Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"In numerous civilizations throughout world history city walls were an indispensable part of every city. In China they can be traced back to the 21th century BC as fortified symbols of power and manifestation of the Middle Kingdom. In the course of the country's long history several thousand have been erected, varying enormously in form, length, construction technology, functionality and significance. These city walls represent a unique heritage and a central identification factor from which to gain access to the self-image of Chinese culture. After years of decay and ignorance, it was only a few decades ago that they were discovered as cultural monuments and the securing and restoration work began. The city walls recorded in the statistics today, of which a selection is presented in this book by new and historic photos, range from wall ruins in the ground via about 150 with a length of more than one kilometer to the famous fortification of Nanjing, which still has more than 20 kilometers standing.\" -- amazon

Secret sharing is a widely-used security protocol and cryptographic primitive in which all people cooperate to restore encrypted information. The characteristics of a quantum field guarantee the security of information; therefore, many researchers are interested in quantum cryptography and quantum secret sharing (QSS) is an important research topic. However, most traditional QSS methods are complex and difficult to implement. In addition, most traditional QSS schemes share classical information, not quantum information which makes them inefficient to transfer and share information. In a weighted threshold QSS method, each participant has each own weight, but assigning weights usually costs multiple quantum states. Quantum state consumption will therefore increase with the weight. It is inefficient and difficult, and therefore not able to successfully build a suitable agreement. The proposed method is the first attempt to build multiparty weighted threshold QSS method using single quantum particles combine with the Chinese remainder theorem (CRT) and phase shift operation. The proposed scheme allows each participant has its own weight and the dealer can encode a quantum state with the phase shift operation. The dividing and recovery characteristics of CRT offer a simple approach to distribute partial keys. The reversibility of phase shift operation can encode and decode the secret. The proposed weighted threshold QSS scheme presents the security analysis of external attacks and internal attacks. Furthermore, the efficiency analysis shows that our method is more efficient, flexible, and simpler to implement than traditional methods.

Erectile Dysfunction (ED) is a form of sexual dysfunction in males that imposes significant health and financial burdens globally. Despite its high prevalence, diagnosing ED remains challenging due to the limitations of current diagnostic methods and patients’ reluctance to seek medical help. Currently, some studies have used machine learning techniques for developing ED prediction models, but the performance and interpretability of existing models need to be further improved. This study utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for the years 2001 to 2004, adhering to the Transparent Reporting of a Multivariable Prediction Model for Individual Prognosis or Diagnosis (TRIPOD) statement. After excluding male respondents who did not meet the study criteria, a total of 3,869 participants were included. Gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) algorithms (XGBoost, CatBoost, LightGBM) were used to develop the ED prediction model. Data preprocessing, feature selection, model evaluation, and interpretability analysis were performed to ensure the reliability and effectiveness of the model. The model evaluation results revealed that the AUC values are XGBoost: 0.887 ± 0.016; LightGBM: 0.879 ± 0.016; CatBoost: 0.871 ± 0.019. The F1-Scores are XGBoost: 0.695 ± 0.023; LightGBM: 0.681 ± 0.025; CatBoost: 0.681 ± 0.025. The Recall values are XGBoost: 0.789 ± 0.026; LightGBM: 0.739 ± 0.030; CatBoost: 0.711 ± 0.030. These results confirmed that the XGBoost model is the best-performing ED prediction model in this study. Interpretability analysis results of the XGBoost model showed that age, obesity, cardiovascular risk factors, prostate-related diseases, and socioeconomic status are key features for predicting ED, playing a significant role in the ED mechanism. Therefore, we believe the ED prediction model trained in this study has strong predictive performance and high interpretability. This model can help to expand the diagnostic options for ED, improve the diagnosis rate of ED, and assist doctors in early intervention for patients with ED, ultimately improving patient prognosis.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) tumours carry multiple gene mutations and respond poorly to treatments. There is currently an unmet need for drug carriers that can deliver multiple gene cargoes to target high solid tumour burden like PDAC. Here, we report a dual targeted extracellular vesicle (dtEV) carrying high loads of therapeutic RNA that effectively suppresses large PDAC tumours in mice. The EV surface contains a CD64 protein that has a tissue targeting peptide and a humanized monoclonal antibody. Cells sequentially transfected with plasmid DNAs encoding for the RNA and protein of interest by Transwell®-based asymmetric cell electroporation release abundant targeted EVs with high RNA loading. Together with a low dose chemotherapy drug, Gemcitabine, dtEVs suppress large orthotopic PANC-1 and patient derived xenograft tumours and metastasis in mice and extended animal survival. Our work presents a clinically accessible and scalable way to produce abundant EVs for delivering multiple gene cargoes to large solid tumours. KRAS G12D mutations frequently co-occur with mutated TP53 tumour suppressor in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Here the authors report the design of dual targeted therapeutic extracellular vesicles containing high copy numbers of TP53 mRNA and siKRAS G12D , showing anti-tumor activity in PDAC preclinical models.

This retrospective study evaluated hematological, inflammatory, and nutritional indicators of peritonitis in 132 peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients, including 83 with confirmed peritonitis and 49 without peritonitis. The peritonitis group had a higher platelet-to-albumin ratio (PAR), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SIRI), but lower levels of hemoglobin, cholesterol, hematocrit, albumin, lymphocytes, triglycerides, and uric acid (all  < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression identified hemoglobin (OR = 0.944,  < 0.05) and albumin (OR = 0.719,  < 0.01) as protective factors, and C-reactive protein (CRP; OR = 1.053,  < 0.01) as an independent risk factor. ROC analysis revealed moderate diagnostic performance for PAR (AUC = 0.700), NLR (AUC = 0.718), MLR (AUC = 0.717), and SIRI (AUC = 0.688), but the neutrophil-to-monocyte ratio (NMR) and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR) performed poorly. A combined PAR/NLR/MLR/SIRI model achieved an AUC of 0.798. These findings link poor nutrition and heightened inflammation to peritonitis in PD patients, suggesting blood-derived indices, such as PAR, NLR, MLR, and SIRI, may serve as adjunctive markers to assist the established diagnostic methods.

An efficient and direct approach to pyrroles was successfully developed by employing 3-formylchromones as decarboxylative coupling partners, and facilitated by microwave irradiation. The protocol utilizes easily accessible feedstocks, a catalytic amount of DBU without any metals, resulting in high efficiency and regioselectivity. Notably, all synthesized products were evaluated against five different cancer cell lines and compound 3l selectively inhibited the proliferation of HCT116 cells with an IC50 value of 10.65 μM.

α-Ketoamide moieties, as privileged units, may represent a valuable option to develop compounds with favorable biological activities, such as low toxicity, promising PK and drug-like properties. An efficient silver-catalyzed decarboxylative acylation of α-oxocarboxylic acids with isocyanides was developed to derivatize the α-ketoamide functional group via a multicomponent reaction (MCR) cascade sequence in one pot. A series of α-ketoamides was synthesized with three components of isocyanides, aromatic α-oxocarboxylic acid analogues and water in moderate yields. Based on the research, the silver-catalyzed decarboxylative acylation confirmed that an oxygen atom of the amide moiety was derived from the water and air as a sole oxidant for the whole process.

Upper cervical spinal ependymomas (uCSE) is routinely identified as intramedullary ependymomas located from the oblongata medulla to C4 level. Our study aimed to report the outcomes and treatment profiles of uCSE from our cohort of uCSE patients. This retrospective observational study included 108 patients with upper cervical spinal ependymomas (uCSE) who underwent surgery at Huashan Hospital from 2008 to 2022. Demographic and clinical data were collected to identify risk factors may associated with post-operative spinal cord function, quality of life and respiratory function. The mean age of included patients was 44.30 ± 12.71 years old. The most common uCSE was ependymoma (103 of 108, 95.37 %), followed by subependymoma (3 of 108, 2.78 %) and anaplastic Ependymoma (2 of 108, 1.85 %). Age (P = 0.003), sex (P = 0.004), duration of symptoms (P = 0.010), pre-operative bladder functions (P = 0.012), post-operative pneumonia (P = 0.013) and Carbon Dioxide Retention (CDR) (P = 0.004) could independently correlate with Iiving quality of uCSE patients. Post-operative spinal cord function was associated with pneumonia immediately after operation (P = 0.017). In addition, post-operative pneumonia correlated with tumor location (P = 0.048), pre-operative McCormick scores (P = 0.008)/ motor functions (P = 0.022)/ NRS scores (P = 0.020), and tracheotomy immediately after operation (P < 0.001). Tracheotomy immediately after operation was associated with tumor location (P = 0.023), unsteady walking (P = 0.033), pre-operative NRS scores (P = 0.029), post-operative pneumonia (P < 0.001) and CDR (P < 0.001). Within uCSE patients, post-operative quality of life is associated with pre-operative spinal cord function and symptom duration, which emphasizing the importance of early intervention. Their post-operative respiratory dysfunctions also correlated with post-operative spinal cord function and quality of life. •Post-op quality of life in upper cervical spinal ependymoma patients depends on pre-op spinal function and symptom duration•uCSE patients may experience immediate respiratory dysfunctions after surgery•Immediate respiratory dysfunctions after surgery can be partially predicted by pre-operative spinal cord function•Immediate respiratory dysfunctions after surgery are linked to post-operative spinal cord function and quality of life

Traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) have a wide variety of chemical components and biological activities, which are applied in multiple fields such as medicine, agriculture and food. ( ), known as \"ChouMuDan\" in Chinese, is a traditional herb belonged to the shrub of the genus and used to treat various diseases. Previous studies indicated had certain activity in antimicrobial aspects, therefore, the present study focus on exploring its antibacterial effect on loaches infected with and the mechanism. This study first prepared the -butanol extract of , using relux extraction and liquid-liquid organic partition method. Then, the loach was randomly divided into two groups. After the experiment, the livers of loaches from two different groups were dissected for microRNA sequencing. The samples were sequenced in Hiseq Single-End mode to obtain the original data. The Unique Reads were aligned with the non-coding RNA sequences in the Rfam 13 database using Blast to screen out the non-coding RNAs and identify their types and numbers for further analysis of their functions and regulatory mechanisms. The Reads Count value of miRNA was calculated, and the expression data of the conserved miRNA in each sample were sorted out. Finally, seven differentially expressed miRNA that regulate immunity, were selected to verify the credibility of miRNA expression identified by sequencing. Two miRNA libraries of mCK1 and mC4 were constructed, using the Hiseq Single-End mode, to study the effect of -butanol extract of . (BECB) on loach infected with . Differentially expressed miRNAs were identified, among which 9 were up-regulated and 17 were down-regulated. The cluster analysis of differentially expressed miRNAs showed that the expression pattern of miRNAs changed significantly after BECB treatment. KEGG enrichment analysis was carried out on target genes, and the top 30 most significantly enriched pathways were selected by p-value. The result suggested the immune-related pathways mTOR signaling pathway and RIG-I-like receptor signaling pathway may critical for resistance to infection in loach after BECB treatment, together with RT-qPCR results. In this study, pathways related to carbohydrate and lipid metabolism were enriched after infection with for 24 h, which may be because the proliferation and differentiation of immune cells require a large number of nutrients to provide energy. This indicates that pathogens did not appear in the loach until exposure to for 24 h. After infection, both autophagy and mTOR signaling pathway are activated to promote the proliferation and differentiation of immune cells, induce the production of type I IFN and inflammatory factors, and then trigger innate and specific immunity. These findings could provide a basis for the research and development of antibacterial agents based on and the application of biopesticides in aquaculture, especially in loach farming.

The fibrogenic conversion of satellite cells contributes to the atrophy and fibrosis of skeletal muscle, playing a significant role in the pathogenesis of age-related sarcopenia. Melatonin, a hormone secreted by the pineal gland, exhibits anti-aging and anti-fibrotic effects in various conditions. However, the effect of melatonin on satellite cell fate and age-related sarcopenia remains under-explored. Here, we report that melatonin treatment mitigated the loss of muscle mass and strength in aged mice, replenished the satellite cell pool and curtailed muscle fibrosis. When primary SCs were cultured in vitro and subjected to aging induction via d -galactose, they exhibited a diminished myogenic potential and a conversion from myogenic to fibrogenic lineage. Notably, melatonin treatment effectively restored the myogenic potential and inhibited this lineage conversion. Furthermore, melatonin attenuated the expression of the fibrogenic cytokine, transforming growth factor-β1, and reduced the phosphorylation of its downstream targets Smad2/3 both in vivo and in vitro. In summary, our findings show melatonin's capacity to counteract muscle decline and inhibit fibrogenic conversion in aging SCs and highlight its potential therapeutic value for age-related sarcopenia. Graphical Abstract