This paper presents a multi-band rectangular slot antenna, which can be used in Beidou navigation system, 4G, WLAN and 5G system. The proposed antenna adopts a single feeding line, generating circular polarization for satellite navigation, and linear polarization for mobile communication systems. The proposed antenna consists of three c-type resonators and three rectangular loop slots. A c-type resonator and a rectangular loop slot work together to produce a usable frequency band. Multiple frequency bands can be generated by increasing the number of c-type resonator and rectangular loop slots. It is found that the c-type resonator changes the current distribution on the antenna surface, making the axial ratio less than 3 dB in the low frequency bands. Eventually, five operation frequency bands are realized. Experimentally, it is verified that the impedance bandwidths of each frequency band are 11.8% (1.12–1.26 GHz), 15.4% (1.5–1.75 GHz), 11.9% (2.36–2.66 GHz), 19.7% (3.15–3.84 GHz) and 2.6% (4.47–4.59 GHz), respectively. The measured 3 dB axial ratio bandwidths are 20 MHz at 1.2 and 1.56 GHz, fully covering BDS B1 and B2 bands. The measured gains are 3, 3.59, 4.07, 4.2 and 4.35 dBi, respectively.

Aberrant DNA methylation patterns in sperm are a cause of embryonic failure and infertility, and could be a critical factor contributing to male recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). The purpose of this study was to reveal the potential effects of sperm DNA methylation levels in patients with male RSA. We compared sperm samples collected from fertile men and oligoasthenospermia patients. Differentially methylated sequences were identified by reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) methods. The DNA methylation levels of the two groups were compared and qRT-PCR was used to validate the expression of genes showing differential methylation. The results indicated that no difference in base distribution was observed between the normal group and the patient group. However, the chromosome methylation in these two groups was markedly different. One site was located on chromosome 8 and measured 150 bp, while the other sites were on chromosomes 9, 10, and X and measured 135 bp, 68 bp, and 136 bp, respectively. In particular, two genes were found to be hypermethylated in these patients, one gene was DYDC2 (placed in the differential methylation region of chromosome 10), and the other gene was NXF3 (located on chromosome X). Expression levels of DYDC2 and NXF3 in the RSA group were significantly lower than those in the normal group (P < 0.05). Collectively, these results demonstrated that changes in DNA methylation might be related to male RSA. Our findings provide important information regarding the potential role of sperm DNA methylation in human development.

This research communication investigated the role and the underlying mechanism of sn-1-acylglycerol-3-phosphate O-acyltransferase 6 (AGPAT6) in acetate-induced mTORC1 signaling activation and milk fat synthesis in dairy cow mammary epithelial cells. The data showed AGPAT6 knockdown significantly decreased acetate-induced phosphorylation of mTORC1 signaling molecules and intracellular triacylglycerol (TAG) content, whereas this inhibition effect was reversed after the addition of 16:0,18:1 phosphatidic acid (PA), suggesting that AGPAT6 could generate PA in response to acetate simulation, that in turn activates mTORC1 signaling. PPARγ is the upstream regulator of AGPAT6 upon acetate stimulation. Luciferase assay with clones containing various deletions and mutation in AGPAT6 promoter showed that there is a RXRα binding sequence located at −96 bp of AGPAT6 promoter. Acetate stimulation significantly increased the interaction between PPARγ and AGPAT6 via this RXRα binding site. Taken together, our data indicated that AGPAT6 could activate mTORC1 signaling by producing PA during acetate-induced milk fat synthesis, and PPARγ acts as a transcription factor to mediate the effect of acetate on AGPAT6 via RXRα.

Whether starchy and nonstarchy vegetables have distinct impacts on health remains unknown. We prospectively investigated the intake of starchy and nonstarchy vegetables in relation to mortality risk in a nationwide cohort. Diet was assessed using 24-h dietary recalls. Deaths were identified via the record linkage to the National Death Index. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using Cox regression. During a median follow-up of 7.8 years, 4,904 deaths were documented among 40,074 participants aged 18 years or older. Compared to those with no consumption, participants with daily consumption of ≥ 1 serving of nonstarchy vegetables had a lower risk of mortality (HR = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.66-0.88, ptrend = 0.001). Dark-green and deep-yellow vegetables (HR = 0.79, 95% CI: 0.63-0.99, ptrend = 0.023) and other nonstarchy vegetables (HR = 0.80, 95% CI: 0.70-0.92, ptrend = 0.004) showed similar results. Total starchy vegetable intake exhibited a marginally weak inverse association with mortality risk (HR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.80-1.00, ptrend = 0.048), while potatoes showed a null association (HR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.82-1.06, ptrend = 0.186). Restricted cubic spline analysis suggested a linear dose‒response relationship between vegetable intake and death risk, with a plateau at over 300 and 200 grams/day for total and nonstarchy vegetables, respectively. Compared to starchy vegetables, nonstarchy vegetables might be more beneficial to health, although both showed a protective association with mortality risk. The risk reduction in mortality plateaued at approximately 200 grams/day for nonstarchy vegetables and 300 grams/day for total vegetables.

The association between dietary Cu intake and mortality risk remains uncertain. We aimed to investigate the relationship of dietary Cu intake with all-cause mortality among Chinese adults. A total of 17 310 participants from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, a national ongoing open cohort of Chinese participants, were included in the analysis. Dietary intake was measured by three consecutive 24-h dietary recalls in combination with a weighing inventory over the same 3 d. The average intakes of the 3-d dietary macronutrients and micronutrients were calculated. The study outcome was all-cause mortality. During a median follow-up of 9·0 years, 1324 (7·6 %) participants died. After adjusting for sex, age, BMI, ever alcohol drinking, ever smoking, education levels, occupations, urban or rural residents, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and the intakes of fat, protein and carbohydrate, the association between dietary Cu intake and all-cause mortality followed a J-shape (P for nonlinearity = 0·047). When dietary Cu intake was assessed as quartiles, compared with those in the first quartile (<1·60 mg/d), the adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality were 0·87 (95 % CI (0·71, 1·07)), 0·98 (95 % CI (0·79, 1·21)) and 1·49 (95 % CI (1·19, 1·86)), respectively, in participants in the second (1·60–<1·83 mg/d), third (1·83–<2·09 mg/d) and fourth (≥2·09 mg/d) quartiles. A series of subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses showed similar results. Overall, our findings emphasised the importance of maintaining optimal dietary Cu intake levels for prevention of premature death.

This study is performed to figure out how the presence of diabetes affects the infection, progression and prognosis of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and the effective therapy that can treat the diabetes-complicated patients with COVID-19. A multicentre study was performed in four hospitals. COVID-19 patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) or hyperglycaemia were compared with those without these conditions and matched by propensity score matching for their clinical progress and outcome. Totally, 2444 confirmed COVID-19 patients were recruited, from whom 336 had DM. Compared to 1344 non-DM patients with age and sex matched, DM-COVID-19 patients had significantly higher rates of intensive care unit entrance (12.43% vs. 6.58%, P = 0.014), kidney failure (9.20% vs. 4.05%, P = 0.027) and mortality (25.00% vs. 18.15%, P < 0.001). Age and sex-stratified comparison revealed increased susceptibility to COVID-19 only from females with DM. For either non-DM or DM group, hyperglycaemia was associated with adverse outcomes, featured by higher rates of severe pneumonia and mortality, in comparison with non-hyperglycaemia. This was accompanied by significantly altered laboratory indicators including lymphocyte and neutrophil percentage, C-reactive protein and urea nitrogen level, all with correlation coefficients >0.35. Both diabetes and hyperglycaemia were independently associated with adverse prognosis of COVID-19, with hazard ratios of 10.41 and 3.58, respectively.

Bathymetric simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) methods yield accurate navigation results for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and can construct consistent seabed terrain maps. Multiple independently working vehicles can complete tasks like surveying and mapping efficiently, which means cooperative bathymetric SLAM using multiple AUVs is suitable for large-scale seabed mapping. However, the transmission of bathymetric measurements collected using a multi-beam echo sounder over a low bandwidth, noisy, and unreliable acoustic channel is difficult, making cooperative bathymetric SLAM very challenging. This paper develops a graph-based cooperative bathymetric SLAM system that can compress many bathymetric measurements into small-scale acoustic packets and yield accurate navigation results with a 10% loss of acoustic packets caused by unreliable acoustic communication. According to the simulation conducted using the field data, the new algorithm is shown to be robust and capable of providing accurate location and mapping results over a low bandwidth, noisy, and unreliable acoustic channel.

Big data has been reported widely to facilitate epidemic prevention and control in health care during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, there is still a lack of practical experience in applying it to hospital prevention and control. This study is devoted to the practical experience of design and implementation as well as the preliminary results of an innovative big data-driven COVID-19 risk personnel screening management system in a hospital. Our screening system integrates data sources in four dimensions, which includes Health Quick Response (QR) code, abroad travelling history, transportation close contact personnel and key surveillance personnel. Its screening targets cover all patients, care partner and staff who come to the hospital. As of November 2021, nearly 690 000 people and 5.79 million person-time had used automated COVID-19 risk screening and monitoring. A total of 10 376 person-time (0.18%) with abnormal QR code were identified, 242 person-time with abroad travelling history were identified, 925 person-time were marked based on the data of key surveillance personnel, no transportation history personnel been reported and no COVID-19 nosocomial infection occurred in the hospital. Through the application of this system, the hospital's expenditure on manpower and material resources for epidemic prevention and control has also been significantly reduced. Collectively, this study has proved to be an effective and efficient model for the use of digital health technology in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the data from multiple sources, this system has an irreplaceable role in identifying close contacts or suspicious person, and can significantly reduce the social burden caused by COVID-19, especially the human resources and economic costs of hospital prevention and control. It may provide guidance for clinical epidemic prevention and control in hospitals, as well as for future public health emergencies.

Routine coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) screening found 1 asymptomatic COVID-19 patient. An emergency sampling team was organized consisting of 1200 health-care workers, and a total of 3.2228 million COVID-19 samples had been collected and detected. This study summarizes the on-site management experience in large-scale COVID-19 nucleic acid testing from various aspects: staff preparation, materials preparation, site layout, logistics support, and information system support. Suggestions are put forward for the deficiencies and parts needing improvement. Such deficiencies included some sampling sites were not properly chosen, different areas were unclearly marked off from each other, and some site moving lines were confounding; how to communicate with the street service workers who had little professional knowledge on the epidemic spread or the working principles of the workflow and site layout; and the way to resolve conflicts on site.

Understanding how birds select breeding sites plays an important role in habitat protection, especially for the conservation of endangered species. With the increase in population size of the endangered Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon, its distribution range has expanded from mountain areas to plains located outside protected areas, representing a new challenge for conservation of the species. Identifying the current nesting habitat requirements is thus needed and can provide valuable information for the planning of new nature reserves. In this research, we surveyed a total of 117 nests across the whole distribution range from 2015 to 2019. We used generalized linear mixed-effects models to assess nesting preferences of the Crested Ibis in the wild. Results showed that in mountain areas, Masson pines Pinus massoniana were preferred (64.6%), whereas elms Ulmus pumila (44.9%) and aspens Populus davidiana (40.6%) were used more frequently lower down, probably because of their higher availability. In both mountain areas and plains the ibises selected tall nesting trees with larger diameter at breast height and preferred nesting rather high above ground, especially in plains where taller trees provided higher suitable nesting positions. The ibises also preferred nesting close to tree trunks, especially in mountain areas, probably for more safety from collapsing. Furthermore, in mountain areas, slope and distance to path had positive effects on nesting occurrence, and understorey coverage was avoided by nesting ibises, while these variables had little impact in plains. Our results indicate that, despite their range expansion, Crested Ibises rely on very specific habitat characteristics for nesting. We suggest relatively tall trees like elms and aspens should be preserved in plains. In addition, we highlight how selection patterns of Crested Ibises may vary, and that such variation should be addressed in conservation planning, especially in future reintroduction.

Listeriosis is a rare but serious foodborne disease caused by Listeria monocytogenes. This matched case–control study (1:1 ratio) aimed to identify the risk factors associated with food consumption and food-handling habits for the occurrence of sporadic listeriosis in Beijing, China. Cases were defined as patients from whom Listeria was isolated, in addition to the presence of symptoms, including fever, bacteraemia, sepsis and other clinical manifestations corresponding to listeriosis, which were reported via the Beijing Foodborne Disease Surveillance System. Basic patient information and possible risk factors associated with food consumption and food-handling habits were collected through face-to-face interviews. One hundred and six cases were enrolled from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2020, including 52 perinatal cases and 54 non-perinatal cases. In the non-perinatal group, the consumption of Chinese cold dishes increased the risk of infection by 3.43-fold (95% confidence interval 1.27–9.25, χ2 = 5.92, P = 0.02). In the perinatal group, the risk of infection reduced by 95.2% when raw and cooked foods were well-separated (χ2 = 5.11, P = 0.02). These findings provide important scientific evidence for preventing infection by L. monocytogenes and improving the dissemination of advice regarding food safety for vulnerable populations.

Excitation–emission-spectral unmixing-based fluorescence resonance energy transfer (ExEm-spFRET) microscopy exhibits excellent robustness in living cells. We here develop an automatic ExEm-spFRET microscope with 3.04 s of time resolution for a quantitative FRET imaging. The user-friendly interface software has been designed to operate in two modes: administrator and user. Automatic background recognition, subtraction, and cell segmentation were integrated into the software, which enables FRET calibration or measurement in a one-click operation manner. In administrator mode, both correction factors and spectral fingerprints are only calibrated periodically for a stable system. In user mode, quantitative ExEm-spFRET imaging is directly implemented for FRET samples. We implemented quantitative ExEm-spFRET imaging for living cells expressing different tandem constructs (C80Y, C40Y, C10Y, and C4Y, respectively) and obtained consistent results for at least 3 months, demonstrating the stability of our microscope. Next, we investigated Bcl-xL-Bad interaction by using ExEm-spFRET imaging and FRET two-hybrid assay and found that the Bcl-xL-Bad complexes exist mainly in Bad-Bcl-xL trimers in healthy cells and Bad-Bcl-xL2 trimers in apoptotic cells. We also performed time-lapse FRET imaging on our system for living cells expressing Yellow Cameleon 3.6 (YC3.6) to monitor ionomycin-induced rapid extracellular Ca2+ influx with a time interval of 5 s for total 250 s.

The quantum defect (QD) is an important issue that demands prompt attention in high-power fiber lasers. A large QD may aggravate the thermal load in the laser, which would impact the frequency, amplitude noise and mode stability, and threaten the security of the high-power laser system. Here, we propose and demonstrate a cladding-pumped Raman fiber laser (RFL) with QD of less than 1%. Using the Raman gain of the boson peak in a phosphorus-doped fiber to enable the cladding pump, the QD is reduced to as low as 0.78% with a 23.7 W output power. To our knowledge, this is the lowest QD ever reported in a cladding-pumped RFL. Furthermore, the output power can be scaled to 47.7 W with a QD of 1.29%. This work not only offers a preliminary platform for the realization of high-power low-QD fiber lasers, but also proves the great potential of low-QD fiber lasers in power scaling.

Interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) play a vital role in the gastrointestinal motility. However, information on ICC in lower vertebrates is rare. Here, ICC and ICC-like features of the gastric wall in the bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) were observed by light microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The lengths and distances of the ICC/ICC-like features were measured by morphometric analysis. The gastric wall contained mucosa, submucosa, tunica muscularis, and serosa. The gastric glands contained mucous cells and oxynticopeptic cells. The ICC with 1–3 processes were located among smooth muscle cells (SMC) of the tunica muscularis. Moreover, the ICC-like features were observed among oxynticopeptic cells of the mucosa. The processes of ICC established direct contacts with SMC. Also, the gap junctions were observed between the processes of ICC and nerve fiber bundles in the tunica muscularis. The multivesicular bodies, including shedding exosomes, were frequently observed between ICC and SMC. In addition, ICC-like features and their processes were observed in close proximity to oxynticopeptic cells and blood vessels. Our findings illustrated that ICC are present in the gastric tunica muscularis, and ICC-like features were in the mucosal lamina propria of the gastric wall of R. catesbeiana. These histological evidences supported the notion that ICC are implicated in gastric motility.

Sarcopenia is a core contributor to several health consequences, including falls, fractures, physical limitations and disability. The pathophysiological processes of sarcopenia may be counteracted with the proper diet, delaying sarcopenia onset. Dietary pattern analysis is a whole diet approach used to investigate the relationship between diet and sarcopenia. Here, we aimed to investigate this relationship in an elderly Chinese population. A cross-sectional study with 2423 participants aged more than 60 years was performed. Sarcopenia was defined based on the guidelines of the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia, composed of low muscle mass plus low grip strength and/or low gait speed. Dietary data were collected using a FFQ that included questions on 100 food items along with their specified serving sizes. Three dietary patterns were derived by factor analysis: sweet pattern, vegetable pattern and animal food pattern. The prevalence of sarcopenia was 16·1 %. The higher vegetable pattern score and animal food pattern score were related to lower prevalence of sarcopenia (Ptrend = 0·006 and < 0·001, respectively); the multivariate-adjusted OR of the prevalence of sarcopenia in the highest v. lowest quartiles were 0·54 (95 % CI 0·34, 0·86) and 0·50 (95 % CI 0·33, 0·74), separately. The sweet pattern score was not significantly related to the prevalence of sarcopenia. The present study showed that vegetable pattern and animal food pattern were related to a lower prevalence of sarcopenia in Chinese older adults. Further studies are required to clarify these findings.