Zhuanglanghe Fault and terminating at the Kunlun Fault in the south.
Plain Language Summary
How did Tibetan Plateau uplift has been controversial for decades. The growing process of the plateau could be recorded by the crustal deformation, especially in its northeastern (NE) margin. The discrepancies between the horizontally and vertically polarized shear waves, named radial anisotropy, give important constrain on crustal deformation at depth. We presented a high‐resolution 3‐D model of crustal S‐wave velocity and radial anisotropy in the NE Tibetan Plateau using ambient noise tomography. We found distinct crustal deformation mechanisms for the Songpan‐Ganzi Terrane (SGT) and Qilian Shan, respectively, which are related to different growth stages of NE Tibet. The crustal horizontal shortening and vertical thickening may take place beneath the Qilian Shan, which may represent a relatively early stage of the plateau growth, and the crustal channel flow plays a dominant role in the crustal deformation in the SGT, which is in the later stage of plateau evolution. A clear anisotropy polarity reversal boundary between the Qilian Shan and the Alax block delineates the current crustal expansion frontier of NE Tibet.
Key Points
We construct a high‐resolution radial anisotropic velocity model for northeastern (NE) Tibet and its surroundings
Different crustal radial anisotropy in Qilian orogen and Songpan‐Ganzi Terrane indicate different stages of crustal deformation in NE Tibet
The distribution of crustal radial anisotropy clearly defines the NE crustal boundary of the expanding portion of Tibet
The origin of Tibetans remains one of the most contentious puzzles in history, anthropology, and genetics. Analyses of deeply sequenced (30×–60×) genomes of 38 Tibetan highlanders and 39 Han Chinese ...lowlanders, together with available data on archaic and modern humans, allow us to comprehensively characterize the ancestral makeup of Tibetans and uncover their origins. Non-modern human sequences compose ∼6% of the Tibetan gene pool and form unique haplotypes in some genomic regions, where Denisovan-like, Neanderthal-like, ancient-Siberian-like, and unknown ancestries are entangled and elevated. The shared ancestry of Tibetan-enriched sequences dates back to ∼62,000–38,000 years ago, predating the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and representing early colonization of the plateau. Nonetheless, most of the Tibetan gene pool is of modern human origin and diverged from that of Han Chinese ∼15,000 to ∼9,000 years ago, which can be largely attributed to post-LGM arrivals. Analysis of ∼200 contemporary populations showed that Tibetans share ancestry with populations from East Asia (∼82%), Central Asia and Siberia (∼11%), South Asia (∼6%), and western Eurasia and Oceania (∼1%). Our results support that Tibetans arose from a mixture of multiple ancestral gene pools but that their origins are much more complicated and ancient than previously suspected. We provide compelling evidence of the co-existence of Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestries in the Tibetan gene pool, indicating a genetic continuity between pre-historical highland-foragers and present-day Tibetans. In particular, highly differentiated sequences harbored in highlanders’ genomes were most likely inherited from pre-LGM settlers of multiple ancestral origins (SUNDer) and maintained in high frequency by natural selection.
While 2D Ruddlesden‐Popper (RP) perovskites exhibit attractive opto‐electronic properties and stability for use in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), their complicated film‐forming processes often induce ...a non‐negligible level of defects that significantly undermine the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and stability of PSCs. Here, the use of two organic ammonium salts with the same chain length, namely monoammonium (butylammonium iodide, BAI) and diammonium (1,4‐butanediamine dihydroiodide, BDAI2) for surface defect passivation of RP‐2D perovskite films of (AA)2MA4Pb5I16 (n = 5) are reported. It is found that the diammonium BDAI2 not only effectively reduces the defect density (similarly to using monoammonium BAI) but forms a Dion‐Jacobson (DJ) 2D structure to enhance interfacial charge extraction and suppress surface charge recombination. As a result, a boosted PCE of 18.34% has been obtained with a high open‐circuit voltage of 1.24 V. Owing to the enhanced structural integrity of the DJ phase, the RP‐2D/DJ‐2D perovskite heterojunction films exhibit supreme material robustness, which translates to the impressive environmental stability of devices, showing nearly zero‐degradation of the efficiency after 800 h of continuous thermal aging (60 °C) for 800 h. This work enriches the fundamental understanding of the impacts of the DJ‐2D structure on the surface properties of 2D perovskites.
1,4‐Butanediamine dihydroiodide not only effectively reduces the defect density but forms a Dion‐Jacobson 2D structure to enhance interfacial charge extraction and suppresses surface charge recombination, leading to a nearly zero‐degradation of the efficiency after 800 h of continuous thermal aging (60 °C) with a high open‐circuit voltage of 1.24 V and power conversion efficiency of 18.34%.
With the exponential growth of data created at the network edge, decentralized and Gossip-based training of deep learning (DL) models on edge computing (EC) gains tremendous research momentum, owing ...to its capability to learn from resource-strenuous edge nodes with limited network connectivity. Today's edge devices are extremely heterogeneous, e.g., hardware and software stacks, and result in high performance variation of training time and inducing extra delay to synchronize and converge. The large body of prior art accelerates DL, being data or model parallelization, via a centralized server, e.g., parameter server scheme, which may easily turn into the system bottleneck or single point of failure. In this artice, we propose EdgeGossip, a framework specifically designed to accelerate the training process of decentralized and Gossip-based DL training for heterogeneous EC platforms. EdgeGossip features on: (i) low performance variation among multiple EC platforms during iterative training, and (ii) accuracy-aware training to fastly obtain best possible model accuracy. We implement EdgeGossip based on popular Gossip algorithms and demonstrate its effectiveness using real-world DL workloads, i.e., considerably reducing model training time by an average of 2.70 times while only incurring accuracy losses of 0.78 percent.
Polymetallic contamination of soils caused by mining activities seriously threatens soil fertility, biodiversity and human health. Bioremediation is thought to be of low cost and has minimal ...environmental risk but its effectiveness needs to be improved. This study aimed to identify the combined effect of plant growth and microbial strains with different functions on the enhancement of bioremediation of polymetallic contaminated soil. The microbiological mechanism of bioremediation was explored by amplicon sequencing and gene prediction. Soil was collected from polymetallic mine wastelands and a non-contaminated site for use in a pot experiment. Remediation efficiency of this method was evaluated by planting ryegrass and applying a mixed bacterial consortium comprising P-solubilizing, N-fixing and SO4-reducing bacteria. The plant-microbe joint remediation method significantly enhanced the above-ground biomass of ryegrass and soil nutrient contents, and at the same time reduced the content of heavy metals in the plant shoots and soil. The application of the composite bacterial inoculum significantly affected the structure of soil bacterial communities and increased the bacterial diversity and complexity, and the stability of co-occurrence networks. The relative abundance of the multifunctional genera to which the strains belonged showed a significant positive correlation with the soil nutrient content. Genera related to carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and sulphur (S) cycling and heavy metal resistance showed an up-regulation trend in heavy metal-contaminated soils after the application of the mixed bacterial consortium. Also, bacterial strains with specific functions in the mixed consortium regulated the expression of genes involved in soil nutrient cycling, and thus assisted in making the soil self-sustainable after remediation. These results suggested that the remediation of heavy metal-contaminated soil needs to give priority to the use of multifunctional bacterial agents.
•Multifunctional bacterial agents remediate heavy metal-contaminated soil effectively.•Application of mixed inoculum can upregulate genes related to soil nutrient cycling.•A combined microbe-plant remediation was conducted.•Regulating the microbial community makes soil a self-sustaining microenvironment.•Microbial inoculation increased bacterial co-occurrence network complexity.
Sepsis ranks among the most formidable clinical challenges, characterized by exorbitant treatment costs and substantial demands on healthcare resources. Mitochondrial dysfunction emerges as a pivotal ...risk factor in the pathogenesis of sepsis, underscoring the imperative to identify mitochondrial-related biomarkers. Such biomarkers are crucial for enhancing the accuracy of sepsis diagnostics and prognostication.
In this study, adhering to the SEPSIS 3.0 criteria, we collected peripheral blood within 24 h of admission from 20 sepsis patients at the ICU of the Southwest Medical University Affiliated Hospital and 10 healthy volunteers as a control group for RNA-seq. The RNA-seq data were utilized to identify differentially expressed RNAs. Concurrently, mitochondrial-associated genes (MiAGs) were retrieved from the MitoCarta3.0 database. The differentially expressed genes were intersected with MiAGs. The intersected genes were then subjected to GO (Gene Ontology), and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) analyses and core genes were filtered using the PPI (Protein-Protein Interaction) network. Subsequently, relevant sepsis datasets (GSE65682, GSE28750, GSE54514, GSE67652, GSE69528, GSE95233) were downloaded from the GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus) database to perform bioinformatic validation of these core genes. Survival analysis was conducted to assess the prognostic value of the core genes, while ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curves determined their diagnostic value, and a meta-analysis confirmed the accuracy of the RNA-seq data. Finally, we collected 5 blood samples (2 normal controls (NC); 2 sepsis; 1 SIRS (Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome), and used single-cell sequencing to assess the expression levels of the core genes in the different blood cell types.
Integrating high-throughput sequencing with bioinformatics, this study identified two mitochondrial genes (COX7B, NDUFA4) closely linked with sepsis prognosis. Survival analysis demonstrated that patients with lower expression levels of COX7B and NDUFA4 exhibited a higher day survival rate over 28 days, inversely correlating with sepsis mortality. ROC curves highlighted the significant sensitivity and specificity of both genes, with AUC values of 0.985 for COX7B and 0.988 for NDUFA4, respectively. Meta-analysis indicated significant overexpression of COX7B and NDUFA4 in the sepsis group in contrast to the normal group (P < 0.01). Additionally, single-cell RNA sequencing revealed predominant expression of these core genes in monocytes-macrophages, T cells, and B cells.
The mitochondrial-associated genes (MiAGs) COX7B and NDUFA4 are intimately linked with the prognosis of sepsis, offering potential guidance for research into the mechanisms underlying sepsis.
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