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The pregnane X receptor (PXR), a ligand-activated nuclear receptor, plays a central role in regulating the metabolism of both endogenous substances and xenobiotics. In recent years, increasing evidence has highlighted its involvement in chronic diseases, particularly metabolic disorders and cancer. PXR modulates drug-metabolizing enzymes, transporters, inflammatory factors, lipid metabolism, and immune-related pathways, contributing to the maintenance of hepatic–intestinal barrier homeostasis, energy metabolism, and inflammatory responses. Specifically, in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), PXR influences disease progression by regulating glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity. In obesity, it affects adipogenesis and inflammatory processes. In atherosclerosis (AS), PXR exerts protective effects through cholesterol metabolism and anti-inflammatory actions. In metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), it is closely associated with lipid synthesis, oxidative stress, and gut microbiota balance. Moreover, PXR plays dual roles in various cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, and breast cancer. Currently, PXR-targeted strategies, such as small molecule agonists and antagonists, represent promising therapeutic avenues for treating metabolic diseases and cancer. This review comprehensively summarizes the structural features, signaling pathways, and gene regulatory functions of PXR, as well as its role in metabolic diseases and cancer, providing insights into its therapeutic potential and future drug development challenges.

Locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) is a borderline unresectable malignancy that presents significant treatment challenges. The management of LAPC remains a complex issue, particularly in patients who are not eligible for surgical resection. Here, we report the case of a 60-year-old woman diagnosed with LAPC through pathological biopsy who subsequently underwent targeted immunotherapy following the failure of a gemcitabine, oxaliplatin, and S-1 (G&S) chemotherapy regimen. Based on next-generation sequencing (NGS), the patient's treatment regimen was adjusted to include albumin-bound paclitaxel and capecitabine chemotherapy, along with the PD-1 inhibitor camrelizumab (200 mg/cycle) for six cycles. Throughout the treatment period, the patient consistently declined surgical intervention. Imaging studies, including an upper abdominal computed tomography (CT), revealed the formation of a calcified layer surrounding the cancerous tissue in the pancreatic head. Remarkably, the patient has shown stable disease and no evidence of metastasis since the initiation of targeted immunotherapy. This case highlights the potential of targeted immunotherapy for the treatment of LAPC, particularly in non-surgical patients. A personalized approach guided by NGS, combined with immunotherapy, is an effective alternative to traditional treatment strategies for managing this challenging malignancy.

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a profiling float primarily used for thermocline observations and tracking, with an emphasis on depth control performance. The proposed float consists of a frame-type electronic chamber and a variable buoyancy system (VBS) actuator chamber. Components or sensors can be added or removed according to specific requirements. All components were off the shelf, which lowered the cost of the float. In addition, a segment PD control method is introduced. Simulink results showed that there was no need to change any parameter when carrying out tasks at different depths. This method is superior to the traditional PD control and sliding mode control (SMC). In the process of diving, the speed could be well controlled to less than 0.2 m/s. We completed depth determination and control method validation in Qiandao Lake. The final results were consistent with the simulation results, and the maximum depth retention error was less than 0.3 m. Field tests also demonstrated that the prototype float can be used for thermocline observations in the upper layer of seawater or lake water.

Hybrid aerial underwater vehicles (HAUVs) have shown broad development prospects for rapid emergency response and marine scientific observation at the sea–air interface in recent decades. The trans-media motion control problem of HAUV is a special and critical problem in the HAUV field. This paper extracts the key factors of HAUV trans-media motion control: the significant changes in dynamic input saturation of the actuator and hydrodynamic force on the HAUV body during the trans-media process. In response to the issue, this paper firstly established a HAUV trans-media motion model considering actuator dynamic input saturation based on the measured HAUV trans-media test data. Then, this paper developed a control strategy for the priority attitude angle and rear heave during the trans-media process of multi-rotor HAUV, and designed a trans-media motion control algorithm that considers actuator dynamic input saturation and model uncertainty. The stability of the control algorithm was proven through Lyapunov stability theory. Finally, this paper conducted simulation verification on the designed control algorithm, and the results showed that compared with the traditional sliding mode control algorithm, this control algorithm had a significant improvement in the performance of trans-media speed control. The speed overshoot of the traditional sliding mode control algorithm was 4.25 times that of the control algorithm proposed in this paper.

Wire arc additive manufacturing technology with cold metal transfer and pulse welding (CMT+P) is a promising technology for fabricating complex metal structures. In this paper, a lot of basic research was conducted on the corner-constrained and unconstrained zones of 4043 aluminum alloy made using CMT+P. In particular, the microstructure morphology and mechanical properties of the corner-constrained and unconstrained zones of 4043 aluminum alloy made by CMT+P were studied by using a thermal field emission scanning electron microscope, a microhardness tester, etc. The results showed that there were cellular crystals at the top, columnar dendritic crystals in the middle and bottom, and smaller equiaxed crystals in the bottom center. The grain size in the corner-constrained zone was larger than that in the unconstrained zone, and the grain size increased by about 88.34%. Moreover, the microhardness of the unconstrained zone was 50 HV, while the microhardness of the corner-constrained zone was 45 HV. Furthermore, the tensile strength of this material was 148 MPa, the elongation was 31%, the fracture behavior in the middle and top areas was typical of a ductile fracture, and the fracture in the bottom area was a mixed ductile–brittle fracture dominated by the ductile fracture.

The feasibility of using laser-cold metal transfer (CMT) misaligned hybrid welding to join an X80 line-pipe steel in a narrow gap configuration was investigated. The laser beam interacted with the sidewall and its bottom at a small angle, while the CMT arc acted on the backside of the laser beam. The influence of the distance parameter between the laser spot and the tip of the welding wire on the formation and defects of the filled weld were investigated. Narrow gap bevel welds were performed, and the joints were tensile and had a satisfactory Charpy impact score. The tensile fracture is located in the base metal, and the impact fracture is a ductile fracture. Under this condition, the heat input could be efficiently reduced, preventing the formation of defects such as lack of fusion and reducing the number of pores. Additionally, welds with a narrow heat affect zone (HAZ) could be obtained. The results reveal that the hybrid process, as a low-heat input method, is suitable for narrow gap welding.

Hybrid aerial underwater vehicles (HAUVs) can operate in water and air and are qualified for complex missions on the air-water interfaces. The unique working conditions put forward higher requirements for the propulsion systems of the vehicles. Present HAUVs’ propulsion systems mostly use propellers, but normal aerial propellers work inefficiently underwater, constraining the underwater applications of HAUVs. Besides, in-depth research of the thrusters, especially during the water-crossing process, is limited. These are two major factors that affect the further development of HAUVs. This paper aims to evaluate the feasibility of the ducted fan propulsion system and design a ducted HAUV with better underwater working capacity. Ducted fans have promising applications on HAUVs for higher underwater efficiency, but the outer ducts can lead to significant thrust loss during the water-crossing process. A novel experimental platform is firstly developed with the capability of collecting dynamic data of the thruster during water- air transition. The new water-crossing strategy and overall design of the HAUV are proposed based on the test results. The ducted HAUV is supposed to accelerate underwater and rush out with a certain speed to overcome thrust loss. A centroid adjustment mechanism has also been designed to realize the underwater motion switch for better efficiency. A prototype named “Nezha-D” is fabricated, and outfield tests are conducted to verify the feasibility of the new design.

This paper presents the design and control method of the hybrid underwater glider (HUG) for hands-on investigative engineering. The HUG is a lightweight, small, modular, and low-cost underwater vehicle. The HUG uses a piston buoyancy system to control buoyancy and pitch angle and two thrusters to control yaw angle. A hybrid control method utilizing both a piston buoyancy system and a pair of horizontal thrusters is proposed. The novelty of this study is: 1) a two-hull design to facilitate modularity and ease of assembly, 2) an effective piston buoyancy and thrusters’ mechanism to reduce the weight and size of the vehicle, and 3) a pitch control method based on equilibrium identification to enables a fixable and convenient parameters selection and reduces model dependence. Experimental results show that the HUG design reduces the thrusters’ disturbance to pitch angle control, and pitch angle control with the hybrid control method has less overshoot compared to the PID controller.

The goal of blind image super-resolution (BISR) is to recover the corresponding high-resolution image from a given low-resolution image with unknown degradation. Prior related research has primarily focused effectively on utilizing the kernel as prior knowledge to recover the high-frequency components of image. However, they overlooked the function of structural prior information within the same image, which resulted in unsatisfactory recovery performance for textures with strong self-similarity. To address this issue, we propose a two stage blind super-resolution network that is based on kernel estimation strategy and is capable of integrating structural texture as prior knowledge. In the first stage, we utilize a dynamic kernel estimator to achieve degradation presentation embedding. Then, we propose a triple path attention groups consists of triple path attention blocks and a global feature fusion block to extract structural prior information to assist the recovery of details within images. The quantitative and qualitative results on standard benchmarks with various degradation settings, including Gaussian8 and DIV2KRK, validate that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of fidelity and recovery of clear details. The relevant code is made available on this link as open source.

Sugar compounds are an important part of biomass resources, and their catalytic conversion can prepare a series of platform compounds, such as lactic acid and polyols. One of the key steps is the isomerization of aldoses to ketoses. However, finding a simple method to efficiently convert aldoses to ketoses remains a great challenge. Herein, we report a core–shell structured catalyst, Pt/SiO 2 @Mg(OH) 2 , for the efficient conversion of xylose as well as the further conversion of xylose to xylulose. Xylose, a five-carbon sugar unit with the highest content in biomass, was used as the object of study to determine the optimal reaction conditions in the aqueous system by adjusting the loading amount of Mg(OH) 2 , catalyst addition, reaction temperature, and reaction time: In the optimum aqueous conditions, the yield of xylulose was 23.61%. We also investigated the effect of solvent effects on the hydrothermal reaction and determined the optimal solvent ratio, the yield of xylulose reached 31.74% at H 2 O:MeOH (8:2). We anticipate that this research result can provide a theoretical basis and reference for the industrialized production of subsequent sugar isomerization. Graphical Abstract