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Background Symbiotic bacteria play a critical role in insect’s biology. They also offer great opportunities to improve on current pest management techniques. In order to exploit and integrate the roles played by the gut microbiota on pest management programs, a better understanding of the structural organization of the microbial community in the Chinese citrus fly Bactrocera minax is essential. Results The results revealed a total of 162 OTUs at 97% similarity interval. The dominant bacteria phyla were Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Antinobacteria and Firmicutes, with the Proteobacteria having the highest relative abundance (more than 80% in all life stages). There was also a shift in the dominant OTUs from the early developmental stages to the late developmental stages and adult stages in B. minax . These OTUs related to Klebsiella pneumoniae , Providencia rettgeri and Enterobacter aerogenes , respectively. Six bacteria OTU were shared by all the life stages. These belonged to the Enterobacteriaceae and the Enterococcaceae families. Conclusion The common bacteria groups shared by all the life stages and other fruit flies could be important targets for further research. This should aim towards realizing how these bacteria affect the biology of the fly and how their relationship could be exploited in the development of sustainable management strategies against fruit flies .

This paper studies the optimization design of sandwich structures with lattice core and viscoelastic layers for suppressing structural resonance response in the frequency domain. A concurrent optimization scheme is proposed to simultaneously optimize the damping material topology in the viscoelastic layers and the size distribution of the lattice core. The damping effect of the viscoelastic layers is simulated as hysteretic damping model, and the full method is used to accurately calculate the dynamic responses. Based on the adjoint method, the corresponding design sensitivities are analytically derived efficiently and the Globally Convergent Method of Moving Asymptotes algorithm is adopted. To ensure a smooth convergence in case of mode switching, the mode tracking technique based on the Modal Assurance Criteria is introduced to track the targeted resonant mode. Numerical examples demonstrate the effect of the concurrent optimization in suppressing structural resonance response.

Under asymmetric three-dimensional high in-situ stress and high pore water pressure, tunnels are subjected to complex stress conditions, making them susceptible to failure and posing a threat to water conveyance safety. This study focuses on a large-scale cross-basin water diversion tunnel from Datong river into Huangshui river, which characterized by ultra-deep and complex geological conditions. Based on the field measurement data, a parameter inversion method considering the deformation of tunnel surrounding rock at multiple characteristic points is proposed. Additionally, considering the fluid-structure interaction effects under the influence of asymmetrical three-dimensional high in-situ stress and high pore water pressure, the stress-deformation characteristics of the soft rock tunnel are studied, and the damage evolution characteristics of the surrounding rock under different in-situ stresses and pore water pressures are analyzed. The results manifest that intense mutual extrusion of the surrounding rock, leading to volumetric compression, is the primary cause of the formation of stress concentration and excess pore water pressure. Additionally, the maximum deformation and the most likely location for gushing water both occur at the tunnel’s waist. After the implementation of segment support measures, the deformation control effect on the surrounding rock is remarkable. Notably, the reduction in damage depth across various characteristic locations due to segment support shows minimal variation. However, in terms of the reduction in disturbance depth, the tunnel waist significantly outperforms the top and bottom positions. The damage depth of the tunnel surrounding rock is positively correlated with both in-situ stress and pore water pressure, but it is more significantly influenced by in-situ stress than by pore water pressure. These findings can offer some valuable insights and guidance for future similar tunnel construction project.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) benefit some cancer patients but de novo resistance remains poorly understood. Analyzing transcriptional data from two clinical trial cohorts, GO30140 and IMbrave150, we find B cell lymphoma 9 (BCL9), a Wnt/β-catenin co-factor, associated with resistance. We develop a BCL9-targeting peptide, hsBCL9 Z96 , which suppresses tumor growth in combination with anti-PD-L1 ab in preclinical hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) mouse models. Multi-omics analyses implicate targeting BCL9 inhibits BMP4 secretion and downregulates CD24 on tumor cells, reprogramming macrophages toward a tumor-suppressive phenotype and promoting macrophage phagocytosis. This in turn rejuvenates T cell immunity via enhanced macrophage-mediated antigen presentation. Our data extend our understanding of how tumor-derived Wnt/β-catenin signaling impedes the innate and adaptive immune responses in the tumor microenvironment and provide preliminary evidence that targeting BCL9 is a promising preclinical strategy to mitigate ICI resistance in HCC. Immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown promise in tumour immunotherapy but resistance has been seen. Here using pre-treatment hepatocellular carcinoma patient biopsies from patients scheduled for immunotherapy, the authors implicate BCL9 and show that a BCL9-targeting peptide promotes anti-tumour immunity in mouse models through targeting macrophages and promoting anti-tumour T cell responses.

For a structural system composed of functional components in a vibration environment, it is of great importance to suppress the dynamic warping deformation of these local regions to ensure the performance and functionality of the system. Especially for a vibrating structure under a resonance response with critical deformations, such dynamic shape preserving design (SPD) problem is addressed to maintain local performances using topology optimization in this paper. The structure is assumed to be linear and elastic, with Rayleigh damping, and subjected to a time-harmonic external excitation with a resonant frequency. The elastic work describing the maximum strain energy in a vibration period is defined to quantitatively measure the extreme warping deformation of local functional components. A normalized constraint on local elastic work is further introduced into a dynamical topology optimization model while maximizing the first-order eigenfrequency. Moreover, to preserve the outlines of void regions (e.g., openings), a dynamic artificial weak element (AWE dyn ) technique is proposed to help measure and suppress the local deformation of voids. Numerical tests show that the dynamic elastic work could accurately describe the deformations of resonance structures. The effects of shape preservation are successfully achieved through topology optimization by suppressing warping deformations in subdomains.

A variation pixels identification method was proposed aiming at depressing the effect of variation pixels, which dilates the theoretical hyperspectral data simplex and misguides volume evaluation of the simplex. With integration of both spatial and spectral information, this method quantitatively defines a variation index for every pixel. The variation index is proportional to pixels local entropy but inversely proportional to pixels kernel spatial attraction. The number of pixels removed was modulated by an artificial threshold factor a. Two real hyperspectral data sets were employed to examine the endmember extraction results. The reconstruction errors of preprocessing data as opposed to the result of original data were compared. The experimental results show that the number of distinct endmembers extracted has increased and the reconstruction error is greatly reduced. 100% is an optional value for the threshold factor a when dealing with no prior knowledge hyperspectral data.

Let G be an extension of ℚ by a direct sum of r copies of ℚ. (1) If G is abelian, then G is a direct sum of r + 1 copies of ℚ and Aut G ≅ GL( r + 1, Q ); (2) If G is non-abelian, then G is a direct product of an extraspecial ℚ-group E and m copies of ℚ, where E /ζ E is a linear space over Q with dimension 2 n and m + 2 n = r . Furthermore, let Aut G′ G be the normal subgroup of Aut G consisting of all elements of Aut G which act trivially on the derived subgroup G′ of G , and Aut G /ζ G ,ζ G G be the normal subgroup of Aut G consisting of all central automorphisms of G which also act trivially on the center ζ G of G . Then (i) The extension 1 → Aut G′ G → Aut G → Aut G′ → 1 is split; (ii) Aut G′ G /Aut G /ζ G ,ζ G G ≅ Sp(2 n , Q ) × (GL( m , Q ) ⋉ ℚ ( m ) ); (iii) Aut G /ζ G ,ζ G G /Inn G ≅ ℚ (2 nm ) .

Dear Editor,Antibody-dependent enhancement（ADE）has long been recognized for dengue virus（DENV）in vitro and in vivo.It is now clear that antibodies to DENV can also enhance Zika virus（ZIKV）infection in vitro,and vice versa（Dejnirattisai et al.,2016;Stettler et al.,2016）.The characteristics of enhancing antibodies,however,remain elusive.

The automorphism group of a class of nilpotent groups with infinite cyclic derived subgroups is determined. Let G be the direct product of a generalized extraspecial ℤ-group E and a free abelian group A with rank m , where E = { ( 1 k α 1 k α 2 ⋯ k α n α n + 1 0 1 0 ⋯ 0 α n + 2 ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ ⋮ 0 0 0 ⋯ 1 α 2 n + 1 0 0 0 ⋯ 0 1 ) | α i ∈ Z , i = 1 , 2 , ... , 2 n + 1 } , where k is a positive integer. Let Aut G ′ G be the normal subgroup of Aut G consisting of all elements of Aut G which act trivially on the derived subgroup G ′ of G , and Aut G/ζG,ζG G be the normal subgroup of Aut G consisting of all central automorphisms of G which also act trivially on the center ζG of G . Then (i) The extension 1 → Aut G ′ G → Aut G → Aut G′ → 1 is split. (ii) Aut G ′ G /Aut G/ζG,ζG G ≅ Sp(2 n , Z ) × (GL( m , Z ) × (ℤ) m ). (iii) Aut G/ζG,ζG G /Inn G ≅ (ℤ k ) 2 n ⊕ (ℤ k ) 2 nm .

The aim is to study the immune function effect of two polysaccharides extracted from traditional Chinese herbs on rats. Ultrasonic-assisted extraction was used to extract the polysaccharide from traditional Chinese medicines. MTT assay was used to determine the effects of two polysaccharides on the conversion of pig peripheral T lymphocytes. For this, 24 Sprague–Dawley rats were selected for the clinical trial and divided into groups B (blank), CK (cyclophosphamide inhibitory control), AP (angelica polysaccharide), and RIP (radix isatidis polysaccharide). Except for group B, other groups can induce the immunodeficiency by using cyclophosphamide. Rats of the AP and RIP groups were given gavage of 1 mL of AP and RIP. The blood was sampled from the eyeball on days 0, 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35, respectively, to determine immune cells, IgG and IgM of immunoglobulin, body weight, and spleen index. Results: The average content of AP and RIP was 51.27 and 14.8%, and the extraction rate was 75.23 and 60.94%. The maximum stimulation index was 1.407 when the concentration of AP was 8,000 μg mL −1 and 1.5 when the concentration of RIP was 125 μg mL −1 . Both kinds of polysaccharides can alleviate the decline of white blood cells, lymphocytes, monocytes, neutrophils, and serum IgG and IgM caused by cyclophosphamide. The two polysaccharides can regulate the rapid recovery of weight in immunosuppressed rats and increase the spleen index of immunosuppressed SD rats. The polysaccharides from the two traditional Chinese medicines can alleviate the immunosuppression caused by cyclophosphamide and promote the immune function of the body, which can be used as raw material resources of new veterinary medicine.