Explore the vast range of titles available.

To address climate change, one of the toughest contemporary environmental issues, growing importance is attached to the role of the digital economy in combating environmental degradation. Using panel data from 237 Chinese cities during the period 2011–2018, this paper attempts to provide a more systematic view of the relationship between the digital economy and urban low-carbon sustainable development to make up for the existing empirical inconclusiveness. Based on the fixed-effect model, results show that boosting the digital economy can effectively promote urban low-carbon sustainable development, and the conclusion remains robust across a series of robustness checks. Furthermore, innovation factor mobility is the critical transmission channel through which the digital economy affects urban low-carbon sustainable development. Spatiotemporal heterogeneity analysis reveals that the promoting effect of the digital economy on urban low-carbon sustainable development decreases from the northeast to the southeast of China, whereas the impact of innovation factor mobility on urban low-carbon sustainable development decreases from the southeast to the northeast with the Pearl River Delta as the core. Panel threshold regression analysis shows that the impact of the digital economy on urban low-carbon sustainable development is getting stronger with the increase of economic development level charactered with nighttime lights.

Chronic inflammatory diseases are widespread and often accompanied by comorbidities, making treatment challenging. Current immunosuppressive and anti-inflammatory therapies have limited efficacy and significant side effects, and are insufficient to address the complexity of coexisting conditions. This review explores recent advances in innate immune memory, also known as trained immunity, and its potential role in inflammatory diseases. We hypothesize that targeting the regulatory mechanisms of trained immunity may lead to novel therapeutic strategies that more effectively control inflammation and improve disease outcomes. Finally, we highlight that the interplay between trained immunity and inflammatory diseases remains incompletely understood, and further research is needed to elucidate its mechanisms and clinical translational potential.

Background  Familial exudative vitreoretinopathy (FEVR) represents a clinically and genetically diverse ophthalmic disorder marked by incomplete development of retinal blood vessels. The NDP gene predominantly underlies X-linked FEVR. Methods Copy number variation sequencing, chromosomal microarray, whole exome sequencing and Sanger sequencing were performed to identify and validate the candidate variant. The functional effect of the candidate variant was further investigated in HEK293 and HeLa cells with pcMINI and pcMINI-N vectors by means of minigene splicing assay in vitro. A summary of known pathogenic variants in the 5′-untranslated regions (5′ UTR) of the NDP gene and their clinical characteristics was formulated. Results  Whole exome sequencing identified a novel hemizygous 5′ UTR variant (NM_000266.4: c.-167_-166delinsAAGG) in the NDP gene. Sanger sequencing confirmed cosegregation of this variant with FEVR in the affected family members. Minigene splicing assays demonstrated that this variant resulted in partial deletions in exon 2. Pathogenic variations in the 5′ UTR were categorized into three types: 1. indels in dipyrimidine repeats (exon 1); 2. variants in splice sites (intron 1); and 3. variants in exon 2 (5′ UTR). Among patients with variations in dipyrimidine repeats (5 out of 8), most were diagnosed with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Patients with splice-site variants in intron 1 (4 out of 6) were predominantly diagnosed with Norrie disease (ND), while all patients (7 out of 7) with variations in exon 2 (5′ UTR region) were diagnosed with FEVR. Conclusions  A likely pathogenic variant was identified in 5′UTR of the NDP gene, and validation confirmed its impact on NDP splicing. The present analysis results also indicate a correlation between the location of the variations in 5′UTR and disease, providing assistance in disease prognosis.

Deep second-degree burns impair skin regeneration and carry high risks of scarring and infection. Achieving healing with minimal immune rejection remains challenging. Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF), an autologous biomaterial, promotes angiogenesis and repair via sustained growth factor release. CTLA4Ig, an immunomodulatory agent, can suppress T-cell-mediated rejection. We hypothesized that combining PRF with CTLA4Ig gene-transfected porcine skin would synergistically enhance wound healing by concurrently stimulating regeneration and modulating local immunity. A standardized deep second-degree burn was created on the dorsum of 32 Sprague-Dawley rats, randomly divided into four groups (n=8): Vaseline group, PRF group, Pigskin group, and PRF+pigskin group. Wound closure was tracked macroscopically for 21 days. Histological analysis (H&E, Masson's trichrome), immunohistochemistry for CD31, VEGF, the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNF-α, and immunofluorescence staining for the antioxidant enzymes catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) were performed on days 4, 7, 14, and 21. The combination treatment (PRF+pigskin group) demonstrated a significant acceleration in wound closure compared to all other groups, with near-complete re-epithelialization observed by day 14. Statistical analysis confirmed a significant interaction between Treatment and Time (p<0.001), suggesting a synergistic healing pattern. Histological examination revealed more organized and dense collagen fibers, with the most pronounced effect in PRF+pigskin group. Immunohistochemical and immunofluorescence analyses indicated a marked upregulation of CD31-positive vessels, VEGF expression, and antioxidant enzymes (CAT and SOD1) in the combination group, indicating a trend towards enhanced angiogenesis and an augmented capacity to mitigate oxidative stress. Concurrently, immunohistochemistry for IL-6 and TNF-α revealed a significant attenuation of these pro-inflammatory cytokines in the PRF+pigskin group and the pigskin group, particularly at the later stages of healing (D14, D21), indicating a modulation of the local inflammatory response. The concomitant application of PRF and CTLA4Ig gene-transfected porcine skin suggests a synergistic effect, creating a pro-regenerative, immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidative microenvironment. This resulted in significantly accelerated and improved healing of deep second-degree burn wounds, representing a promising and innovative therapeutic paradigm for the management of severe burns.

Food semantic segmentation is of great significance in the field of computer vision and artificial intelligence, especially in the application of food image analysis. Due to the complexity and variety of food, it is difficult to effectively handle this task using supervised methods. Thus, we introduce IngredSAM, a novel approach for open-world food ingredient semantic segmentation, extending the capabilities of the Segment Anything Model (SAM). Utilizing visual foundation models (VFMs) and prompt engineering, IngredSAM leverages discriminative and matchable semantic features between a single clean image prompt of specific ingredients and open-world images to guide the generation of accurate segmentation masks in real-world scenarios. This method addresses the challenges of traditional supervised models in dealing with the diverse appearances and class imbalances of food ingredients. Our framework demonstrates significant advancements in the segmentation of food ingredients without any training process, achieving 2.85% and 6.01% better performance than previous state-of-the-art methods on both FoodSeg103 and UECFoodPix datasets. IngredSAM exemplifies a successful application of one-shot, open-world segmentation, paving the way for downstream applications such as enhancements in nutritional analysis and consumer dietary trend monitoring.

Epistasis is one of important genetic components for a quantitative trait in plant. Eshed and Zamir found negative epistatic interactions of quantitative trait loci in Tomato first. We detected that positive (negative) QTLs generated mostly negative (positive) epistatic interactions on heading date in rice, and then proposed the hypothese that QTL epistasis plays a role of homeostasis in one of our recent papers. In order to further provide additional evidence, the effects of QTLs and their epistatic effects on two quantitative traits of plant height (ph) and thousand kernel weight (tkw) were analyzed in this study. The same regularity was verified again. We detected that positive ph QTLs and negative tkw QTLs always generated reverse epistatic effects, respectively. Moreover, high-order epistatic effects were estimated on these two traits. The sum of all epistatic effects would partially neutralize the additive of constitutive QTL effects. This feature of epistsis would be the mechanism for bionts to maintain homeostasis while the obstacle for human to achieve the pyramiding breeding objectives. More evidences are still being collected to support our assumption.

If there was no gene interaction, the gene aggregation effect would increase infinitely with the increase of gene number. Epistasis avoids the endless accumulation of gene effects, playing a role of homeostasis. To confirm the role, QTL epistases were analyzed by four single-segment substitution lines with heading date QTLs in this paper. We found that QTLs of three positive effects and one negative effect generated 62.5% negative dual QTL epistatic effects and 57.7% positive triple QTL epistatic effects, forming the relationship “positive QTLs-negative one order interactions-positive two order interactions”. In this way, the aggregation effect of QTLs was partially neutralized by the opposite epistatic effect sum. There also were two exceptions, QTL OsMADS50 and gene Hd3a-2 were always with consistent effect directions with their epistases, implying they could be employed in pyramiding breeding with different objectives. This study elucidated the mechanism of epistatic interactions among four QTLs and provided valuable genetic resources for improving heading date in rice.

Air pollution has emerged as a substantial threat to China’s sustainable development. What remains overlooked is the resource dependence on the control of air pollution. At the same time, the resource curse may be broken by the growing digital economy, which will in turn reduce air pollution. To examine this problem, a total of 225 Chinese prefecture-level cities were selected from 2011 to 2018 to investigate the associations among resource dependence, the digital economy, and air pollution, and further, explore the mediating effect of income inequality and industrial upgrading. The primary findings are enumerated as follows: First, resource dependence is positively correlated to air pollution; second, the digital economy negatively regulates the effect of resource dependence on air pollution, that is, as the digital economy grows, air pollution decreases via resource dependence as a whole. However, a noteworthy phenomenon is that the negative moderating effect is evidently heterogeneous and is especially prominent in central China and non-resource-based cities; third, income inequality and industrial upgrading play a mediating role between resource dependence and air pollution; fourth, the digital economy can significantly influence the process where resource dependence affects air pollution via income inequality and industrial upgrading. These findings indicate the direction in the development of new strategies for different regions. Alleviating resource dependence is an important way of air pollution control. In particular, the main focus on mitigating air pollution should be adjusted to the level of income inequality and industrial structure. And the empirical results call for a strong emphasis on the digital economy for higher air quality in resource-based cities.

Background At the peak of the COVID‐19 pandemic, medical students' mental health and professional identity underwent major changes. The main purpose of this study is to analyze the factors affecting these changes and provide a scientific basis for the teaching of organizational psychology in universities under the background of reopening after the pandemic. Methods We investigated medical students from Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Wenzhou Medical University, and Southern Medical University between December 19 and 28, 2022, using a researcher‐designed questionnaire. The questionnaire included the Depression‐Anxiety‐Stress Scale and professional identity questions. Continuous variables were analyzed with independent t‐tests (parametric) and categorical variables were evaluated using χ2 tests. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to assess differences across subgroups. Results In total, 36.43% (98 of 269) of medical students had an abnormal mental health status, with depression being the most common condition reported. Regarding factors influencing medical students' professional identity, five professional identity dimensions (with the exception of professional behavior) showed a downward trend as grade increased, and the overall professional identity score for student cadres was higher than that of nonstudent cadre medical students. Conclusions Following the reopening after the COVID‐19 pandemic, the prevalence of depression in medical students was high. Grade and whether they were student leaders were the main factors that affected medical students' mental health and professional identity. This study found that following the reopening post the COVID‐19 pandemic, medical students with higher academic degrees experienced a greater impact on their mental health status. Concurrently, as their academic level increased, their sense of professional identity tended to diminish. Furthermore, as student leaders, they exhibited a less affected mental health status compared with non‐student leader medical students during public health emergencies. A robust sense of responsibility was beneficial in enhancing their professional identity. It is recommended that the relevant school management departments focus on the mental health of senior medical students and offer timely career planning and awareness training during significant junctures in the students' academic careers. The GA image of this work was created in BioRender. Q. Ye (2025, https://BioRender.com/tdeskgt).

The spatial and temporal differences influence the development of vertebrate teeth in specific cell types, as well as the precise regulation of signalling networks. During early embryogenesis, the odontogenic potential shifts from the dental epithelium to the mesenchyme, initiating subsequent morphogenetic processes. Across the bud, cap, and bell stages, incisors and molars undergo distinct morphological and functional transformations driven by dynamic mesenchymal subpopulations. These subpopulations exhibit temporally specific gene expression profiles and differentiation trajectories, which orchestrate crown-root patterning, odontoblast differentiation, and pulp-stroma interactions. Recent advances in single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) have revolutionised our understanding of dental mesenchymal heterogeneity, unveiling previously unidentified progenitor populations and their regulatory networks. By mapping developmental trajectories and intercellular communication, scRNA-seq has elucidated the transition of mesenchymal cells between stat dental papilla precursors, follicle progenitors, and apical papilla stem cells. Furthermore, this technology highlights the functional divergence of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in postnatal teeth, which balance mineralisation, immune modulation, and repair capacities. However, expansion of MSCs alters their native properties, underscoring the importance of niche-specific signaling. This review synthesises scRNA-seq findings to review the hierarchy of dental mesenchymal subpopulations, offering insights into their roles in developmental defects and regenerative strategies. These discoveries bridge developmental biology and clinical applications, paving the way for novel therapies in tooth regeneration and pulp repair.