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Cuticle is the major transpiration barrier that restricts non-stomatal water loss and is closely associated with plant drought tolerance. Although multiple efforts have been made, it remains controversial what factors shape up the cuticular transpiration barrier. Previously, we found that the cuticle from the tender tea leaf was mainly constituted by very-long-chain-fatty-acids and their derivatives while alicyclic compounds dominate the mature tea leaf cuticle. The presence of two contrasting cuticle within same branch offered a unique system to investigate this question. In this study, tea seedlings were subjected to water deprivation treatment, cuticle structures and wax compositions from the tender leaf and the mature leaf were extensively measured and compared. We found that cuticle wax coverage, thickness, and osmiophilicity were commonly increased from both leaves. New waxes species were specifically induced by drought; the composition of existing waxes was remodeled; the chain length distributions of alkanes, esters, glycols, and terpenoids were altered in complex manners. Drought treatment significantly reduced leaf water loss rates. Wax biosynthesis-related gene expression analysis revealed dynamic expression patterns dependent on leaf maturity and the severity of drought. These data suggested that drought stress-induced structural and compositional cuticular modifications improve cuticle water barrier property. In addition, we demonstrated that cuticle from the tender leaf and the mature leaf were modified through both common and distinct modes.

Knee joint stiffness occurs and severely limits its range of motion (ROM) after facture around the knee. During mobility training, knee joints need to be flexed to the maximum angle position (maxAP) that can induce pain at an appropriate level in order to pull apart intra-articular adhesive structures while avoiding secondary injuries. However, the maxAP varies with training and is mostly determined by the pain level of patients. In this study, the feasibility of utilizing electromyogram (EMG) activities to detect maxAP was investigated. Specifically, the maxAP detection was converted into a binary classification between pain level three of the numerical rating scales (pain) and below (painless) according to clinical requirements. Firstly, 12 post-fracture patients with knee joint stiffness participated in Experiment I, with a therapist performing routine mobility training and EMG signals being recorded from knee flexors and extensors. The results showed that the extracted EMG features were significantly different between the pain and painless states. Then, the maxAP estimation performance was tested on a knee rehabilitation robot in Experiment II, with another seven patients being involved. The support vector machine and random forest models were used to classify between pain and painless states and obtained a mean accuracy of 87.90% ± 4.55% and 89.10% ± 4.39%, respectively, leading to an average estimation bias of 6.5° ± 5.1° and 4.5° ± 3.5°. These results indicated that the pain-induced EMG can be used to accurately classify pain states for the maxAP estimation in post-fracture mobility training, which can potentially facilitate the application of robotic techniques in fracture rehabilitation.

Global climate variations have intensified the transformation of salt lakes and saline-alkali playas in arid regions into major sources of saline-alkali dust storms, actively influencing atmospheric circulation and climate dynamics. This study focuses on two geographically close but environmentally distinct regions, the Qaidam Basin and the Alxa Plateau, situated on opposite sides of the Qilian Mountains. Surface salts were collected from both areas and analyzed for ion composition and sulfur isotope characteristics. Results reveal high concentrations of Na + and Cl − in both regions, with Mg 2+ and SO 4 2− also present, reflecting similarities in ionic composition. The δ 34 S values differ in distribution between the two regions: the Qaidam Basin shows higher and more clustered values (+ 9.11‰ to + 20.23‰), indicating a relatively closed system, while the Alxa Plateau includes lower and occasionally negative values (− 2.30‰ to + 11.43‰), reflecting more variable sulfur inputs and open-system conditions. The study also examines sulfur-to-chloride ratios, which vary significantly across sites in the Alxa Plateau, reflecting complex environmental interactions and diverse sulfur sources. In the Qaidam Basin, sulfur-to-chloride ratios are more stable, suggesting consistent sulfur cycling within a relatively closed environment. Additional analyses of sulfate-to-sodium and sulfate-to-magnesium ratios further emphasize the distinct sulfur sources and processes in each region, with minimal impact from these ions on δ 34 S values. This study provides insights into the contrasting sulfur isotopic and ionic ratios that shape the material sources and evolutionary processes in the Qaidam Basin and Alxa Plateau.

This study aims to find out the relationship between pet keeping in childhood and asthma and allergy among children aged 0-8 years old in Tianjin, China. Parental or guardians reports of 7360 children were analyzed. 1490 (21.6%) families kept pets at the time of the survey (current), among them 4.0% cats, and 14.7% dogs. For the first year of life of children (early), 1196 (18.4%) families kept pets, and among them 3.2% cats, and 13.7% dogs. Exposure to a pet in early childhood significantly increased the risk of current wheeze, current dry cough, and diagnosed rhinitis. 17.9% of parents reported an avoidance behavior, i.e., had removed or refrained a pet due to asthma or allergy in the family. After adjustment for avoidance behavior, the negative effect of pet keeping on children's health became even more obvious, with e.g. an AOR of 3.37 (1.58-7.19) for diagnosed asthma, 3.60 (2.07-6.27) for diagnosed rhinitis, 1.92 (1.31-2.81) for diagnosed eczema. A dose-response relationship between pet keeping at current and current wheeze, current eczema and diagnosed eczema was found. In conclusion, pet exposure in early life of children in Tianjin is a risk factor for asthma and allergies among children aged 0-8 years old.

Bud paradormancy has been widely studied in perennial deciduous woody species, but little attention has been paid to paradormancy set and release in perennial evergreen tree species. Here, shoot bud paradormancy in Camellia sinensis cv. Huangdan was studied by untargeted metabolomics. We found that after removing the axillary floral buds for one day, the paradormancy of the axillary shoot buds was released. The paradormant shoot buds had lower glucose-1-phosphate, fructose, and D-(-)-tagatofuranose content but higher trehalose, raffinose, galactinol, and α-D-xylopyranose content. Meanwhile, high levels of asparagine were accumulated. Flavonoids were differentially accumulated, and higher levels of three flavone glycosides (C-diglucosylapigenin, apigenin 6-C-glucoside 8-C-arabinoside, and prunin) and four proanthocyanidins (Procyanidin trimer isomer 1, Galloylprocyanidin dimer, Procyanidin trimer isomer 3, and Galloylated trimeric proanthocyanidin) were accumulated in paradormant shoot buds. During the paradormancy-to-growth transition, all these metabolites were reversed. These data suggest that the reconfiguration of carbon, nitrogen, and flavonoid metabolism could be an important aspect for the paradormancy set and release of tea axillary shoot buds. This study provided novel insights into shoot bud paradormancy set and release in a perennial evergreen tree species.

Receptor-interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3), a member of the receptor-interacting protein kinase (RIPK) family with serine/threonine protein kinase activity, interacts with RIPK1 to generate necrosomes, which trigger caspase-independent programmed necrosis. As a vital component of necrosomes, RIPK3 plays an indispensable role in necroptosis, which is crucial for human life and health. In addition, RIPK3 participates in the pathological process of several infections, aseptic inflammatory diseases, and tumors (including tumor-promoting and -suppressive activities) by regulating autophagy, cell proliferation, and the metabolism and production of chemokines/cytokines. This review summarizes the recent research progress of the regulators of the RIPK3 signaling pathway and discusses the potential role of RIPK3/necroptosis in the aetiopathogenesis of various diseases. An in-depth understanding of the mechanisms and functions of RIPK3 may facilitate the development of novel therapeutic strategies.

Background Previous research has shown that lymphocytes and cytokines can mediate bone metabolism. This study explored the clinical association and predictive ability of lymphocytes and cytokines levels for bone metabolism. Methods A total of 162 patients were enrolled in this study. The levels of N-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (P1NP), β-collagen degradation product (β-CTX), total T lymphocytes, immature T lymphocytes, suppressor/cytotoxic T lymphocytes, helper/inducer T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), IFN-α, interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and IL12p70 were evaluated. The relationship between these lymphocyte subsets and cytokines with bone metabolic status was examined and their predictive ability for bone metabolic status was assessed. Results The principal component analysis (PCA) and correlation analysis results varied on differences in lymphocyte subsets and cytokines in various bone metabolism states. Differential analysis revealed significant differences in the absolute counts of B lymphocytes ( P  < 0.05), level of IL-12p70 ( P  < 0.05), and IL-8 ( P  < 0.001) at different P1NP levels. Significant differences were observed in the absolute counts of total T lymphocytes ( P  < 0.05), B lymphocytes ( P  < 0.05), the level of IL-6 ( P  < 0.05), the percentage of B lymphocytes ( P  < 0.01), and NK cells ( P  < 0.05) at different β-CTX levels. Furthermore, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve showed that the absolute count of B lymphocytes and levels of IL-12p70 and IL-8 could be used to evaluate bone formation states, while the absolute counts of T and B lymphocytes, level of IL-6, and percentages of NK cells and B lymphocytes could be used to evaluate bone resorption states. Conclusion The bone metabolism status changed based on the lymphocyte subsets and cytokine levels. Differentially expressed lymphocytes and cytokines could be used to distinguish bone metabolism status.

This study presents a theoretical study on the super thin and conductive thermal absorber with built-in corrugated channels on the basis of previous field experiments. The flow and heat transfer characteristics of the corrugated channels are simulated to identify the factors affecting photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system efficiency. The influences of the structural parameters such as the corrugation number, the corrugation area, and the flow channel width on the water outlet temperature and heat collection are discussed in order to support the structural optimization design of the hybrid PV/T system. The simulation results were validated to be in good agreement with experimental results. The results indicate that increasing inlet water velocity leads to a decrease in the outlet temperature. It was found that the corrugation area and the flow channel width have impacts on the outlet temperature of the hybrid PV/T collector panel. When the flow channel width of the absorber plate is reduced from 4 mm to 3 mm, the outlet temperature attained is between 298 and 302 K, and the heat collection is in the range of 16.2–51.4 MJ/h. This led to an increase in the amount of heat collected by 18.6%.

In this paper, novel artificial neural networks are adopted for the topology optimization of full structures at both coarse and fine scales. The novelty of the surrogate-based method is to use neural networks to optimize the relationship from boundary and mesh conditions to structure density distribution. The objective of this study is to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of deep learning techniques for structural topology optimization. The newly developed neural networks are used for optimizing various types of structures with different meshes, partition numbers, and parameters. The finite element computation takes more than 90% of the total operation time of the SIMP method, but it decreases to 40%. It is indicated that the computational cost for the whole structural design process is relatively low, while the accuracy is acceptable. The proposed artificial neural network method is used to perform topology optimization for some numerical examples such as the cantilever beam, the MBB beam, the L-shape beam, the column, and the rod-supported bridge. It is demonstrated that computational efficiency is considerably improved while the proposed neural network method is adopted.

Alkali metal compounds are released during the thermal conversion of biofuels and fossil fuels and have a major impact on the efficiency of conversion processes. Herein, we describe a novel method for the simultaneous characterization of alkali release and mass loss from materials used in combustion and gasification processes including solid fuels, fluidized bed materials, and catalysts for gas reforming. The method combines the thermogravimetric analysis of selected samples with the on-line measurement of alkali release using a surface ionization detector. The technique builds on the careful treatment of alkali processes during transport from a sample to the downstream alkali monitor including the losses of alkali in the molecular form to hot walls, the formation of nanometer-sized alkali-containing particles during the cooling of exhaust gases, aerosol particle growth, and diffusion losses in sampling tubes. The performance of the setup was demonstrated using biomass samples and fluidized bed material from an industrial process. The emissions of alkali compounds during sample heating and isothermal conditions were determined and related to the simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis. The methodology was concluded to provide new evidence regarding the behavior of alkali in key processes including biomass pyrolysis and gasification and ash interactions with fluidized beds. The implications and further improvements of the technique are discussed.