As people’s living standards improve, tourism has become an important way for people to spend their time on leisure and entertainment. The growing number of tourists in recent years has given rise to ...the creation of tourism-related ancillary services. Travelers need to choose a travel route that suits their needs and expectations and do it in a way that does not cause a waste of time, whether it is an emerging self-driving tour or a traditional tour group. Therefore, the optimization of tourist routes is of great significance to the majority of tourists. Given the planning requirements of tourist attractions in the post-epidemic era, an ant colony-based optimization algorithm is proposed to resolve the planning problem of optimal tourist routes. An optimized pheromone update strategy is also proposed based on the basic ant colony optimization algorithm. The optimized ant colony algorithm tries to balance two conflicting concepts, namely, flows into tourist attractions and the carrying capacity of destinations. To analyze the performance of the proposed optimization algorithm, the effects of different optimization algorithms on the route planning of tourist attractions were compared in the experiment, and the acceleration ratio of the optimized ant colony algorithm was tested using the graphics processing unit parallel computing program. The results show that the proposed algorithm provides certain advantages and has certain potential in parallel computing. To sum up, this study provides a better scientific basis for optimal tourist route planning and has a good reference value.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a mass-produced fossil-based plastic polymer that contributes to catastrophic levels of plastic pollution. Here we demonstrated that Tenebrio molitor (mealworms) ...was capable of rapidly biodegrading two commercial PET resins (microplastics) with respective weight-average molecular weight (Mw) of 39.33 and 29.43 kDa and crystallinity of 22.8 ± 3.06% and 18 ± 2.25%, resulting in an average mass reduction of 71.03% and 73.28% after passage of their digestive tract, and respective decrease by 9.22% and 11.36% in Mw of residual PET polymer in egested frass. Sequencing of 16 S rRNA gene amplicons of gut microbial communities showed that dominant bacterial genera were enriched and associated with PET degradation. Also, PICRUSt prediction exhibited that oxidases (monooxygenases and dioxygenases), hydrolases (cutinase, carboxylesterase and chitinase), and PET metabolic enzymes, and chemotaxis related functions were up-regulated in the PET-fed larvae. Additionally, metabolite analyses revealed that PET uptake caused alterations of stress response and plastic degradation related pathways, and lipid metabolism pathways in the T. molitor larvae could be reprogrammed when the larvae fed on PET. This study provides new insights into gut microbial community adaptation to PET diet under nutritional stress (especially nitrogen deficiency) and its contribution to PET degradation.
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•Confirmation of commercial PET biodegradation by Tenebrio molitor.•Minor difference in degradation performance of two PET polymers.•Spiroplasma, Dysgonomonas and Hafnia-Obesumbacterium associated with PET degradation.•Both host and gut microbiota contributed enzyme repertoire to PET degradation.•A plausible mechanism was proposed based on 16 S rRNA and metabolome analyses.
Waterlogging is one of the major water issues in most cities of China and directly restricts their urbanization processes.The construction of Sponge City is an effective approach to solving the urban ...water issues,particularly for the waterlogging.In this study,both the urban issues emerged at the stage of rapid urbanization in China and the demands as well as problems of Sponge City construction related with the water issues were investigated,and the opportunities and challenges for the Sponge City construction in the future were also proposed.It was found that the current stormwater management focused on the construction of gray infrastructures（e.g.,drainage network and water tank） based on the fast discharge idea,which was costly and hard to catch up with the rapid expansion of city and its impervious surface,while green infrastructures（e.g.,river,lake and wetland）were ignored.Moreover,the current construction of Sponge City was still limited to low impacted development（LID） approach which was concentrated on source control measures without consideration of the critical functions of surrounding landscapes（i.e.,mountain,river,wetland,forest,farmland and lake）,while application of the integrated urban water system approach and its supported technologies including municipal engineering,urban hydrology,environmental science,social science and ecoscape were relatively weak and needed to be improved.Besides,the lack of special Sponge City plan and demonstration area was also a considerable problem.In this paper,some perspectives on Good Sponge City Construction were proposed such as the point that idea of urban plan and construction should conform to the integral and systematic view of sustainable urban development.Therefore,both the basic theoretical research and the basic infrastructure construction such as monitoring system,drainage facility and demonstration area should be strengthened,meanwhile,the reformation and innovation in the urban water management system and the education system should also be urgently performed.The study was expected to provide a deeper thinking for the current Sponge City construction in China and to give some of suggestions for the future directions to urban plan and construction,as well as urban hydrology discipline.
Background and Purpose
Mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress are crucial contributors to the tubular cell injury and death in acute kidney injury. Novel therapeutic strategies targeting ...mitochondria protection and halting the progression of acute kidney injury are urgently needed. Honokiol is a small‐molecule polyphenol that exhibits extraordinary cytoprotective effects, such as anti‐inflammatory and anti‐oxidative. Thus, we investigated whether honokiol could ameliorate cisplatin‐induced acute kidney injury via preventing mitochondrial dysfunction.
Experimental Approach
Acute kidney injury was induced by cisplatin administration. Biochemical and histological analysis were used to determine kidney injury. The effect of honokiol on mitochondrial function and morphology were determined using immunohistochemistry, transmission electron microscopy, immunoblot and immunofluorescence. To investigate the mechanism by which honokiol alters mitochondrial dynamics, remodelling and resistance to apoptosis, we used transfection experiments, immunoblotting, immunoprecipitation and flow cytometry assay.
Key Results
We demonstrated that the prominent mitochondrial fragmentation occurred in experimental models of cisplatin‐induced nephrotoxicity, which was coupled to radical oxygen species (ROS) overproduction, deterioration of mitochondrial function, release of apoptogenic factors and the consequent apoptosis. Honokiol treatment caused notable reno‐protection and attenuated of these cisplatin‐induced changes. Mechanistically, honokiol treatment recovered the expression of SIRT3 and improved AMPK activity in tubular cells exposure to cisplatin, which preserved the Drp1 phosphorylation at Ser637 and blocked its translocation in mitochondria, consequently preventing mitochondrial fragmentation and subsequent cell injury and death.
Conclusion and Implications
Our results indicate that honokiol may protect against cisplatin‐induced acute kidney injury by preserving mitochondrial integrity and function by SIRT3/AMPK‐dependent mitochondrial dynamics remodelling.
•Spatiotemporal pattern of habitat quality in Hangzhou was assessed by InVEST model.•Spatial distribution of habitat quality showed positive spatial auto-correlation.•Negative impact of urbanization ...on habitat quality varied with time and space.•Impacts of landscape pattern on habitat quality differed in magnitude and direction.
China has experienced the most serious habitat degradation, especially in fast-growing metropolis cities. Although increasing attentions have been brought to this issue, we still lack the understanding of the quantitative impacts of urbanization and landscape pattern on habitats. In this study, we used the “Integrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Trade-off” (InVEST) model to evaluate the habitat quality in Hangzhou city. We further employed spatial auto-correlation to analyze its spatiotemporal pattern variation characteristics. Finally, the ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models were used to explore the impacts of urbanization and landscape pattern change on habitat quality. The results show that the habitat quality index of Hangzhou decreased from 0.608 to 0.577 during 2004–2015, and these areas mainly located around the suburb decreased significantly. The spatial distribution of habitat quality showed significantly positive spatial auto-correlation, and the overall spatial auto-correlation degree of the habitat quality increased during this time. Rapid urbanization has significant negative effects on habitat quality in various areas, while the magnitude and direction of the impacts of landscape pattern on habitat quality differed in time and space. These results provide decision-making criteria for formulating differential urban development policies and landscape management measures for urban ecological sustainability.
Abstract
Background
Prediction of the drug-target interaction (DTI) is a critical step in the drug repurposing process, which can effectively reduce the following workload for experimental ...verification of potential drugs’ properties. In recent studies, many machine-learning-based methods have been proposed to discover unknown interactions between drugs and protein targets. A recent trend is to use graph-based machine learning, e.g., graph embedding to extract features from drug-target networks and then predict new drug-target interactions. However, most of the graph embedding methods are not specifically designed for DTI predictions; thus, it is difficult for these methods to fully utilize the heterogeneous information of drugs and targets (e.g., the respective vertex features of drugs and targets and path-based interactive features between drugs and targets).
Results
We propose a DTI prediction method DTI-HeNE (DTI based on Heterogeneous Network Embedding), which is specifically designed to cope with the bipartite DTI relations for generating high-quality embeddings of drug-target pairs. This method splits a heterogeneous DTI network into a bipartite DTI network, multiple drug homogeneous networks and target homogeneous networks, and extracts features from these sub-networks separately to better utilize the characteristics of bipartite DTI relations as well as the auxiliary similarity information related to drugs and targets. The features extracted from each sub-network are integrated using pathway information between these sub-networks to acquire new features, i.e., embedding vectors of drug-target pairs. Finally, these features are fed into a random forest (RF) model to predict novel DTIs.
Conclusions
Our experimental results show that, the proposed DTI network embedding method can learn higher-quality features of heterogeneous drug-target interaction networks for novel DTIs discovery.
Two parallel sequence batch reactors (SBRs) were operated, with and without TCS addition, to research the causes of sludge reduction by uncouplers. Three possible mechanisms of sludge reduction by ...TCS were studied: (1) occurrence of metabolic uncoupling, (2) consumption of more energy to resist the infection of TCS, (3) promotion of lysis-cryptic growth by TCS addition. Results showed the remarkable reduction of electronic transport system (ETS) activity and specific cellular ATP (SATP) in TCS reactor, which proved the occurrence of metabolic uncoupling. The increasing amounts of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), as measured by chemical methods and excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectra, implied microorganisms consumed more energy to resist TCS. The similar DNA concentrations of the effluents in two reactors indicated sludge lysis was not intensified by TCS. Therefore, uncoupler might not only cause metabolic uncoupling but also induce more energy consumption in the production of some substances to resist uncoupler.
Droplet impact is a ubiquitous liquid behavior that closely tied to human life and production, making indispensable impacts on the big world. Nature‐inspired superhydrophobic surfaces provide a ...powerful platform for regulating droplet impact dynamics. The collision between classic phenomena of droplet impact and the advanced manufacture of superhydrophobic surfaces is lighting up the future. Accurately understanding, predicting, and tailoring droplet dynamic behaviors on superhydrophobic surfaces are progressive steps to integrate the droplet impact into versatile applications and further improve the efficiency. In this review, the progress on phenomena, mechanisms, regulations, and applications of droplet impact on superhydrophobic surfaces, bridging the gap between droplet impact, superhydrophobic surfaces, and engineering applications are comprehensively summarized. It is highlighted that droplet contact and rebound are two focal points, and their fundamentals and dynamic regulations on elaborately designed superhydrophobic surfaces are discussed in detail. For the first time, diverse applications are classified into four categories according to the requirements for droplet contact and rebound. The remaining challenges are also pointed out and future directions to trigger subsequent research on droplet impact from both scientific and applied perspectives are outlined. The review is expected to provide a general framework for understanding and utilizing droplet impact.
The impacts of small droplets on nature‐inspired superhydrophobic surfaces make invaluable contributions to the big world. This review summarizes the phenomena and mechanisms of droplet impact dynamics, demonstrates the regulation strategies using surface engineering, and discusses their utilization in diverse applications. Understanding and utilizing droplet impact is of vital significance for illuminating a sustainable future.
A secondary delay partitioning method is proposed to study the stability problem for a class of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with time-varying delay. The total interval of the time-varying delay ...is first divided into two parts, and then each part is further divided into several subintervals. To deal with the state variables associated with these subintervals, an extended reciprocal convex combination approach and a double integral term with variable upper and lower limits of integral as a Lyapunov functional are proposed, which help to obtain the stability criterion. The main feature of the proposed result is more effective for the RNNs with fast time-varying delay. A numerical example is used to show the effectiveness of the proposed stability result.
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