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With the extensive application of artificial intelligence technology in the tourism industry, robot-assisted tourism has become a vital strategy for enhancing tourist experiences and promoting sustainable tourism practices. This study aims to explore the impact of language feedback from tourism robots on tourists’ ecotourism behavior and analyze potential mediating and moderating mechanisms. Through three experimental studies, we found that robot guides with language feedback capabilities significantly improve tourists’ ecotourism behavior. Specifically, environmental responsibility acts as a moderator between the robot’s language feedback and tourists’ ecotourism behavior, indicating that the robot’s language feedback is more effective when tourists have a higher sense of environmental responsibility. Furthermore, the robot’s language feedback enhances tourists’ environmental awareness and responsibility by increasing cognitive trust and feedback propensity. The findings have practical implications for tourism destinations and operators in designing and implementing intelligent tourism services to promote tourists’ ecological engagement.

Background Vacuole and mitochondria patch (vCLAMP) protein Mcp1 is crucial in eukaryotic cells response to environmental stress, but the mechanism of Mcp1 in Saccharomyces boulardii ( S. boulardii ) against pathogenic fungi is unclear. Results This work first explored the role of Mcp1 in S. boulardii against Candida albicans ( C. albicans ). The results showed that Mcp1 located on the vacuolar and mitochondrial membrane of S. boulardii . Overexpression of Mcp1 inhibited the adhesion and hyphal formation of C. albicans in vitro. The mice model of intestinal infection revealed that WT- pGK1-MCP1 mutant enhanced the ability of S. boulardii antagonize C. albicans infecting gut. High performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis demonstrated that overexpressing Mcp1 promoted the production of 2-phenylethanol. The latter is a secondary metabolite of S. boulardii , and can inhibit the adhesion and biofilm formation of C. albicans . The reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and western blotting results confirmed Mcp1 promoted the production of 2-phenylethanol by regulating the expression level of Aro10. Notably, RNA-sequencing and Gene Ontology enrichment analyses showed that 2-phenylethanol impaired the oxidative stress response of C. albicans . Conclusion This work reveals the critical role of Mcp1 in S. boulardii against C. albicans by regulating 2-phenylethanol metabolism, which provide a theoretical basis for S. boulardii as antifungal biologic therapy to prevent and treat of Candida infection.

Background The present study aimed to explore the application value of random survival forest (RSF) model and Cox model in predicting the progression-free survival (PFS) among patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LANPC) after induction chemotherapy plus concurrent chemoradiotherapy (IC + CCRT). Methods Eligible LANPC patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan before treatment were subjected to radiomics feature extraction. Radiomics and clinical features of patients in the training cohort were subjected to RSF analysis to predict PFS and were tested in the testing cohort. The performance of an RSF model with clinical and radiologic predictors was assessed with the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) and Delong test and compared with Cox models based on clinical and radiologic parameters. Further, the Kaplan-Meier method was used for risk stratification of patients. Results A total of 294 LANPC patients (206 in the training cohort; 88 in the testing cohort) were enrolled and underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans before treatment. The AUC value of the clinical Cox model, radiomics Cox model, clinical + radiomics Cox model, and clinical + radiomics RSF model in predicting 3- and 5-year PFS for LANPC patients was [0.545 vs 0.648 vs 0.648 vs 0.899 (training cohort), and 0.566 vs 0.736 vs 0.730 vs 0.861 (testing cohort); 0.556 vs 0.604 vs 0.611 vs 0.897 (training cohort), and 0.591 vs 0.661 vs 0.676 vs 0.847 (testing cohort), respectively]. Delong test showed that the RSF model and the other three Cox models were statistically significant, and the RSF model markedly improved prediction performance ( P <  0.001). Additionally, the PFS of the high-risk group was lower than that of the low-risk group in the RSF model ( P <  0.001), while comparable in the Cox model ( P  > 0.05). Conclusion The RSF model may be a potential tool for prognostic prediction and risk stratification of LANPC patients.

Severe invasive aspergillosis infection occurs when human immune function is impaired. The interaction between Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus) conidia and type II lung epithelial cells serves an important role in disease progression. The present study compared the proteomes of A549 human lung epithelial cells with and without A. fumigatus infection. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and protein interaction analyses were performed, and differential protein expression was verified by western blotting and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). In addition, the RNA interference method, an internalization assay and ELISA were performed. Isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification analysis detected a total of 1,582 proteins, from which 111 proteins with differential expression were obtained (fold change >1.5 or <0.75). Among them, 18 proteins were upregulated and 93 proteins were downregulated in A549 cells challenged with A. fumigatus. GO and KEGG analyses revealed that the altered proteins were mainly involved in biological functions, such as cell metabolism, synthesis, the cellular stress response, metabolic pathways and pyruvate metabolism. N-myc downstream-regulated gene 1 (NDRG1) expression was upregulated 1.88-fold, while CD44 expression was downregulated 0.47-fold following A. fumigatus infection. The expression levels of specific proteins were verified by western blotting and RT-qPCR. The internalization efficiency was affected by NDRG1 gene silencing. The secretion of IL-6 and IL-8 was affected when CD44 was inhibited. These results indicated that A. fumigatus affects lung epithelial cell metabolism and biological synthetic functions. A number of novel molecules, including NDRG1 and CD44, were found to be related to A. fumigatus infection.

The culprit of rice blast, Magnaporthe oryzae , is a filamentous fungus that seriously affects the yield and quality of rice worldwide. MoIst1, a subunit of ESCRT-III, is involved in identified ubiquitinated proteins and transports them into the intraluminal vesicles of multivesicular bodies (MVBs) for degradation in lysosomes. Here, we identify and characterize MoIst1 in M. oryzae . Disruption of MoIst1 leads to a significant decrease in sporulation and formation of appressoria, defects in response to oxidative stress, cell wall stress, hyperosmotic stress, and reduced pathogenicity. Deletion of MoIst1 also caused the decreased Pmk1 phosphorylation levels, appressorium formation, the delayed translocation and degradation of lipid droplets and glycogen, resulting in a decreased appressorium turgor. In addition, deletion of MoIst1 leads to an abnormal autophagy. In summary, our results indicate that MoIst1 is involved in sporulation, appressorium development, plant penetration, pathogenicity, and autophagy in M. oryzae .

Background For some ICU patients, an artificial airway must be established with an endotracheal tube, but Candida albicans can easily adhere to the tube surface and form a biofilm, leading to potentially life threatening fungal infections. Therefore, it is urgent to prevent and reduce C. albicans infections introduced by the endotracheal tube. However, there are few antifungal drugs effective against C. albicans , and each of these drugs may have adverse effects on human cells. Saccharomyces boulardii is regarded as an alternative strategy to inhibit the adhesion of C. albicans , but it is affected by environmental stress. We hypothesized that it is feasible to strengthen the antagonistic ability of S. boulardii via encapsulating and genetically modification. Methods In this study, a bioactive material carrying the overexpressed MCP1 gene of Saccharomyces boulardii was constructed based on one-step photo-crosslinking. This material achieved spatial growth control of S. boulardii by encapsulating each S. boulardii cell within a hydrogel pore. The bioactive material was coated on an endotracheal tube and tested for its ability to inhibit the adhesion of C. albicans . Additionally, the material’s antagonistic activity towards C. albicans was evaluated by detecting intracellular Adenosine-triphosphate content, reactive oxygen species level and the activity of antioxidative enzymes. Tissue invasion experiment was executed to further evaluate the anti-adhesion ability of S. boulardii bio-coating. Results Encapsulating the overexpression of MCP1 by S. boulardii in hydrogel pores enhanced the viability of probiotics in the presence of high salt and oxidation stress. When used as the coating of an endotracheal tube, the S. boulardii bioactive material efficiently inhibited the adhesion of C. albicans by impairing the activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase and disturbing mitochondrial functions. In vivo, the S. boulardii bioactive material coating displayed good biocompatibility and reduced the host tissue invasion and virulence of C. albicans . Conclusions The integration of genetic modification and immobilization model breaks the bottleneck of previous application of microorganisms, and provides a new way to prevent fungal infections introduced by endotracheal tubes. Graphical Abstract

This work is concerned with limit behavior of the Navier–Stokes–Voigt equation with degenerate white noise in a 3D thin domain. Although the individual solutions may be chaotic in fluid dynamics, the stationary statistical solutions are essential to capture complex dynamical behaviors in the view of statistic. We therefore prove that the stationary statistical solution of the system converges weakly to the counterpart of the 2D stochastic Euler equation as the viscosity, the elasticity parameter and the thickness of the thin domain tend to zero.

This work is concerned with limit behavior of the Navier–Stokes–Voigt equation with degenerate white noise in a 3D thin domain. Although the individual solutions may be chaotic in fluid dynamics, the stationary statistical solutions are essential to capture complex dynamical behaviors in the view of statistic. We therefore prove that the stationary statistical solution of the system converges weakly to the counterpart of the 2D stochastic Euler equation as the viscosity, the elasticity parameter and the thickness of the thin domain tend to zero.

This work is concerned with the modified stochastic Swift–Hohenberg equation in a 3D thin domain. Although the diffusion motion of molecules is irregular with the interference of the film-fluid fluctuation, the invariant measure on the trajectory space reveals delicate transition of the dynamical behavior when the interior forces change. We therefore prove that the invariant measure of the system converges weakly to the unique counterpart of the stochastic Swift–Hohenberg equation in a 2D bounded domain with a concrete convergence rate, as the modified parameter and the thickness of the thin domain tend to zero. Furthermore, we address that the smooth density of the limit invariant measure fulfills a Fokker–Planck equation.

Vacuole and mitochondria patch (vCLAMP) protein Mcp1 is crucial in eukaryotic cells response to environmental stress, but the mechanism of Mcp1 in Saccharomyces boulardii (S. boulardii) against pathogenic fungi is unclear. This work first explored the role of Mcp1 in S. boulardii against Candida albicans (C. albicans). The results showed that Mcp1 located on the vacuolar and mitochondrial membrane of S. boulardii. Overexpression of Mcp1 inhibited the adhesion and hyphal formation of C. albicans in vitro. The mice model of intestinal infection revealed that WT-pGK1-MCP1 mutant enhanced the ability of S. boulardii antagonize C. albicans infecting gut. High performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis demonstrated that overexpressing Mcp1 promoted the production of 2-phenylethanol. The latter is a secondary metabolite of S. boulardii, and can inhibit the adhesion and biofilm formation of C. albicans. The reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and western blotting results confirmed Mcp1 promoted the production of 2-phenylethanol by regulating the expression level of Aro10. Notably, RNA-sequencing and Gene Ontology enrichment analyses showed that 2-phenylethanol impaired the oxidative stress response of C. albicans. This work reveals the critical role of Mcp1 in S. boulardii against C. albicans by regulating 2-phenylethanol metabolism, which provide a theoretical basis for S. boulardii as antifungal biologic therapy to prevent and treat of Candida infection.