Background:Social well-being of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is garnering increased attention; however, the impact of social isolation remained poorly understood.Objectives:We investigated the joint association of social isolation and IBD with premature deaths to articulate the profound impact of social isolation in IBD prognosis.Design:Longitudinal cohort study.Methods:We leveraged data of 486,014 participants from UK Biobank (including 5791 with IBD), the mean follow-up was 11.84 years. Diagnoses of IBD and its subtypes of Crohn’s disease (CD)...

The recovery of soil conditions is crucial for successful ecosystem restoration and, hence, for achieving the goals of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Here, we assess how soils resist forest conversion and agricultural land use, and how soils recover during subsequent tropical forest succession on abandoned agricultural fields. Our overarching question is how soil resistance and recovery depend on local conditions such as climate, soil type and land-use history. For 300 plots in 21...

Abstract Background Trichoderma spp. are important agricultural biocontrol microorganisms that are often used as effective components of microbial fungicides and microbial biofertilizers. However, most of these products are prepared by a single strain in monoculture, which significantly limits the biocontrol efficiency and stability of Trichoderma products. Therefore, the establishment of a design and screening approach for consortia with multi-Trichoderma strains for co-culture is of great importance to overcome the shortage of traditional Trichoderma biocontrol products....

Abstract Background Plants maintain the steady-state balance of the mutually beneficial symbiosis relationship with their endophytic fungi through secondary metabolites. Meanwhile endophytic fungi can serve as biological inducers to promote the biosynthesis and accumulation of valuable secondary metabolites in host plants through a variety of ways. The composition and structure of endophytic fungal community are affected by many factors, including tissues, seasons and so on. In this work, we studied the community diversity, temporal and...

Abstract Background Plants maintain the steady-state balance of the mutually beneficial symbiosis relationship with their endophytic fungi through secondary metabolites. Meanwhile endophytic fungi can serve as biological inducers to promote the biosynthesis and accumulation of valuable secondary metabolites in host plants through a variety of ways. The composition and structure of endophytic fungal community are affected by many factors, including tissues, seasons and so on. In this work, we studied the community diversity, temporal and...

Airy beams, accelerating optical beams with exotic properties of self-bending, self-healing and non-diffraction, are essential for a wide range of photonics applications. Recently, metasurfaces have provided an efficient platform for generating desired Airy beams within a thin thickness, but they suffer from the narrow bandwidth especially for two-dimensional (2D) Airy beams. Here, we propose an amplitude-tailorable polarization-converting metasurface to enable ultra-wideband 2D Airy beam generation. The amplitude and phase profiles for the 2D Airy beam...

We report on a spectral splitting effect of the cavity-less lasing emission of nitrogen ions at 391.4 nm pumped by the 800 nm femtosecond laser pulses. It was found that with the increase of the nitrogen gas pressure and pump pulse energy, both R and P branches experience spectral splitting. With an external injected seeding pulse, similar split spectral line is observed for the amplified emission. In contrast, for the fluorescence radiation, no such spectral...

Abstract Background Abnormal expression of ribosomal proteins has an important regulatory effect on the progression of cancer. RPL5 is involved in the progression of various malignancies, however, the role of RPL5 in colon cancer remains is still unclear. Methods Data from TCGA and GTEx databases were used to analyze the RPL5 expression in pan-cancer. The expression level of RPL5 in clinical colon cancer tissue samples and human colon cancer cell lines was detected by western...

Abstract Background As snacking can be considered a cornerstone of an unhealthy diet, investigating psychological drivers of snacking behaviour is urgent, and therefore the purpose of this study. Socio-economic position (SEP) and stress are known to affect many behaviours and outcomes, and were therefore focal points in the study. Methods In a cross-sectional survey study, we examined whether Socio-economic position (SEP) would amplify associations between heightened stress levels and self-reported negative-affect related reasons for snacking....

Abstract Background Adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) is a powerful method for strain optimization towards abiotic stress factors and for identifying adaptation mechanisms. In this study, the green microalga Picochlorum sp. BPE23 was cultured under supra-optimal temperature to force genetic adaptation. The robustness and adaptive capacity of Picochlorum strains turned them into an emerging model for evolutionary studies on abiotic stressors such as temperature, salinity, and light. Results Mutant strains showed an expanded maximal growth temperature...

Background:The surrogacy of progression-free survival (PFS) for overall survival (OS) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) remains unelucidated. This study aimed to determine the validity of PFS as a surrogate endpoint for OS in ESCC patients treated with definitive radiotherapy or definitive chemoradiotherapy (dRT/dCRT), as well as characterize the prognostic factors and survival of such patients.Methods:A total of 3662 patients from 10 cancer centers were enrolled. One-, 2-, and 3-year PFS (PFS12, PFS24, and PSF36,...

Abstract Background Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is caused by frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), characterized mainly by inclusions of Tau (FTLD-Tau) or TAR DNA binding43 (FTLD-TDP) proteins. Plasma biomarkers are strongly needed for specific diagnosis and potential treatment monitoring of FTD. We aimed to identify specific FTD plasma biomarker profiles discriminating FTD from AD and controls, and between FTD pathological subtypes. In addition, we compared plasma results with results in post-mortem frontal cortex of FTD cases to...

Uncertainty regarding the timing of the highest Holocene water level of enclosed Dali Lake in northern China has led to controversy about whether the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) peaked in the early Holocene or the mid-Holocene. Therefore, a record combining a reliable chronology with unambiguous lake level indicators is essential to resolve the issue. In this study, we established a temporal sequence of well-preserved paleolake shorelines at different elevations around Dali Lake using quartz...

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a serious complication in clinical settings. This study aimed to elucidate the immune molecular mechanisms underlying ALI by bioinformatics analysis. Human ALI and six ALI mouse model datasets were collected. Immune cell infiltration between the ALI samples and non-ALI controls was estimated using the ssGSEA algorithm. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis and Wilcoxon test were performed to obtain the significantly different immune cell infiltration types. Immune...

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a serious complication in clinical settings. This study aimed to elucidate the immune molecular mechanisms underlying ALI by bioinformatics analysis. Human ALI and six ALI mouse model datasets were collected. Immune cell infiltration between the ALI samples and non-ALI controls was estimated using the ssGSEA algorithm. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analysis and Wilcoxon test were performed to obtain the significantly different immune cell infiltration types. Immune...

Abstract The Global Stocktake (GST), implemented by the Paris Agreement, requires rapid developments in the capabilities to quantify annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals consistently from the global to the national scale and improvements to national GHG inventories. In particular, new capabilities are needed for accurate attribution of sources and sinks and their trends to natural and anthropogenic processes. On the one hand, this is still a major challenge as national GHG inventories follow...

In order to achieve classification and concentration detection of cancer biomarkers, we proposed a novel method that combines terahertz (THz) spectroscopy, metasurface sensors, and machine learning. A metsurface sensor suitable for biomarker detection was designed and fabricated with 5 resonance frequency in the range of 0.3 - 0.9 THz. We collected biomarkers of 5 types and 9 concentrations at 100 sets of time-domain spectrum per concentration. Spectrum is processed by noise reduction and Fast Fourier...

Background:Social well-being of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is garnering increased attention; however, the impact of social isolation remained poorly understood.Objectives:We investigated the joint association of social isolation and IBD with premature deaths to articulate the profound impact of social isolation in IBD prognosis.Design:Longitudinal cohort study.Methods:We leveraged data of 486,014 participants from UK Biobank (including 5791 with IBD), the mean follow-up was 11.84 years. Diagnoses of IBD and its subtypes of Crohn’s disease (CD)...

Paper-based metamaterial is one kind of metamaterial based on the paper substrate, drawing a lot of attention due to its fascinating features recently. This paper proposes another fabrication solution to realize paper-based metamaterials by directly drawing instead of inkjet printing. The drawing tools we used include mechanical pencils, conductive ink pens, and a computer-controlled drawing machine. Three types of paper-based metamaterials—polarization converter, absorber, and conformal coding metasurface—have been fabricated by the drawing technique. The performances...

Abstract Background Microbial communities can affect disease risk by interfering with the transmission or maintenance of pathogens in blood-feeding arthropods. Here, we investigated whether bacterial communities vary between Ixodes ricinus nymphs which were or were not infected with horizontally transmitted human pathogens. Methods Ticks from eight forest sites were tested for the presence of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, Babesia spp., Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Neoehrlichia mikurensis by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), and their microbiomes were...

Airy beams, accelerating optical beams with exotic properties of self-bending, self-healing and non-diffraction, are essential for a wide range of photonics applications. Recently, metasurfaces have provided an efficient platform for generating desired Airy beams within a thin thickness, but they suffer from the narrow bandwidth especially for two-dimensional (2D) Airy beams. Here, we propose an amplitude-tailorable polarization-converting metasurface to enable ultra-wideband 2D Airy beam generation. The amplitude and phase profiles for the 2D Airy beam...

We report on a spectral splitting effect of the cavity-less lasing emission of nitrogen ions at 391.4 nm pumped by the 800 nm femtosecond laser pulses. It was found that with the increase of the nitrogen gas pressure and pump pulse energy, both R and P branches experience spectral splitting. With an external injected seeding pulse, similar split spectral line is observed for the amplified emission. In contrast, for the fluorescence radiation, no such spectral...

Airy beams, accelerating optical beams with exotic properties of self-bending, self-healing and non-diffraction, are essential for a wide range of photonics applications. Recently, metasurfaces have provided an efficient platform for generating desired Airy beams within a thin thickness, but they suffer from the narrow bandwidth especially for two-dimensional (2D) Airy beams. Here, we propose an amplitude-tailorable polarization-converting metasurface to enable ultra-wideband 2D Airy beam generation. The amplitude and phase profiles for the 2D Airy beam...

The recovery of soil conditions is crucial for successful ecosystem restoration and, hence, for achieving the goals of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Here, we assess how soils resist forest conversion and agricultural land use, and how soils recover during subsequent tropical forest succession on abandoned agricultural fields. Our overarching question is how soil resistance and recovery depend on local conditions such as climate, soil type and land-use history. For 300 plots in 21...

What causes evolution to be repeatable is a fundamental question in evolutionary biology. Pleiotropy, i.e. the effect of an allele on multiple traits, is thought to enhance repeatability by constraining the number of available beneficial mutations. Additionally, pleiotropy may promote repeatability by allowing large fitness benefits of single mutations via adaptive combinations of phenotypic effects. Yet, this latter evolutionary potential may be reaped solely by specific types of mutations able to realize optimal combinations of...