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Astrocyte-derived IL-3 activates the corresponding receptor IL-3Rα in microglia. This cross-talk between astrocytes and microglia ameliorates the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease in mice. In this study we investigated the role of IL-3/IL-3Rα cross-talk and its regulatory mechanisms in ischemic stroke. Ischemic stroke was induced in mice by intraluminal occlusion of the right middle cerebral artery (MCA) for 60 min followed by reperfusion (I/R). Human astrocytes or microglia subjected to oxygen-glucose deprivation and reoxygenation (OGD/Re) were used as in vitro models of brain ischemia. We showed that both I/R and OGD/Re significantly induced decreases in astrocytic IL-3 and microglial IL-3Rα protein levels, accompanied by pro-inflammatory activation of A1-type astrocytes and M1-type microglia. Importantly, astrocyte-derived VEGFD acting on VEGFR3 of astrocytes and microglia contributed to the cross-talk dysfunction and pro-inflammatory activation of the two glial cells, thereby mediating neuronal cell damage. By using metabolomics and multiple biochemical approaches, we demonstrated that IL-3 supplementation to microglia reversed OGD/Re-induced lipid metabolic reprogramming evidenced by upregulated expression of CPT1A, a rate-limiting enzyme for the mitochondrial β-oxidation, and increased levels of glycerophospholipids, the major components of cellular membranes, causing reduced accumulation of lipid droplets, thus reduced pro-inflammatory activation and necrosis, as well as increased phagocytosis of microglia. Notably, exogenous IL-3 and the VEGFR antagonist axitinib reestablished the cross-talk of IL-3/IL-3Rα, improving microglial lipid metabolic levels via upregulation of CPT1A, restoring microglial phagocytotic function and attenuating microglial pro-inflammatory activation, ultimately contributing to brain recovery from I/R insult. Our results demonstrate that VEGFD/VEGFR3 signaling contributes to the dysfunction of the astrocyte IL-3/microglia IL-3Rα cross-talk and drives pro-inflammatory activation, causing lipid metabolic reprogramming of microglia. These insights suggest VEGFR3 antagonism or restoring IL-3 levels as a potential therapeutic strategy for ischemic stroke.

This paper investigates the problem of retrieving aerial scene images by using semantic sketches, since thestate-of-the-art retrieval systems turn out to be invalid when there is no exemplar query aerial image available. However,due to the complex surface structures and huge variations of resolutions of aerial images, it is very challenging to retrieveaerial images with sketches and few studies have been devoted to this task. In this article, for the first time to our knowledge,we propose a framework to bridge the gap between sketches and aerial images. First, an aerial sketch-image database iscollected, and the images and sketches it contains are augmented to various levels of details. We then train a multi-scaledeep model by the new dataset. The fully-connected layers of the network in each scale are finally connected and used ascross-domain features, and the Euclidean distance is used to measure the cross-domain similarity between aerial images andsketches. Experiments on several commonly used aerial image datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed methodcompared with the traditional approaches.

In order to clarify the geographicdistribution and change of natural Larix gmeliniiforest in carbon storage in Daxing＇anling mountains（Great Khingan Range） in North China＇s InnerMongolia, an area-irrelevant conversion equation ofbiomass from timber volume in the form of B =0.6966Vwas develooed bv using survev data.

Objectives Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) is rapidly spreading worldwide. Lianhua Qingwen capsule (LQC) has shown therapeutic effects in patients with COVID‐19. This study is aimed to discover its molecular mechanism and provide potential drug targets. Materials and Methods An LQC target and COVID‐19–related gene set was established using the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology database and seven disease‐gene databases. Gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis and protein‐protein interaction (PPI) network were performed to discover the potential mechanism. Molecular docking was performed to visualize the patterns of interactions between the effective molecule and targeted protein. Results A gene set of 65 genes was generated. We then constructed a compound‐target network that contained 234 nodes of active compounds and 916 edges of compound‐target pairs. The GO and KEGG indicated that LQC can act by regulating immune response, apoptosis and virus infection. PPI network and subnetworks identified nine hub genes. The molecular docking was conducted on the most significant gene Akt1, which is involved in lung injury, lung fibrogenesis and virus infection. Six active compounds of LQC can enter the active pocket of Akt1, namely beta‐carotene, kaempferol, luteolin, naringenin, quercetin and wogonin, thereby exerting potential therapeutic effects in COVID‐19. Conclusions The network pharmacological strategy integrates molecular docking to unravel the molecular mechanism of LQC. Akt1 is a promising drug target to reduce tissue damage and help eliminate virus infection. A Lianhua Qingwen capsule (LQC) target and COVID‐19 related gene set is established to construct compound‐target pharmacology network. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis indicate the regulating effect of LQC on apoptosis, antivirus, immune defense, and inflammatory response. Protein‐protein interaction network and critical subnetworks are constructed to identify hub gene target. The most significant gene, Akt 1, is selected to perform molecular docking with active compounds of LQC. Six compounds are finally recognized as potential anti‐COVID‐19 agents.

We consider a cantilever mechanical oscillator(MO) made of diamond. A nitrogen-vacancy(NV) center lies at the end of the cantilever. Two magnetic tips near the NV center induce a strong second-order magnetic field gradient. Under coherent driving of the MO, we find that the coupling between the MO and the NV center is greatly enhanced. We studied how to generate entanglement between the MO and the NV center and realize quantum state transfer between them. We also propose a scheme to generate two-mode squeezing between different MO modes by coupling them to the same NV center. The decoherence and dissipation effects for both the MO and the NV center are numerically calculated using the present parameter values of the experimental configuration. We have achieved high fidelity for entanglement generation, quantum state transfer, and large twomode squeezing.

Background Maternal smoking during pregnancy may be associated with low birth weight (LBW) in offspring and global risk estimates have not been summarized previously. We aimed to systematically explore evidence regarding maternal smoking and the LBW risk in offspring globally and examine possible causes of heterogeneity across relevant studies. Methods Comprehensive search of PubMed, Ovid Embase, Ovid Medline (R), and Web of science from inception until October 2021 was carried out. A random-effects meta-analysis was used to estimate the pooled odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). Restricted cubic spline analysis with three knots was used to further examine the dose–response relationship. Results Literature searches yielded 4940 articles, of which 53 met inclusion criteria (comprising 55 independent studies). Maternal smoking during pregnancy was significantly associated with the risk of LBW in offspring (OR = 1.89, 95% CI = 1.80–1.98). Furthermore, an obvious dose–response relationship between the amount of cigarettes daily smoked in pregnancy and the risk of LBW in offspring was observed. The results of subgroup analyses indicated that the risk of maternal smoking on LBW was larger in more recently conducted studies ( P  = 0.020) and longer period of active smoking during pregnancy ( P  = 0.002). No evidence of publication bias was found. Conclusions In summary, maternal smoking in pregnancy was significantly associated with a higher risk of LBW in offspring on a global scale. The risk of maternal smoking on infant LBW seems to be increasing over time, and was higher with longer smoking duration throughout pregnancy and more cigarettes smoked daily.

Intravesical instillation therapy is the mainstay of prophylaxis of tumor recurrence and progression in non‐muscle‐invasive bladder cancer. However, there is no study evaluating the superiority of monotherapy. The aim of this study is to compare the efficacy of preventing recurrence and progression of intravesical monotherapies via network meta‐analysis (NMA) of randomized controlled trials. Database searches were conducted on Embase, Ovid Medline, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.com from the time of establishment to February 6, 2020. The monotherapies included Bacille Calmette‐Guérin (BCG), mitomycin C (MMC), interferon (IFN), adriamycin, epirubicin, gemcitabine (GEM), and thiotepa (THP). A Bayesian consistency network model was generated under a random‐effects model. The superiority of therapy was identified based on the surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA). Fifty‐seven studies with 12462 patients are included. NMA shows that GEM (SUCRA = 0.92), BCG (SUCRA = 0.82), and IFN (SUCRA = 0.78) are the top three effective drugs to reduce recurrence. GEM (SUCRA = 0.87) is the most effective therapy to prevent progress, followed by BCG, MMC, THP, and IFN with similar efficacy. Subgroup analysis of pairwise meta‐analysis and NMA was performed on publication year, trial initiation year, study origin, center involvement, sample size, drug schedule, tumor characteristics, and trial quality to address confounding factors, which suggests the robustness of the results with stable effect sizes. Network meta‐regression also indicates consistent rank by analyzing year, sample size, and quality. Compared with BCG, GEM is also a promising therapy with favorable efficacy to reduce tumor recurrence and progression. IFN and MMC could be alternative therapies for BCG with slightly inferior efficacy in recurrence prevention and similar efficacy in progression prevention. However, the results of this study should be treated with caution since most of the included studies are of moderate to high risk of bias. The meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials evaluates the efficacy of intravesical monotherapies in preventing tumor recurrence and progression in patients with non‐muscle‐invasive bladder cancer. The results identify potential alternative therapies for BCG, such as gemcitabine, interferon, and mitomycin C, which can be considered the optimal second‐line therapy.

Human infection with the novel avian-origin influenza A (H7N9) virus has aroused global concern. In this report, the clinical characteristics of 111 laboratory-confirmed cases in China are presented. On March 30, 2013, three patients with fatal cases of rapid, progressive pneumonia were confirmed to be infected with a novel avian-origin influenza A (H7N9) virus that had not been detected in humans and animals previously. 1 , 2 The new human H7N9 viruses are the product of reassortment of viruses that are of avian origin. Global attention was soon focused on the situation because of the increasing number of new cases and the high rate of death associated with these infections. 3 As of May 9, the World Health Organization (WHO) had reported 131 laboratory-confirmed cases, including 32 deaths. 4 However, data on . . .

Thermoelectrics enable direct heat-to-electricity transformation, but their performance has so far been restricted by the closely coupled carrier and phonon transport. Here, we demonstrate that the quantum gaps, a class of planar defects characterized by nano-sized potential wells, can decouple carrier and phonon transport by selectively scattering phonons while allowing carriers to pass effectively. We choose the van der Waals gap in GeTe-based materials as a representative example of the quantum gap to illustrate the decoupling mechanism. The nano-sized potential well of the quantum gap in GeTe-based materials is directly visualized by in situ electron holography. Moreover, a more diffused distribution of quantum gaps results in further reduction of lattice thermal conductivity, which leads to a peak ZT of 2.6 at 673 K and an average ZT of 1.6 (323–723 K) in a GeTe system. The quantum gap can also be engineered into other thermoelectrics, which provides a general method for boosting their thermoelectric performance. Defects are believed to always scatter carriers. Here, the authors find that the quantum gaps in GeTe-based materials do not scatter carriers, which decouple the carriers and phonons transport leading to high thermoelectric performance.

How to evaluate the resilience level and change trend of supply chain is an important research direction in current supply chain management practice. This paper proposes a new method of supply chain resilience assessment based on hesitant fuzzy linguistic term set (HFLTS) and matter element extension theory. Firstly, based on the research status quo at home and abroad, a low-carbon enterprise supply chain resilience assessment index system is established, which includes six first-level indicators and corresponding 21 second-level indicators of product supply resilience, resource resilience, partner resilience, information response resilience, financial resilience and knowledge resilience. Secondly, HFLTS was used to collect expert opinions and Ordered Weighted Arithmetic (OWA) to calculate the expert composite language, by which the fuzzy evaluation matrix of supply chain resilience assessment indicators was obtained. Once again, the resilience indicator weights are determined based on a game-theoretic portfolio assignment method combining the best-worst method (BWM) and the CRITIC method. Finally, the nearness degree function is combined with the extension comprehensive evaluation method to improve the matter element extension model, and the supply chain resilience assessment model of low-carbon enterprises based on the game theory combination assignment-improved matter element extension is established. Taking X low-carbon enterprise as an example, the evaluation results show that the supply chain resilience level of this enterprise is II, and the eigenvalue of the grade variable is 2.69, and the supply chain resilience is shifting to III, and the supply chain resilience is shifting to III, which indicates that the supply chain resilience of this enterprise is being enhanced. Therefore, the improved matter element extension not only ensures the accuracy of the evaluation results, but also has higher prediction accuracy.