•·Biomod2 and MaxEnt models was tested, and the predictions of the two models were compared.•·The optimized model was used to predict and analyze the potential suitable habitat for Z. ...jujuba.•·Reconstruct the history of changes in the geographical distribution pattern of Z. jujuba.•·Establish a theoretical foundation for studies on the evolution of North China flora.
Ziziphus jujuba has high ecological and economic value and is widely distributed in northern China. Reconstructing the historical geographic distribution patterns of Z. jujuba and determining the environmental distribution restrictions could provide a scientific basis for its germplasm conservation and management. Here, the R packages ENMeval and Biomod2 were used assess to 121 distribution records and 18 environmental variables and model and analyze the geographic distribution changes of Z. jujuba in different periods since the last interglacial period. Environmental anomalies and factors underlying the geographical distribution changes and migration trends in distribution areas under climate change were assessed. The optimized MaxEnt model generated the best predictions, and the modern highly suitable area was located in the Yellow and Haihe river basins. Climate anomalies in the historical periods ranged in decreasing order from the last interglacial > last glacial maximum > middle Holocene. The degree of climate anomalies under RCP (Representative Concentration Pathways) 2.6-2050s was the lowest, and the degree of climate anomalies under RCP8.5-2070s was the highest. From the last interglacial period to the 2070s, the most dissimilar variable was initially precipitation but gradually changed to temperature with climate change, which was the key factor for the geographical distribution of Z. jujuba. Although extensive habitat expansion occurred during the last interglacial period, the area suitable for Z. jujuba retreated to higher latitudes during the last glacial maximum and middle Holocene. As climate warming intensifies, suitable habitats will shift to higher latitudes while habitats in lower latitudes will become scarcer. The whole suitable region in China will migrate to a higher latitude area, indicating that the Z. jujuba distribution shows a strong response to climate change. This study provides a theoretical basis for establishing conservation measures for Z. jujuba genetic resources and studying trends in plant formation and evolution in North China.
•The aroma compounds in Hanyuan Zanthoxylum bungeanum were identified by GC × GC-O-MS.•72 volatile compounds were identified by GC-O-MS, of which 28 were aroma-active.•116 volatile compounds were ...identified by GC × GC-O-MS, 43 of which were aroma-active.•23 important aroma-active compounds with FD ≥ 27 were identified by AEDA.•Compounds were quantified by external standard curves and OAV.
The present study sought to characterize the composition of volatile aroma compounds and key aroma-active compounds of dried Hanyuan Zanthoxylum bungeanum. The volatile aroma compounds were analyzed by the solid-phase microextraction (SPME) combined with gas chromatography–olfactometry-mass spectrometry (GC-O-MS) and two-dimensional comprehensive gas chromatography–olfactometry-mass spectrometry (GC × GC-O-MS). The key aroma-active compounds were analyzed by the aroma extract dilution analysis and odor activity value. A total of 72 volatile compounds were identified by GC-O-MS, of which 28 were aroma-active. Meanwhile, 116 volatile compounds were identified by GC × GC-O-MS, of which 43 were aroma-active. These results revealed that myrcene, (+)-limonene, (E)-β-ocimene, β-cubebene, Germacrene D, cineole, linalool, and linalyl acetate were the key aroma-active compounds of dried Hanyuan Zanthoxylum bungeanum.
Anatomic contour zirconia crowns are widely used in clinical dental practice because of their mechanical reliability and improved appearance. However, few studies have performed clinical evaluations ...of the esthetics of these crowns in terms of color and translucency gradient.
The purpose of this clinical trial was to compare the esthetic effect and color-matching behaviors of anatomic contour zirconia crowns manufactured with 3-dimensional (3D) gel deposition and dry milling methods.
Twenty-seven premolar teeth of 27 participants received 2 identical anatomic contour zirconia crowns fabricated by additive 3D gel deposition or dry milling. Color differences (ΔE) between the crown and natural control teeth were measured by a dental shade-matching device. Subjective color matching was rated by professionals using an extended visual rating scale for appearance match (EVRSAM) and by participants using a visual analog scale (VAS). Data were analyzed by using repeated measures ANOVA, the Bonferroni test, paired Student t test, Pearson chi-square test, and Wilcoxon test (α=.05).
Significant differences were found in ΔE between zirconia crown and core types (P<.05); however, there was no significant interaction between these factors (P>.05). The average ΔE of crowns made by wet deposition and dry milling were 2.45 ±1.60 and 4.55 ±1.54 (P<.05). The mean crown ΔE was significantly higher if a gold cast post-and-core was placed rather than a prefabricated fiber post and composite core (P<.05). Consistent with these findings, subjective color matching was significantly higher in the wet deposition group than in the dry milling group as rated by EVRSAM and VAS (P<.05).
Anatomic contour zirconia crowns fabricated by additive wet deposition were better matched to adjacent teeth and had excellent esthetics in terms of color and translucency gradient.
Objectives
MUC16 (mucin 16, also known as CA-125, cancer antigen 125, carcinoma antigen 125, or carbohydrate antigen 125) has been predicted as tumor biomarker for therapy. We determined to ...investigate effects and regulatory mechanism of MUC16 on cervical tumorigenesis.
Methods
Expression levels of MUC16 in cervical cancer cell lines was analyzed via qRT-PCR (quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction). Knockdown of MUC16 was conducted via shRNA (Short hairpin RNA) transfection. MTT and colony formation assays were used to investigate effect of MUC16 on cell proliferation. Wound healing assay was utilized to detect migration and transwell assay to detect invasion. The underlying mechanism was demonstrated via western blot analysis.
Results
MUC16 was elevated in cervical cancer cell lines. MUC16 knockdown inhibited cell proliferation, invasion and migration. Gain- and loss-of functional assays revealed that over-expression of MUC16 activated Janus Kinase 2 (JAK2)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) via phosphorylation, thus facilitating cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression, while knockdown of MUC16 demonstrated the reverse effect on JAK2/STAT3 activation and COX-2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of JAK2/STAT3 attenuated the regulation of MUC16 on COX-2.
Conclusions
MUC16 enhanced proliferation and invasion of cervical cancer cells via JAK2/STAT3 phosphorylation-mediated cyclooxygenase-2 expression, suggesting the potential therapeutic target ability of MUC16 to treat cervical cancer.
Rotational straw return technique is considered an effective measure for improving soil quality and maintaining soil microorganisms. However, there are few reports on the influence of wheat-maize ...crop rotation and straw-returning tillage on crop soil microbial communities in China. This study aimed to investigate how wheat or maize straw-incorporation practices affect bacterial and fungal communities under wheat-maize rotational farming practices. To clarify the effects of straw incorporation on microbial composition, microbial communities from soils subjected to different treatments were identified using high-throughput sequencing. Our results showed that, before corn planting, wheat and maize straw returning reduced bacterial density and increased their diversity but had no effect on fungal diversity. However, before wheat planting, returning wheat and corn stalks to the field increased the diversity of soil bacteria and fungi, whereas returning corn stalks to the field reduced the diversity of fungi and other microorganisms. Straw return significantly increased the relative abundance of Ascomycota in the first season and decreased it in the second season; however, in the second season, wheat straw return increased the relative abundance of
, which can promote the soil microbial nitrogen cycle and provide nitrogen to the soil. Wheat and maize straw return increased the relative abundance of
, whereas, individually, they decreased the relative abundance. In addition, we detected two fungal pathogens (
and
) under the two planting patterns and found that the relative abundance of pathogenic Fusarium increased with wheat straw return (FW and SW). Trichoderma increased after treatment with maize straw return before wheat planting (S group). These results suggest that wheat straw return (FW and SW) and maize straw return might have a negative impact on the pathogenic risk. Therefore, further studies are needed to determine how to manage straw returns in agricultural production.
The study of protein folding mechanism is a challenge in molecular biology, which is of great significance for revealing the movement rules of biological macromolecules, understanding the pathogenic ...mechanism of folding diseases, and designing protein engineering materials. Based on the hypothesis that the conformational sampling trajectory contain the information of folding pathway, we propose a protein folding pathway prediction algorithm named Pathfinder. Firstly, Pathfinder performs large-scale sampling of the conformational space and clusters the decoys obtained in the sampling. The heterogeneous conformations obtained by clustering are named seed states. Then, a resampling algorithm that is not constrained by the local energy basin is designed to obtain the transition probabilities of seed states. Finally, protein folding pathways are inferred from the maximum transition probabilities of seed states. The proposed Pathfinder is tested on our developed test set (34 proteins). For 11 widely studied proteins, we correctly predicted their folding pathways and specifically analyzed 5 of them. For 13 proteins, we predicted their folding pathways to be further verified by biological experiments. For 6 proteins, we analyzed the reasons for the low prediction accuracy. For the other 4 proteins without biological experiment results, potential folding pathways were predicted to provide new insights into protein folding mechanism. The results reveal that structural analogs may have different folding pathways to express different biological functions, homologous proteins may contain common folding pathways, and α-helices may be more prone to early protein folding than β-strands.
Epidemiological studies have suggested inconclusive associations between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and total cancer incidence and mortality. The aim of this study was to quantitatively assess these ...associations by combining results from prospective cohort studies. A systematic literature search was implemented in PubMed and Scopus databases in April 2019. Comparing the highest with the lowest categories, the multivariate-adjusted relative risks (RRs) and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were pooled using a random-effects model. A trend estimation was performed using a two-stage, dose-response, meta-analysis method. Twenty-three independent prospective studies were included for data synthesis. Eight studies investigated the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and the risk of cancer incidence (7511 events and 70,018 participants), and the summary estimate showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D is marginally associated with cancer risk (Summary RR = 0.86; 95% CI: 0.73, 1.02; I
= 70.8%;
= 0.001). Sixteen studies investigated the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D and the risk of cancer mortality (8729 events and 101,794 participants), and a higher 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was inversely associated with the risk of cancer mortality (Summary RR = 0.81; 95% CI: 0.71, 0.93; I
= 48.8%,
= 0.012). Dose-response analysis indicated that the risk of cancer incidence was reduced by 7% (RRs = 0.93; 95% CI: 0.91, 0.96), and the risk of cancer mortality was reduced by 2% (RRs = 0.98; 95% CI: 0.97, 0.99), with each 20 nmol/L increment of 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration. This meta-analysis provides evidence that a higher 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration is associated with a lower cancer incidence and cancer mortality.
The distribution and assessment of heavy metal pollution in sediments have been extensively studied worldwide. Risk assessment methods based on total content, background values, and sediment quality ...guidelines are widely applied but have never been compared. We systematically sorted out these evaluation methods, obtained evaluation results using actual monitoring data, and compared their applicability. The results showed that the background values of different metals are significantly different, which may depend on their mobility. Geoaccumulation index (Igeo) and enrichment factor (EF) values invariably decreased with the increase of background values for individual heavy metal enrichment risk assessment. Compared with EF, Igeo also showed a significant positive linear correlation with heavy metal content. Pollution load index (PLI), modified contamination degree (mCd), and potential ecological risk index (RI) showed significant differences in response to background values and evaluation levels for the comprehensive risk of heavy metal enrichment, but their distribution trends along with the sampling points were basically identical. Toxic risk index (TRI), mean ERM quotient (mERMQ), and contamination severity index (CSI) were used to evaluate the damage degree of complex heavy metals to aquatic organisms and shared a similar whole-process distribution trend. The modified hazard quotient (mHQ), which is used to evaluate the toxicity of a single heavy metal to aquatic organisms, showed a significant positive linear correlation with the total content of each heavy metal, indicating that the toxic effect on organisms can be predicted through the direct monitoring. The results of this study have important guiding significance for the selection of evaluation methods for heavy metal pollution in sediments.
Modern applications need to flexibly adjust the processing process according to the different environments and real-time processing, thus putting forward higher requirements for the reconfiguration ...performance of coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture (CGRA). Traditional dynamic reconfiguration requires constant configuration of the processor by the host computer. Still, this reconfiguration method severely restricts switching different tasks, making it difficult to achieve dynamic real-time reconfiguration and limiting performance improvement. This paper presents a real-time monitoring-based self-reconfiguration mechanism (RMSRM) based on the implementation of CGRA. This mechanism improves the reconfiguration performance by monitoring the execution process of the array in real-time through a programmable controller on the basis of the homogeneous processing element (PE) array and dynamic scheduling of PE array resources according to different application requirements. The proposed RMSRM is capable of feeding array execution state information to the programmable controller within 1 clock cycle, switching configurations between different tasks within 10 clock cycles, and shutting down the unnecessary PE/PEs according to the current configuration. To verify the correctness and efficiency, we model hardware with synthesizable RTL coding and implement it on FPGA and a chip. The experimental results show that RMSRM can effectively reduce the reconfiguration overhead compared with traditional reconfiguration methods. The volume of bits in the configuration file has decreased by an average of 39.37%, and the reconfiguration time has decreased by an average of 43.57%. Based on the SMIC 55nm process, the operating frequency can reach 320 MHz. Meanwhile, the resource consumption is 80506 logic gates, the chip area is 12 mm
2
, and the energy efficiency is 312 GOPS/W.
Abstract
Decreased albumin levels are common in congestive heart failure (CHF), but little is known about its role in mortality risk in CHF. This study developed a cohort prediction model based on ...7121 individuals with heart failure to evaluate the short-term mortality and prognostic role of albumin in patients with CHF. The cohort was from intensive care unit between 2001 and 2012 in a publicly available clinical database in intensive care called MIMIC III. We used a generalized additive model to determine the nonlinear correlation between serum albumin and 14th day, 28th day and 90th day all-cause mortality in patients with heart failure. The results showed that serum albumin is an independent risk factor for 14th, 28th and 90th day all-cause mortality, and has a linear relationship with all-cause mortality in congestive heart failure. Cox regression analysis using restricted cubic spline with albumin as continuous parameter showed that the decrease of albumin level is directly related to the increase of mortality (14th day mortality: hazard ratio HR, 0.65 95%
CI
, 0.58 to 0.73); 28th day mortality: HR, 0.56 95%
CI
, 0.51 to 0.63; 90th day mortality: HR, 0.52 95%
CI
, 0.47 to 0.57;
P
for trend < 0.001). The multivariate adjusted association between albumin (as a continuous variable) and all-cause mortality on the 90th days is mixed by ARDS HR, 0.64, 95%
CI
(0.47–0.87),
P
= 0.005. The all-cause mortality on the 90th day predicted better clinical results with the all-cause mortality on the 14th day.
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