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Mussels are a group of bivalves that includes the dominant species of shallow-sea, freshwater, and deep-sea chemosynthetic ecosystems. Mussels cling to various solid underwater surfaces using a proteinaceous thread, called the byssus, which is central to their ecology, physiology, and evolution. Mussels cluster using their byssi to form “mussel beds,” thereby increasing their biomass per unit of habitat area, and also creating habitats for other organisms. Clustered mussels actively filter feed to obtain nutrients, but also ingest pollutants and suspended particles; thus, mussels are good subjects for pollution analyses, especially for microplastic pollution. The byssus also facilitates invasiveness, allowing mussels to hitchhike on ships, and to utilize other man-made structures, including quay walls and power plant inlets, which are less attractive to native species. Physiologically, mussels have adapted to environmental stressors associated with a sessile lifestyle. Osmotic adaptation is especially important for life in intertidal zones, and taurine is a major component of that adaptation. Taurine accumulation systems have also been modified to adapt to sulfide-rich environments near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. The byssus may have also enabled access to vent environments, allowing mussels to attach to “evolutionary stepping stones” and also to vent chimneys.

Interstitial oxygen embrittles titanium, particularly at cryogenic temperatures, which necessitates a stringent control of oxygen content in fabricating titanium and its alloys. Here, we propose a structural strategy, via grain refinement, to alleviate this problem. Compared to a coarse-grained counterpart that is extremely brittle at 77 K, the uniform elongation of an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure (grain size ~ 2.0 µm) in Ti-0.3wt.%O is successfully increased by an order of magnitude, maintaining an ultrahigh yield strength inherent to the UFG microstructure. This unique strength-ductility synergy in UFG Ti-0.3wt.%O is achieved via the combined effects of diluted grain boundary segregation of oxygen that helps to improve the grain boundary cohesive energy and enhanced dislocation activities that contribute to the excellent strain hardening ability. The present strategy will not only boost the potential applications of high strength Ti-O alloys at low temperatures, but can also be applied to other alloy systems, where interstitial solution hardening results into an undesirable loss of ductility. Oxygen has long been considered as a detrimental impurity in pure titanium since it can severely deteriorate the ductility. Here, the authors propose a simple, yet effective strategy via grain refinement to solve this long-standing issue, while preserving its potential hardening effect.

Microplastic (MP) pollution is a major concern in aquatic environments. Many studies have detected MPs in fishes; however, little is known about differences of microplastic uptake by fish in freshwater (FW) and those in seawater (SW), although physiological conditions of fish differ significantly in the two media. In this study, we exposed larvae (21 days post-hatching) of Oryzias javanicus (euryhaline SW) and Oryzias latipes (euryhaline FW), to 1-µm polystyrene microspheres in SW and FW for 1, 3, or 7 days, after which, microscopic observation was conducted. MPs were detected in the gastrointestinal tracts in both FW and SW groups, and MP numbers were higher in the SW group in both species. Vertical distribution of MPs in the water, and body sizes of both species exhibited no significant difference between SW and FW. Detection of water containing a fluorescent dye revealed that O. javanicus larvae swallowed more water in SW than in FW, as has also been reported for O. latipes . Therefore, MPs are thought to be ingested with water for osmoregulation. These results imply that SW fish ingest more MPs than FW fish when exposed to the same concentration of MPs.

The atomic structure of amorphous Si (a-Si) has traditionally been described by the continuous random network (CRN) model, which consists of the four-coordinated Si with a non-periodic structure. However, the paracrystalline model, consisting of strained nanocrystals embedded within a disordered matrix, has gained traction. This shift is largely driven by fluctuation electron microscopy observations, which reveal the distinct diffraction patterns that are inconsistent with the CRN model. However, the degree and nature of paracrystallinity remain unclear due to a lack of experimental approaches capable of revealing finite size effects. In this paper, we present the atomic structure of a-Si that appeared in a liquid quenched Ag-Si alloy. Fast Fourier transform and electron diffraction patterns exhibit excellent agreement with molecular dynamics simulations. Furthermore, nano-beam electron diffraction reveals distinct diffraction spots that support the paracrystalline model. Importantly, these diffraction spots violate the conventional crystallographic extinction rule, implying symmetry breaking within the paracrystalline structure. This is significant because the appearance of forbidden reflections offers direct evidence of local structural changes and provides new insight into the underlying disorder in a-Si.

Mussels, which occupy important positions in marine ecosystems, attach tightly to underwater substrates using a proteinaceous holdfast known as the byssus, which is tough, durable, and resistant to enzymatic degradation. Although various byssal proteins have been identified, the mechanisms by which it achieves such durability are unknown. Here we report comprehensive identification of genes involved in byssus formation through whole-genome and foot-specific transcriptomic analyses of the green mussel, Perna viridis . Interestingly, proteins encoded by highly expressed genes include proteinase inhibitors and defense proteins, including lysozyme and lectins, in addition to structural proteins and protein modification enzymes that probably catalyze polymerization and insolubilization. This assemblage of structural and protective molecules constitutes a multi-pronged strategy to render the byssus highly resistant to environmental insults.

Atom probe tomography (APT) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)/scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) have been used correlatively to explore atomic-scale local structure and chemistry of the exactly same area in the vicinity of growth front of a long-period stacking ordered (LPSO) phase in a ternary Mg–Al–Gd alloy. It is proved for the first time that enrichment of Gd atoms in four consecutive (0001) atomic layers precedes enrichment of Al atoms so that the formation of Al 6 Gd 8 clusters occurs only after sufficient Al atoms to form Al 6 Gd 8 clusters diffuse into the relevant portions. Lateral growth of the LPSO phase is found to occur by ‘ledge’ mechanism with the growth habit plane either {1 1 ¯ 00} or {11 2 ¯ 0} planes. The motion of ledges that give rise to lateral growth of the LPSO phase is considered to be controlled by diffusion of Al atoms.

In the context of emergency response applications, real-time situational awareness is vital. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with imagers have emerged as crucial tools for providing timely information in such scenarios. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) are effective in image processing. However, the deployment of CNN models in UAVs faces significant challenges. The CNN models involve large number of parameters and energy-costly floating-point computations beyond the memory and power available on-board the UAVs. To address these challenges, we propose a co-design optimization approach for deploying the EmergencyNet CNN model on resource-constrained UAVs. Our strategy includes channel-wise pruning to reduce the size and optimize the network architecture. Additionally, we apply additive powers-of-two (APoT) quantization to further compress the model and enhance computational efficiency. Using channel-wise network pruning we derive TinyEmergencyNet that is only 155KB in memory size and 50% smaller than EmergencyNet. This proposed approach is evaluated on Aerial Image Disaster Event Recognition (AIDER) dataset. We have achieved an F1-score of 93.6% with 4-bit APoT quantization that closely approaches the full precision (32-bit) accuracy of 94%. Furthermore, hardware-friendly bit-shifting operations as a result of APoT quantization present an added advantage in hardware accelerator implementations. This work pioneers the joint application of channel-wise pruning and non-uniform APoT quantization on EmergencyNet, presenting a suitable solution tailored for UAV-based emergency response applications.

Background Many studies have recently reported the association of concomitant medications with the response and survival in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with cancer immunotherapy. However, the clinical impact of statin therapy on the outcome of cancer immunotherapy in patients with NSCLC is poorly understood. Methods In our database, we retrospectively identified and enrolled 390 patients with advanced or recurrent NSCLC who were treated with anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) monotherapy in clinical practice between January 2016 and December 2019 at 3 medical centers in Japan to examine the clinical impact of statin therapy on the survival of patients with NSCLC receiving anti-PD-1 monotherapy. A propensity score-matched analysis was conducted to minimize the bias arising from the patients’ backgrounds. Results The Kaplan–Meier curves of the propensity score-matched cohort showed that the overall survival (OS), but not the progression-free survival (PFS), was significantly longer in patients receiving statin therapy. However, a Cox regression analysis in the propensity score-matched cohort revealed that statin therapy was not an independent favorable prognostic factor, although it tended to be correlated with a favorable outcome. Conclusions Statin therapy may be a combination tool for cancer immunotherapy in patients with NSCLC. These findings should be validated in further prospective studies with larger sample sizes.

Aluminum, the primary structural material used in spacecraft, operates in low Earth orbit (LEO). It is subjected to high-energy electron irradiation with energies ranging from 0.1 to 10 MeV, which produces significant irradiation damage. Understanding the characteristics of irradiation defects with crystallographic orientations is crucial for analyzing the failure of spacecraft components and for developing aerospace materials with improved irradiation resistance. In this study, pure aluminum was irradiated in situ at room temperature using 200 kV transmission electron microscopy. The irradiation defects were comparatively analyzed for four crystallographic orientations, focusing on the size, density, and interstitial content of and dislocation loops. For all four irradiation directions, the interstitial atom density (IAD) within loops is significantly higher than that in loops. Notably, under [110]-direction irradiation, IAD in loops is approximately 55 times that in loops. This phenomenon is attributed to the one-dimensional migration of loops. Among the four irradiation directions, the total IAD in the two types of loops decreases in the order: [110] > [111] > [310] > [100]. The threshold displacement energy (Ed) of aluminum at room temperature is inferred to follow the relationship: [110] < [111] < [310] < [100].