Explore the vast range of titles available.

With the rapid development of deep neural networks in computer vision, style transfer technology has also made significant progress. Cycle-GAN can perform object deformation, style transfer, and image enhancement without one-to-one mapping between source and target domains. In the painting style transfer task, the performance of Cycle-GAN is recognized. In Cycle-GAN, the choice of generator model is crucial, and common backbones are ResNet and U-Net. The ResNet generator retains part of the original features through the jump connection of the residual structure, preventing the image from losing important information, and has the potential to maintain the authenticity of the image. The U-Net generator extracts more features and details through a complex and in-depth network architecture, which has excellent potential for tasks requiring a lot of feature extraction. However, few studies have directly compared their performance differences in the context of Cycle-GAN style transfer tasks. This paper compares and analyzes the effects of U-Net and ResNet generators in Cycle-GAN style transfer from different perspectives. The author discusses their respective advantages and limitations in training processes and the quality of generated images. The author presents quantitative and qualitative analyses based on experimental results, providing references and insights for researchers and practitioners in different scenarios. The research findings indicate that in the artwork style transfer task of Cycle-GAN, the U-Net generator tends to generate excessive details and texture, leading to overly complex transformed images. In contrast, the ResNet generator demonstrates superior performance, generating desired images faster, higher quality, and more natural results.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the main cause of death among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), particularly in low- and middle-income countries. To effectively prevent the development of CVDs in T2DM, considerable effort has been made to explore novel preventive approaches, individualized glycemic control and cardiovascular risk management (strict blood pressure and lipid control), together with recently developed glucose-lowering agents and lipid-lowering drugs. This review mainly addresses the important issues affecting the choice of antidiabetic agents and lipid, blood pressure and antiplatelet treatments considering the cardiovascular status of the patient. Finally, we also discuss the changes in therapy principles underlying CVDs in T2DM.

Anthocyanins are natural pigments with antioxidant effects that exist in various fruits and vegetables. The accumulation of anthocyanins is induced by environmental signals and regulated by transcription factors in plants. Numerous evidence has indicated that among the environmental factors, light is one of the most signal regulatory factors involved in the anthocyanin biosynthesis pathway. However, the signal transduction of light and molecular regulation of anthocyanin synthesis remains to be explored. Here, we focus on the research progress of signal transduction factors for positive and negative regulation in light-dependent and light-independent anthocyanin biosynthesis. In particular, we will discuss light-induced regulatory pathways and related specific regulators of anthocyanin biosynthesis in plants. In addition, an integrated regulatory network of anthocyanin biosynthesis controlled by transcription factors is discussed based on the significant progress.

Background A mountain of evidence has shown that people’s physical and mental health can be affected by various air pollutions. Poor pregnancy outcomes are associated with exposure to air pollution. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the association between air pollutions (PM 2.5 , PM 10 , SO 2 , NO 2 , CO, and O 3 ) and preterm birth/low birth weight in Guangdong province, China. Method All maternal data and birth data from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2015 were selected from a National Free Pre-pregnancy Check-ups system, and the daily air quality data of Guangdong Province was collected from China National Environmental Monitoring Center. 1784 women with either preterm birth information ( n  = 687) or low birth weight information ( n  = 1097) were used as experimental group. Control group included 1766 women with healthy birth information. Logistic regression models were employed to evaluate the effects of air pollutants on the risk of preterm birth and low birth weight. Results The pollution levels of PM 2.5 , PM 10 , SO 2 , NO 2 , CO, and O 3 in Guangdong province were all lower than the national air pollution concentrations. The concentrations of PM 2.5 , PM 10 , SO 2 , NO 2 and CO had obvious seasonal trends with the highest in winter and the lowest in summer. O 3 concentrations in September (65.72 μg/m 3 ) and October (84.18 μg/m 3 ) were relatively higher. After controlling for the impact of confounding factors, the increases in the risk of preterm birth were associated with each 10 μg/m 3 increase in PM 2.5 (OR 1.043, 95% CI 1.01–1.09) and PM 10 (OR 1.039, 95% CI 1.01~1.14) during the first trimester and in PM 2.5 (OR 1.038, 95% CI 1.01~1.12), PM 10 (OR 1.024, 95% CI 1.02~1.09), SO 2 (OR 1.081, 95% CI 1.01~1.29), and O 3 (OR 1.016, 95% CI 1.004~1.35) during the third trimester. The increase in the risk of low birth weight was associated with PM 2.5 , PM 10 , NO 2 , and O 3 in the first month and the last month. Conclusion This study provides further evidence for the relationships between air pollutions and preterm birth/low birth weight. Pregnant women are recommended to reduce or avoid exposure to air pollutions during pregnancy, especially in the early and late stages of pregnancy.

Plant growth and development are greatly affected by the environment. Many genes have been identified to be involved in regulating plant development and adaption of abiotic stress. Apart from protein-coding genes, more and more evidence indicates that non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), including small RNAs and long ncRNAs (lncRNAs), can target plant developmental and stress-responsive mRNAs, regulatory genes, DNA regulatory regions, and proteins to regulate the transcription of various genes at the transcriptional, posttranscriptional, and epigenetic level. Currently, the molecular regulatory mechanisms of sRNAs and lncRNAs controlling plant development and abiotic response are being deeply explored. In this review, we summarize the recent research progress of small RNAs and lncRNAs in plants, focusing on the signal factors, expression characters, targets functions, and interplay network of ncRNAs and their targets in plant development and abiotic stress responses. The complex molecular regulatory pathways among small RNAs, lncRNAs, and targets in plants are also discussed. Understanding molecular mechanisms and functional implications of ncRNAs in various abiotic stress responses and development will benefit us in regard to the use of ncRNAs as potential character-determining factors in molecular plant breeding.

China faces the greatest challenge from stroke in the world. According to results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, there were 3.94 million new stroke cases, 28.76 million prevalent cases and 2.19 million deaths due to stroke in China in 2019. Furthermore, stroke is also the leading cause of disability-adjusted life-year (DALY) in China, the number of DALYs reached 45.9 million in 2019. Several recent large-scale epidemiological surveys have updated the data on pre-existing conditions contributed to stroke. The age-adjusted prevalence of overweight among Chinese adults aged 18–69 years was 34.4%, and the prevalence of obesity was 16.8% in 2018. 50.9% of Chinese adults ≥18 years of age without history of hypertension had prehypertension in 2018. The weighted prevalence of hypertension in adults was 27.5% in 2018. The weighted prevalence of total diabetes and pre-diabetes diagnosed by the American Diabetes Association criteria were 12.8% and 35.2%, respectively, among Chinese adults ≥18 years of age in 2017. The weighted atrial fibrillation prevalence was 1.8% among Chinese adults ≥45 years of age and equates to being present in an estimated 7.9 million people in China. Data from 1672 tertiary public hospitals in the Hospital Quality Monitoring System (HQMS) showed that 3 411 168 stroke cases were admitted during 2019. Of those, 2 818 875 (82.6%) were ischaemic strokes (ISs), 485 474 (14.2%) were intracerebral haemorrhages (ICHs), 106 819 (3.1%) were subarachnoid haemorrhages (SAHs). The average age was 66 years old, and 59.6% were male. A total of 1379 (<0.1%), 2604 (0.5%), 1250 (1.2%) paediatric strokes (age <18 years) were identified among IS, ICH and SAH, respectively. Over one-third (1 231 519 (36.1%)) of the stroke cases were covered by urban resident basic medical insurance, followed by urban employee basic medical insurance (891 103 (26.1%)) and new rural cooperative medical schema (543 108 (15.9%)). The leading risk factor was hypertension (57.3% for IS, 69.9% for ICH and 44.1% for SAH), and the leading comorbidity was pneumonia or pulmonary infection (10.4% for IS, 34.6% for ICH and 29.7% for SAH). In-hospital death/discharge against medical advice rate was 8.5%, ranging from 6.0% for IS to 20.6% for SAH. The median and IQR of length of stay was 9.0 (6.0–13.0) days, ranging from 10.0 (7.0–13.0) in IS to 14.0 (8.0–22.0) in ICH. Similar data from 2847 secondary public hospitals or private hospitals in the HQMS were also reported. Data from HQMS showed that higher proportions of interprovincial admission to other provinces were seen in Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Tibet and Beijing. Higher proportions of interprovincial admission from other provinces were seen in Beijng, Tianjin, Shanghai and Ningxia. Data from 323 601 strokes from 1337 hospitals in the Chinese Stroke Center Alliance during 2019 demonstrated that the composite scores of guideline-recommended key performance indicators for patients with IS, ICH and SAH were 0.78±0.20, 0.69±0.27 and 0.60±0.31, respectively.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are bioactive macromolecules that exhibit antibacterial, antiviral, and immunomodulatory functions. They come from a wide range of sources and are found in all forms of life, from bacteria to plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates, and play an important role in controlling the spread of pathogens, promoting wound healing and treating tumors. Consequently, AMPs have emerged as promising alternatives to next-generation antibiotics. With advancements in systems biology and synthetic biology technologies, it has become possible to synthesize AMPs artificially. We can better understand their functional activities for further modification and development by investigating the mechanism of action underlying their antimicrobial properties. This review focuses on the structural aspects of AMPs while highlighting their significance for biological activity. Furthermore, it elucidates the membrane targeting mechanism and intracellular targets of these peptides while summarizing molecular modification approaches aimed at enhancing their antibacterial efficacy. Finally, this article outlines future challenges in the functional development of AMPs along with proposed strategies to overcome them.

Aiming at the problems of complex background interference and partial occlusion of fault targets during UAV transmission line inspection, this paper proposes an MRA-YOLOv8-based fault detection method for transmission line components. Firstly, the YOLOv8 network is adopted as the baseline framework, and a self-attention mechanism is incorporated into its backbone network to enhance the detection accuracy for occluded targets. Subsequently, a Multi-scale Attention Aggregation module is introduced into the neck network to improve the feature extraction capability for fault targets against complex backgrounds. Furthermore, the bounding box loss function is optimized to mitigate class imbalance issues, thereby boosting the model's fault detection performance. Finally, the proposed algorithm is validated using inspection data collected over the past three years from an electric power inspection department. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves an average detection precision of 92.5% and a recall rate of 90.9%.