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"Tian, Cong"
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Decoupling Characteristics between Coupling Coordination Degree of Production-Living-Ecological Function and Carbon Emissions in the Urban Agglomeration of the Shandong Peninsula
Under the dual carbon goals, the relationship between land production-living-ecological function and carbon emissions points to a new direction for land spatial planning. This study compiles and analyzes carbon emissions and the production-living-ecological function coupling coordination degree of 16 cities in the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration for the years 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021. Furthermore, it introduces the Tapio decoupling model to calculate the decoupling index between carbon emissions and the coupling coordination degree. The spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of production-living-ecological function coupling coordination, carbon emissions, and the decoupling index were analyzed. The results indicate that (1) from 2001 to 2021, the production-living-ecological function coupling coordination degree in Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration increased overall, with an obvious “high in the east and low in the west” feature in the spatial pattern. That is caused by the difference in resource endowment between the east and the west and the gap in the process of urbanization, industrial structure transformation, and ecological governance. (2) During the study period, overall carbon emissions increased, with a significantly reduced growth rate. A polarization phenomenon of increase and decrease trends within the urban agglomeration was observed. The spatial distribution characteristics of land use carbon emissions showed significant production-living-ecological coupling coordination degree heterotropism. (3) From 2001 to 2021, the decoupling relationship between production-living-ecological coupling coordination degree and carbon emissions mainly exhibited three patterns: strong negative decoupling, expansion negative decoupling, and strong decoupling, maintaining a good decoupling trend overall. These results indicate that the coordinated development level of production, living, and ecological functions in the study area has improved during the research period, and its decoupling relationship with carbon emissions has also shown a positive trend. However, there is still a problem of uneven regional development. In the future, the production-living-ecological development of Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration should adhere to the development pattern of “two circles and four regions”, which aims to promote resource sharing and complementary advantages through specific regional divisions, and achieve coordinated development within the region. This involves optimizing land use structure and function, encouraging innovation and development of green industries, and deepening ecological environment restoration and protection to realize the coordinated development of the production-living-ecological function of land use under the dual carbon goal.
Journal Article
From pathogenesis of acne vulgaris to anti-acne agents
Acne vulgaris is a cutaneous chronic inflammatory disorder with complex pathogenesis. Four factors play vital roles in acne pathophysiology: hyperseborrhea and dysseborrhea, altered keratinization of the pilosebaceous duct,
Cutibacterium acnes
(
C. acnes
) and inflammation. The main hormones responsible for the development of acne vulgaris include androgens, insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1. Other factors involved in this process are corticotropin-releasing hormone, α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone and substance P. Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway, adenosine 5′-monophosphate-activated protein kinase pathway and nuclear factor kappa B pathway participate in the modulation of sebocyte, keratinocyte and inflammatory cell (e.g. lymphocytes, monocytes, macrophages, neutrophils) activity. Among all the triggers and pathways mentioned above, IGF-1-induced PI3K/Akt/Forkhead box protein O1/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) C1 pathway is the most important signaling responsible for acne pathogenesis. Commonly used anti-acne agents include retinoids, benzoyl peroxide, antibiotics and hormonal agents (e.g. spironolactone, combination oral contraceptive and flutamide). New approaches including peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ modifier, melanocortin receptor antagonists, epigallocatechin-3-gallate, metformin, olumacostat glasaretil, stearoyl-CoA desaturase inhibitor omiganan pentahydrochloride, K
D
PT, afamelanotide, apremilast and biologics have been developed as promising treatments for acne vulgaris. Although these anti-acne agents have various pharmacological effects against the diverse pathogenesis of acne, all of them have a synergistic mode of action, the attenuation of Akt/mTORC1 signaling and enhancement of p53 signal transduction. In addition to drug therapy, diet with no hyperglycemic carbohydrates, no milk and dairy products is also beneficial for treatment of acne.
Journal Article
Use of personal protective equipment against coronavirus disease 2019 by healthcare professionals in Wuhan, China: cross sectional study
AbstractObjectiveTo examine the protective effects of appropriate personal protective equipment for frontline healthcare professionals who provided care for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19).DesignCross sectional study.SettingFour hospitals in Wuhan, China.Participants420 healthcare professionals (116 doctors and 304 nurses) who were deployed to Wuhan by two affiliated hospitals of Sun Yat-sen University and Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University for 6-8 weeks from 24 January to 7 April 2020. These study participants were provided with appropriate personal protective equipment to deliver healthcare to patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 and were involved in aerosol generating procedures. 77 healthcare professionals with no exposure history to covid-19 and 80 patients who had recovered from covid-19 were recruited to verify the accuracy of antibody testing.Main outcome measuresCovid-19 related symptoms (fever, cough, and dyspnoea) and evidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, defined as a positive test for virus specific nucleic acids in nasopharyngeal swabs, or a positive test for IgM or IgG antibodies in the serum samples.ResultsThe average age of study participants was 35.8 years and 68.1% (286/420) were women. These study participants worked 4-6 hour shifts for an average of 5.4 days a week; they worked an average of 16.2 hours each week in intensive care units. All 420 study participants had direct contact with patients with covid-19 and performed at least one aerosol generating procedure. During the deployment period in Wuhan, none of the study participants reported covid-19 related symptoms. When the participants returned home, they all tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 specific nucleic acids and IgM or IgG antibodies (95% confidence interval 0.0 to 0.7%).ConclusionBefore a safe and effective vaccine becomes available, healthcare professionals remain susceptible to covid-19. Despite being at high risk of exposure, study participants were appropriately protected and did not contract infection or develop protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Healthcare systems must give priority to the procurement and distribution of personal protective equipment, and provide adequate training to healthcare professionals in its use.
Journal Article
Integrated single-cell and spatial transcriptomics reveals heterogeneity of fibroblast and pivotal genes in psoriasis
Psoriasis, which is one of the most common skin diseases, involves an array of complex immune constituents including T cells, dendritic cells and monocytes. Particularly, the cytokine IL17A, primarily generated by TH17 cells, assumes a crucial function in the etiology of psoriasis. In this study, a comprehensive investigation utilizing bulk RNA analysis, single-cell RNA sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics was employed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of psoriasis. Our study revealed that there is an overlap between the genes that are differentially expressed in psoriasis patients receiving three anti-IL17A monoclonal antibody drugs and the genes that are differentially expressed in lesion versus non-lesion samples in these patients. Further analysis using single-cell and spatial data from psoriasis samples confirmed the expression of hub genes that had low expressions in psoriasis tissue but were up-regulated after anti-IL17A treatments. These genes were found to be associated with the treatment effects of brodalumab and methotrexate, but not adalimumab, etanercept, and ustekinumab. Additionally, these genes were predominantly expressed in fibroblasts. In our study, fibroblasts were categorized into five clusters. Notably, hub genes exhibited predominant expression in cluster 3 fibroblasts, which were primarily engaged in the regulation of the extracellular matrix and were predominantly located in the reticular dermis. Subsequent analysis unveiled that cluster 3 fibroblasts also established communication with epithelial cells and monocytes via the ANGPTL-SDC4 ligand-receptor configuration, and their regulation was governed by the transcription factor TWIST1. Conversely, cluster 4 fibroblasts, responsible for vascular endothelial regulation, were predominantly distributed in the papillary dermis. Cluster 4 predominantly engaged in interactions with endothelial cells via MDK signals and was governed by the distinctive transcription factor, ERG. By means of an integrated analysis encompassing bulk transcriptomics, single-cell RNA sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics, we have discerned genes and clusters of fibroblasts that potentially contribute to the pathogenesis of psoriasis.
Journal Article
The Peculiar Precursor of a Gamma-Ray Burst from a Binary Merger Involving a Magnetar
The milestone discovery of GW170817-GRB 170817A-AT 2017gfo has shown that gravitational waves (GWs) could be produced during the merger of a neutron star–neutron star/black hole and that in electromagnetic (EM) waves, a gamma-ray burst (GRB) and a kilonova (KN) are generated in sequence after the merger. Observationally, however, EM properties before the merger phase are still unclear. Here we report a peculiar precursor in a KN-associated long-duration GRB 211211A, providing evidence of the EM before the merger. This precursor lasts ∼0.2 s, and the waiting time between the precursor and the main burst is ∼1 s, comparable to that between GW170817 and GRB 170817A. The spectrum of the precursor could be well fit with a nonthermal cutoff power-law model instead of a blackbody. In particular, a ∼22 Hz quasiperiodic oscillation candidate (∼3σ) is detected in the precursor. These temporal and spectral properties indicate that this precursor is probably produced by a catastrophic flare accompanied with magnetoelastic or crustal oscillations of a magnetar in a binary compact merger. The strong magnetic field of the magnetar can also account for the prolonged duration of GRB 211211A. However, it poses a challenge to reconcile the rather short lifetime of a magnetar with the rather long spiraling time of a binary neutron star system only by the GW radiation before the merger.
Journal Article
Testing Weak Equivalence Principle with IceCube Event and Blazar
Einstein’s weak equivalence principle (WEP), the universality of free fall, is a fundamental component of general relativity and other metric theories of gravity. Its validity can be tested through the post-Newtonian parameter γ, which quantifies the amount of spacetime curvature due to the presence of unit rest mass. In this Letter, we use high-energy neutrino events detected by IceCube and associated with the gamma-ray blazars TXS 0506+056 and PKS 0735+178 to test the WEP via the Shapiro delay induced by the gravitational potential of Laniakea. We find that violation of the equivalence principle for neutrinos and photons is limited to an accuracy of 10−6, 10−7, and 10−8, representing improvements of 1, 2, and 3 orders of magnitude, respectively, over previous constraints obtained from other high-energy neutrino-blazar associations and up to 6 orders of magnitude tighter compared to the constraints obtained with MeV neutrinos from SN 1987A.
Journal Article
YOLOv8n-DSP: A High-Precision Model for Oat Ear Detection and Counting in Complex Fields
Accurate detection and counting of oat ears are essential for yield estimation but remain challenging in complex field environments due to occlusion, significant scale variation, and fluctuating lighting. The aim of this study is to develop a high-precision detection and counting model to address these challenges. The adopted methodology was an improved YOLOv8n model, named YOLOv8n-DSP. To address significant scale variation, a Diverse Branch Block (DBB) was introduced into the backbone to enhance multi-scale feature representation. For improved detection of small, dense oat ears, the neck was augmented with a Spatial and Channel Synergistic Attention (SCSA) mechanism to strengthen discriminative feature extraction. Furthermore, to refine localization among overlapping oat ears, the PIoUv2 loss function was employed for bounding box regression. The main results revealed that the proposed model achieved a mean average precision (mAP) of 94.0% and an F1-score of 87.1% on the oat ear detection task, representing gains of 3.2 and 1.8 percentage points over the baseline YOLOv8n, respectively. For counting, it reached an accuracy of 82.5%, a 9.2-point improvement. In conclusion, the YOLOv8n-DSP model provides an effective and practical approach for in-field oat ear detection and counting, suggesting considerable potential as a reliable tool for future yield prediction systems and advanced intelligent agricultural equipment.
Journal Article
The EMPI Code for Plasma-induced Effects on Radio Waves. I. Nonmagnetized Media and Applications to Fast Radio Bursts
Electromagnetic waves undergo modifications as they propagate through plasma. We present electromagnetic wave–plasma interaction (EMPI), a three-dimensional numerical framework designed to simulate the interaction between radio signals and cold plasma. With input plasma density profiles, intrinsic radio signals, and the time and frequency resolutions of the telescope, the code synthesizes observed signals using first-principles calculations. EMPI is capable of modeling a wide range of plasma distributions, spanning analytically described smooth functions (e.g., Gaussian or exponential profiles), statistical models (e.g., turbulent screens), and discrete macroscopic structures like isolated plasma clumps, which are difficult to model both analytically and statistically. Validation tests demonstrate excellent agreement with established plasma propagation effects, such as dispersion, lensing, scintillation, and scattering. This code provides an efficient method for handling both analytical and statistical scenarios, bridging the gap between these descriptions. Thanks to its comprehensive capabilities, EMPI is particularly useful for studying radio sources of cosmological origin, especially pulse-like signals such as fast radio bursts. As these signals travel through diverse and complex plasma environments across the universe, their properties are inevitably altered, resulting in observable changes. In this context, EMPI serves as a valuable tool for studying the propagation effects of these sources, helping to advance the understanding of their essence and the intervening plasma environments.
Journal Article
MRPL48 is a novel prognostic and predictive biomarker of hepatocellular carcinoma
Background
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer and poses a threat to the health and survival of humans. Mitochondrial ribosomal protein L48 (MRPL48) belongs to the mitochondrial ribosomal protein family, which participates in energy production. Studies have shown that MRPL48 can predict osteosarcoma incidence and prognosis, as well as promotes colorectal cancer progression. However, the role of MRPL48 in HCC remains unknown.
Methods
TCGA, GEO, HCCDB, CPTAC, SMART, UALCAN, Kaplan–Meier plotter, cBioPortal, and MethSurv were performed for bioinformatics purposes. Quantitative RT-PCR, immunoblotting, and functional studies were conducted to validate the methodology in vitro.
Results
MRPL48 was greatly overexpressed in HCC tissues, compared with healthy tissue, which was subsequently demonstrated in vitro as well. The survival and regression analyses showed that MRPL48 expression is of significant clinical prognostic value in HCC. The ROC curve and nomogram analysis indicated that MRPL48 is a powerful predictor of HCC. MRPL48 methylation was adversely associated with the expression of MRPL48, and patients with a low level of methylation had poorer overall survival than those with a high level of methylation. GSEA showed that the expression of the MRPL48 was correlated with Resolution of Sister Chromatid Cohesion, Mitotic Prometaphase, Retinoblastoma Gene in Cancer, RHO Gtpases Activate Formins, Mitotic Metaphase and Anaphase, and Cell Cycle Checkpoints. An analysis of immune cell infiltration showed a significant association between MRPL48 and immune cell infiltration subsets, which impacted the survival of HCC patients. Additionally, MRPL48 knockdown reduced HCC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro.
Conclusions
We demonstrated that MRPL48 expression may be associated with HCC development and prognosis. These findings may open up new research directions and opportunities for the development of HCC treatments.
Journal Article