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Neuromedin U (NMU) has a critical function on the regulation of food intake in mammals, while the information is little in teleost. To investigate the function of NMU on appetite regulation of Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baerii), this study firstly cloned nmu cDNA sequence that encoded 154 amino acids including NMU-25 peptide. Besides, the results showed that nmu mRNA was widely distributed in various tissues especially in the hypothalamus and telencephalon. The results of nutritional status (pre-feeding and post-feeding, fasting and re-feeding) experiments showed that nmu mRNA expression was significantly decreased at 1 and 3 h after feeding in different brain regions. Similarly, after feeding, the expression of nmu significantly decreased in peripheral tissues. Moreover, nmu expression in the hypothalamus was significantly increased after fasting 1 day, but decreased after fasting 17 days, which was significantly reversed after re-feeding. However, other brain regions like telencephalon and peripheral tissues like esophagus, intestinum valvula and liver have different change patterns. Further study showed that acute i.c.v. and i.p. injection of NMU and chronic i.p. injection of NMU significantly reduced the food intake in a dose dependent mode. In addition, the expressions of several critical appetite factors (nmu, aplein, cart, cck, ghrelin, npy, nucb2, pyy and ucn3) were significantly affected by acute NMU-25 administration in the hypothalamus, intestinum valvula and liver. These results indicate that NMU-25 has the anorexigenic function on food intake by affecting different appetite factors in Siberian sturgeon, which provides a foundation for further exploring the appetite regulation networks in fish.
Violent respiratory events play critical roles in the transmission of respiratory diseases, such as coughing and sneezing, between infectious and susceptible individuals. In this work, large-scale multiphase flow large-eddy simulations have been performed to simulate the coughing jet from a human's mouth carrying pathogenic or virus-laden droplets by using a weakly compressible smoothed particle hydrodynamics method. We explicitly model the cough jet ejected from a human mouth in the form of a mixture of two-phase fluids based on the cough velocity profile of the exhalation flow obtained from experimental data and the statistics of the droplets’ sizes. The coupling and interaction between the two expiratory phases and ambient surrounding air are examined based on the interaction between the gas particles and droplet particles. First, the results reveal that the turbulence of the cough jet determines the dispersion of the virus-laden droplets, i.e. whether they fly up evolving into aerosols or fall down to the ground. Second, the droplet particles have significant effects on the evolution of the cough jet turbulence; for example, they increase the complexity and butterfly effect introduced by the turbulence disturbance. Our results show that the prediction of the spreading distance of droplet particles often goes beyond the social distancing rules recommended by the World Health Organization, which reminds us of the risks of exposure if we do not take any protecting protocol.
In vivo transparent vessel segmentation is important to life science research. However, this task remains very challenging because of the fuzzy edges and the barely noticeable tubular characteristics of vessels under a light microscope. In this paper, we present a new machine learning method based on blood flow characteristics to segment the global vascular structure in vivo. Specifically, the videos of blood flow in transparent vessels are used as input. We use the machine learning classifier to classify the vessel pixels through the motion features extracted from moving red blood cells and achieve vessel segmentation based on a region-growing algorithm. Moreover, we utilize the moving characteristics of blood flow to distinguish between the types of vessels, including arteries, veins, and capillaries. In the experiments, we evaluate the performance of our method on videos of zebrafish embryos. The experimental results indicate the high accuracy of vessel segmentation, with an average accuracy of 97.98%, which is much more superior than other segmentation or motion-detection algorithms. Our method has good robustness when applied to input videos with various time resolutions, with a minimum of 3.125 fps.
Little is known about how sociodemographic and clinical factors affect the caregiving burden of persons with schizophrenia (PwSs) with transition in primary caregivers.
Aims
This study aimed to examine the predictive effects of sociodemographic and clinical factors on the caregiving burden of PwSs with and without caregiver transition from 1994 to 2015 in rural China.
Method
Using panel data, 206 dyads of PwSs and their primary caregivers were investigated in both 1994 and 2015. The generalised linear model approach was used to examine the predictive effects of sociodemographic factors, severity of symptoms and changes in social functioning on the caregiving burden with and without caregiver transition.
Results
The percentages of families with and without caregiver transition were 38.8% and 61.2%, respectively. Among families without caregiver transition, a heavier burden was significantly related to a larger family size and more severe symptoms in PwSs. Deteriorated functioning of ‘social activities outside the household’ and improved functioning of ‘activity in the household’ were protective factors against a heavy caregiving burden. Among families with caregiver transition, younger age, improved marital functioning, deteriorated self-care functioning, and better functioning of ‘social interest or concern’ were significant risk factors for caregiving burden.
Conclusions
The effects of sociodemographic and clinical correlates on the caregiving burden were different among families with and without caregiver transition. It is crucial to explore the caregiver arrangement of PwSs and the risk factors for burden over time, which will facilitate culture-specific family interventions, community-based mental health services and recovery.
Although multiple global navigation satellite systems (multi-GNSS) with more visible satellites have a high success rate, they make positioning time-consuming. Partial ambiguity resolution (PAR) can improve the efficiency of multi-GNSS; however, at present PAR cannot simultaneously achieve fast and high-precision positioning with a high success rate. Therefore, PAR based on ambiguity dilution of precision- and convex-hull-based satellite selection is proposed. The experimental results of the proposed PAR, its corresponding satellite selection algorithm, the classical PAR, and the low-cutoff-elevation-angle-based multi-GNSS show that the proposed PAR outperforms the classical PAR, i.e., it achieves fast and high-precision positioning with a success rate of 100⋅0%. Furthermore, in terms of R-ratio-test-based ambiguity validation, it improves the reliability of carrier-phase-based integrity monitoring of multi-GNSS and the corresponding satellite selection algorithms. In addition, its positioning accuracy is close to that of multi-GNSS and higher than that of the classical PAR, with maximum differences of 0⋅3 and 2⋅4 cm, respectively. The proposed single (dual) frequency-based PAR improves single/dual-frequency multi-GNSS efficiency by more than 54⋅9%/80⋅4% (42⋅0%/75⋅8%) when 14⋅4 (13⋅2) out of 24⋅4 satellites are selected.
Gut microbiome and dietary patterns have been suggested to be associated with depression/anxiety. However, limited effort has been made to explore the effects of possible interactions between diet and microbiome on the risks of depression and anxiety.
Methods
Using the latest genome-wide association studies findings in gut microbiome and dietary habits, polygenic risk scores (PRSs) analysis of gut microbiome and dietary habits was conducted in the UK Biobank cohort. Logistic/linear regression models were applied for evaluating the associations for gut microbiome-PRS, dietary habits-PRS, and their interactions with depression/anxiety status and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)/Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) score by R software.
Results
We observed 51 common diet–gut microbiome interactions shared by both PHQ score and depression status, such as overall beef intake × genus Sporobacter [hurdle binary (HB)] (PPHQ = 7.88 × 10−4, Pdepression status = 5.86 × 10−4); carbohydrate × genus Lactococcus (HB) (PPHQ = 0.0295, Pdepression status = 0.0150). We detected 41 common diet–gut microbiome interactions shared by GAD score and anxiety status, such as sugar × genus Parasutterella (rank normal transformed) (PGAD = 5.15 × 10−3, Panxiety status = 0.0347); tablespoons of raw vegetables per day × family Coriobacteriaceae (HB) (PGAD = 6.02 × 10−4, Panxiety status = 0.0345). Some common significant interactions shared by depression and anxiety were identified, such as overall beef intake × genus Sporobacter (HB).
Conclusions
Our study results expanded our understanding of how to comprehensively consider the relationships for dietary habits–gut microbiome interactions with depression and anxiety.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, whether and when the world can reach herd immunity and return to normal life and a strategy for accelerating vaccination programmes constitute major concerns. We employed Metropolis–Hastings sampling and an epidemic model to design experiments based on the current vaccinations administered and a more equitable vaccine allocation scenario. The results show that most high-income countries can reach herd immunity in less than 1 year, whereas low-income countries should reach this state after more than 3 years. With a more equitable vaccine allocation strategy, global herd immunity can be reached in 2021. However, the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants means that an additional 83 days will be needed to reach global herd immunity and that the number of cumulative cases will increase by 113.37% in 2021. With the more equitable vaccine allocation scenario, the number of cumulative cases will increase by only 5.70% without additional vaccine doses. As SARS-CoV-2 variants arise, herd immunity could be delayed to the point that a return to normal life is theoretically impossible in 2021. Nevertheless, a more equitable global vaccine allocation strategy, such as providing rapid vaccine assistance to low-income countries/regions, can improve the prevention of COVID-19 infection even though the virus could mutate.
Without rapid international action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, climate scientists have predicted catastrophic sea-level rise by 2100. Globally, archaeologists are documenting the effects of sea-level rise on coastal cultural heritage. Here, the authors model the impact of 1m, 2m and 5m sea-level rise on China's coastal archaeological sites using data from the Atlas of Chinese Cultural Relics and Shanghai City's Third National Survey of Cultural Relics. Although the resulting number of endangered sites is large, the authors argue that these represent only a fraction of those actually at risk, and they issue a call to mitigate the direct and indirect effects of rising sea levels.
The cooperative guidance problem of multiple inferior missiles intercepting a hypersonic target with the specific impact angle constraint in the two-dimensional plane is addressed in this paper, taking into consideration variations in a missile’s speed. The guidance law is designed with two subsystems: the direction of line-of-sight (LOS) and the direction of normal to LOS. In the direction of LOS, by applying the algebraic graph theory and the consensus theory, the guidance command is designed to make the system convergent in a finite time to satisfy the goal of cooperative interception. In the direction of normal to LOS, the impact angle is constrained to transform into the LOS angle at the time of interception. In view of the difficulty of measuring unknown target acceleration information in real scenarios, the guidance command is designed by utilising a super-twisting algorithm based on a nonsingular fast-terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) surface. Numerical simulation results manifest that the proposed guidance law performs efficiently and the guidance commands are free of chattering. In addition, the overall performance of this guidance law is assessed with Monte Carlo runs in the presence of measurement errors. The simulation results demonstrate that the robustness can be guaranteed, and that overall efficiency and accuracy in intercepting the hypersonic target are achieved.
To compare the prevalence of overweight or obesity (ow/ob) with WHO BMI cut-off points, International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cut-off points and Chinese BMI criteria and examine its potential factors among preschool children in Hunan Province.
Design:
A cross-sectional survey including anthropometric measurements and questionnaires about children’s information, caregivers’ socio-demographic characteristics and maternal characteristics. χ2 tests and univariate and multivariate binary logistic regression were performed to evaluate the possible factors of ow/ob.
Setting:
Hunan, China, from September to October 2019.
Participants:
In total, 7664 children 2 to 6 years of age.
Results:
According to Chinese BMI criteria, about 1 in 7–8 children aged 2–6 years had ow/ob in Hunan, China. The overall estimated prevalence of ow/ob among 2- to 6-year-old children was significantly higher when based on the Chinese BMI criteria compared with the WHO BMI cut-off points and IOTF cut-off points. According to Chinese BMI criteria, ow/ob was associated with residing in urban areas, older age, male sex, eating snacking food more frequently, macrosomia delivery, caesarean birth, heavier maternal prepregnancy weight and pre-delivery weight.
Conclusion:
The prevalence of ow/ob in preschool children in Hunan Province remains high. More ow/ob children could be screened out according to Chinese BMI cut-offs compared with WHO and IOTF BMI criteria. In the future, targeted intervention studies with matched controls will be needed to assess the long-term effects of intervention measures to provide more information for childhood obesity prevention and treatment.
Two new genera and six new species of trilobites are systematically documented herein: Sinagnostus mirabilis new genus new species, Yanpingia punctata n. gen. n. sp., Illaenus taoyuanensis n. sp., Panderia striolatus n. sp., Nileus yichongqiaoensis n. sp., and Paratiresias peculiaris n. sp. The materials were collected from the Darriwilian (late Middle Ordovician) strata in the Upper Yangtze Region, South China. Also provided is an emended diagnosis of the genus Paratiresias based on the new species Paratiresias peculiaris, which is the oldest known species of this genus with an extremely narrow (sag. and exsag.) preglabellar field. Those Chinese species previously referred to Nanillaenus are reassigned to Illaenus sensu lato. These trilobites add new data for the Darriwilian trilobite macroevolution and show highly endemic to South China and the faunal exchanges between South China and Tarim, Kazakhstan, Alborz, as well as Sibumasu and North China.
Wisdom is a personality trait comprising seven components: self-reflection, pro-social behaviors, emotional regulation, acceptance of diverse perspectives, decisiveness, social advising, and spirituality. Wisdom, a potentially modifiable trait, is strongly associated with well-being. We have published a validated 28-item San Diego Wisdom Scale, the SD-WISE-28. Brief scales are necessary for use in large population-based studies and in clinical practice. The present study aimed to create an abbreviated 7-item version of the SD-WISE.
Method:
Participants included 2093 people, aged 20-82 years, recruited and surveyed through the online crowdsourcing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk. The participants’ mean age was 46 years, with 55% women. Participants completed the SD-WISE-28 as well as validation scales for various positive and negative constructs. Psychometric analyses (factor analysis and item response theory) were used to select one item from each of the seven SD-WISE-28 subscales.
Results:
We selected a combination of items that produced acceptable unidimensional model fit and good reliability (ω = 0.74). Item statistics suggested that all seven items were strong indicators of wisdom, although the association was weakest for spirituality. Analyses indicated that the 28-item and 7-item SD-WISE are both very highly correlated (r = 0.92) and produce a nearly identical pattern of correlations with demographic and validity variables.
Conclusion:
The SD-WISE-7, and its derived Jeste-Thomas Wisdom Index (JTWI) score, balances reliability and brevity for research applications.
Celestial navigation is an important means of maritime navigation; it can automatically achieve inertially referenced positioning and orientation after a long period of development. However, the impact of different accuracy of observations and the influence of nonstationary states, such as ship speed change and steering, are not taken into account in existing algorithms. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an adaptively robust maritime celestial navigation algorithm, in which each observation value is given an equivalent weight according to the robust estimation theory, and the dynamic balance between astronomical observation and prediction values of vessel motion is adjusted by applying the adaptive factor. With this system, compared with the frequently used least square method and extended Kalman filter algorithm, not only are the real-time and high-precision navigation parameters, such as position, course, and speed for the vessel, calculated simultaneously, but also the influence of abnormal observation and vessel motion status change could be well suppressed.
The genus Echinochloa constitutes some of the most prominent weed species found in rice (Oryza sativa L.) production worldwide. The taxonomy of Echinochloa is complex due to its morphological variations. The morphophysiological diversity and taxonomic characteristics of Echinochloa ecotypes infesting rice fields in Texas are unknown. A total of 54 Echinochloa ecotypes collected during late-season field surveys in 2015 and 2016 were characterized in a common garden in 2017. Plants were characterized for 14 morphophysiological traits, including stem angle; stem color; plant height; leaf color; leaf texture; flag leaf length, width, and angle; days to flowering; panicle length; plant biomass; seed shattering; seed yield; and seed dormancy. Principal component analysis indicated that 4 (plant height, flag leaf length, seed shattering, and seed germination) of the 14 phenological traits characterized here had significantly contributed to the overall morphological diversity of Echinochloa spp. Results showed wide interpopulation diversity for the measured traits among the E. colona ecotypes, as well as diverse intrapopulation variability in all three Echinochloa species studied, including barnyardgrass [Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) P. Beauv.], junglerice [Echinochloa colona (L.) Link], and rough barnyardgrass [Echinochloa muricata (P. Beauv.) Fernald]. Taxonomical classification revealed that the collection consisted of three Echinochloa species, with E. colona being the most dominant (96%), followed by E. crus-galli (2%), and E. muricata (2%). Correlation analysis of morphophysiological traits and resistance status to commonly used preemergence (clomazone, quinclorac) and postemergence herbicides (propanil, quinclorac, imazethapyr, and fenoxaprop-ethyl) failed to show any significant association. Findings from this study provided novel insights into the morphophysiological characteristics of Echinochloa ecotypes in rice production in Texas. The morphological diversity currently present in Echinochloa ecotypes could contribute to their adaptation to selection pressure imposed by different management tools, emphasizing the need for a diversified management approach to effectively control this weed species.
To explore the accuracy of estimated 24-h urinary iodine excretion (24-h UIEest) in assessing iodine nutritional status.
Design:
Fasting venous blood, 24-h and spot urine samples were collected during the day. The urinary iodine concentration (UIC) and urinary creatinine concentration (UCrC) were measured, and the urinary iodine-to-creatinine ratio (UI/Cr), 24-h UIEest, and 24-h urinary iodine excretion (24-h UIE) were calculated. At the population level, correlation and consistency between UIC, UI/Cr, 24-h UIEest and 24-h UIE were assessed using correlation analysis and Bland–Altman plots. At the individual level, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to analyse the accuracy of the above indicators for evaluating insufficient and excessive iodine intake. The reference interval of 24-h UIEest was established based on percentile values.
Setting:
Indicator can accurately evaluate individual iodine nutrition during pregnancy remains controversial.
Participants:
Pregnant women (n 788).
Results:
Using 24-h UIE as standard, the correlation coefficients of 24-h UIEest from different periods of the day ranged from 0·409 to 0·531, and the relative average differences ranged from 4·4 % to 10·9 %. For diagnosis of insufficient iodine intake, the area under the ROC curve of 24-h UIEest was 0·754, sensitivity and specificity were 79·6 % and 65·4 %, respectively. For diagnosis of excessive iodine intake, the area of 24-h UIEest was 0·771, sensitivity and specificity were 66·7 % and 82·0 %, respectively. The reference interval of 24-h UIEest was 58·43–597·65 μg.
Conclusions:
Twenty-four-hour UIEest can better indicate iodine nutritional status at a relatively large sample size in a given population of pregnant women. It can be used for early screening at the individual level to obtain more lead time for pregnant women.
The present study evaluated whether fat mass assessment using the triceps skinfold (TSF) thickness provides additional prognostic value to the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) framework in patients with lung cancer (LC). We performed an observational cohort study including 2672 LC patients in China. Comprehensive demographic, disease and nutritional characteristics were collected. Malnutrition was retrospectively defined using the GLIM criteria, and optimal stratification was used to determine the best thresholds for the TSF. The associations of malnutrition and TSF categories with survival were estimated independently and jointly by calculating multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HR). Malnutrition was identified in 808 (30·2 %) patients, and the best TSF thresholds were 9·5 mm in men and 12 mm in women. Accordingly, 496 (18·6 %) patients were identified as having a low TSF. Patients with concurrent malnutrition and a low TSF had a 54 % (HR = 1·54, 95 % CI = 1·25, 1·88) greater death hazard compared with well-nourished individuals, which was also greater compared with malnourished patients with a normal TSF (HR = 1·23, 95 % CI = 1·06, 1·43) or malnourished patients without TSF assessment (HR = 1·31, 95 % CI = 1·14, 1·50). These associations were concentrated among those patients with adequate muscle mass (as indicated by the calf circumference). Additional fat mass assessment using the TSF enhances the prognostic value of the GLIM criteria. Using the population-derived thresholds for the TSF may provide significant prognostic value when used in combination with the GLIM criteria to guide strategies to optimise the long-term outcomes in patients with LC.
The North Qilian Orogenic Belt is surrounded by the Tarim Craton to the NW and the North China Craton to the NE. The Precambrian continental crust remnants that are distributed in the North Qilian Orogenic Belt are termed the North Qilian Block (NQB), and their tectonic evolution has profound implications for the evolution of the Columbia Supercontinent. Here we present major- and trace-element and Sr–Nd–Hf isotope data for (meta-) basalts from the Beidahe Group (BDHG) and Zhulongguan Group (ZLGG) in the western North Qilian Orogenic Belt, to investigate the tectonic evolution of the NQB during the Proterozoic Eon. The protoliths of Palaeoproterozoic amphibole gneisses and plagioclase amphibolites from the BDHG are calc-alkaline series basalts. These metabasalts show island-arc-basalt affinities with variable Nd and Hf isotopes (ϵNd(t) = −5.0–0.6 and 2.7–4.3; ϵHf(t) = −14.2–2.0 and 6.9–8.8) and were generated by partial melting of the asthenospheric mantle that was metasomatized by aqueous fluid and sediment melt in a continental-arc setting. The early Mesoproterozoic ZLGG basalts show features of shoshonite-series basalts and are geochemically similar to ocean-island basalts. These basalts show variable (87Sr/86Sr)i, ϵNd(t) and ϵHf(t) values of 0.70464–0.70699, −1–2.6 and −1.5–5.7, and are products of mantle plume magmatism that participated with subducted oceanic crust in an intracontinental rift setting. This study suggests that the NQB underwent tectonic evolution from palaeo-oceanic subduction to intracontinental rifting during the Palaeoproterozoic–Mesoproterozoic eras. Furthermore, the above tectonomagmatic events were in response to convergence–splitting events of the Columbia Supercontinent during the Palaeoproterozoic–Mesoproterozoic eras.
With the characteristics of full autonomy and no accumulated errors, polarisation navigation shows tremendous prospects in underwater scenarios. In this paper, inspired by the polarisation vision of aquatic organisms, a novel point-source polarisation sensor with high spectral adaptability (400 nm–760 nm) is designed for underwater orientation. To enhance the environmental applicability of the underwater polarisation sensor, a novel sensor model based on the underwater light intensity attenuation coefficient and optical coupling coefficient is established. In addition, concerned with the influence of light intensity uncertainty on sensor performance underwater, an antagonistic polarisation algorithm is adopted for the first time, to improve the accuracy of angle of polarisation and degree of polarisation in the low signal-to-noise ratio environment underwater. Finally, indoor and outdoor experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the designed polarisation sensor. The results show that the designed point-source polarisation sensor can acquire polarised light and be used for heading determination underwater.