The Universal Property of the Entropy Sum of Black Holes in All Dimensions

It is proposed by Cvetic et al [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 (2011) 121301] that the product of all horizon areas for general rotating multi-change black holes has universal expressions independent of the mass. When we consider the product of all horizon entropies, however, the mass will be present in some cases, while another new universal property [JHEP 1401 (2014) 031] is preserved, which is more general and says that the sum of all horizon entropies depends only on the coupling constants of the theory and the topology of the black hole. The property has been studied in limited dimensions and the generalization in arbitrary dimensions is not straight-forward. In this Letter, we prove a useful formula, which makes it possible to investigate this conjectured universality in arbitrary dimensions for the maximally symmetric black holes in general Lovelock gravity and $f(R)$ gravity. We also propose an approach to compute the entropy sum of general Kerr-(anti-)de-Sitter black holes in arbitrary dimensions. In all these cases, we prove that the entropy sum only depends on the coupling constants and the topology of the black hole.Comment: 16 pages,no figures;v2: 17 pages, references added, minor corrections/modifications; v3: 16 pages, added references, correct some expressons, added equation (16) to make the context more clear, to appear in PL

VMT-Adapter: Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for Multi-Task Dense Scene Understanding

Large-scale pre-trained models have achieved remarkable success in various computer vision tasks. A standard approach to leverage these models is to fine-tune all model parameters for downstream tasks, which poses challenges in terms of computational and storage costs. Recently, inspired by Natural Language Processing (NLP), parameter-efficient transfer learning has been successfully applied to vision tasks. However, most existing techniques primarily focus on single-task adaptation, and despite limited research on multi-task adaptation, these methods often exhibit suboptimal training and inference efficiency. In this paper, we first propose an once-for-all Vision Multi-Task Adapter (VMT-Adapter), which strikes approximately O(1) training and inference efficiency w.r.t task number. Concretely, VMT-Adapter shares the knowledge from multiple tasks to enhance cross-task interaction while preserves task-specific knowledge via independent knowledge extraction modules. Notably, since task-specific modules require few parameters, VMT-Adapter can handle an arbitrary number of tasks with a negligible increase of trainable parameters. We also propose VMT-Adapter-Lite, which further reduces the trainable parameters by learning shared parameters between down- and up-projections. Extensive experiments on four dense scene understanding tasks demonstrate the superiority of VMT-Adapter(-Lite), achieving a 3.96%(1.34%) relative improvement compared to single-task full fine-tuning, while utilizing merely ~1% (0.36%) trainable parameters of the pre-trained model.Comment: Accepted to AAAI202

2-Methyl­sulfanyl-4-(3-pyrid­yl)pyrimidine

In the title compound, C10H9N3S, the dihedral angle between the aromatic rings is 8.09 (14)°. In the crystal, a C—H⋯N interaction links the molecules, forming chains

Research into the impact of an imbalanced teaching-academic research evaluation system on the quality of higher education: based on the mediation effect of the sense of belonging to a university

University faculties are duty-bound to shoulder the functions of both teaching and doing scientific research, but they have been repeatedly criticized for emphasizing research over teaching. The current study analyzes the imbalance between teaching and scientific research in faculty evaluation system from three aspects through both quality study and quantity study: the evaluation subject, the weights difference in promotion, and the prediction of salary. Based on that, the influential effects of unbalanced evaluation system on long-term development of education has been explored. The current study also puts forward the moderating effect of the sense of belonging to colleges and universities. The result shows organizational belonging can significantly weaken the negative effects of the unbalanced evaluation system on education. Based on this, this paper makes further suggestions on the construction of university faculties’ evaluation system and the promotion of their sense of belonging

PPR proteins in plants: roles, mechanisms, and prospects for rice research

Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins constitute one of the largest protein families in land plants, with over 300 members in various species. Nearly all PPR proteins are nuclear-encoded and targeted to the chloroplast and mitochondria, modulating organellar gene expression by participating in RNA metabolism, including mRNA stability, RNA editing, RNA splicing, and translation initiation. Organelle RNA metabolism significantly influences chloroplast and mitochondria functions, impacting plant photosynthesis, respiration, and environmental responses. Over the past decades, PPR proteins have emerged as a research focus in molecular biology due to their diverse roles throughout plant life. This review summarizes recent progress in understanding the roles and molecular mechanisms of PPR proteins, emphasizing their functions in fertility, abiotic and biotic stress, grain quality, and chloroplast development in rice. Furthermore, we discuss prospects for PPR family research in rice, aiming to provide a theoretical foundation for future investigations and applications

Realization of multiple topological states and topological phase transitions in (4,0) carbon nanotube derivatives

Exploring various topological states (TS) and topological phase transitions (TPT) has attracted great attention in condensed matter physics. However, so far, there is rarely a typical material system that can be used as a platform to study the TS and TPT as the system transforms from one-dimensional (1D) nanoribbons to two-dimensional (2D) sheet then to three-dimensional (3D) bulk. Here, we first propose that some typical TS in 1D, 2D, and 3D systems can be realized in a tight-binding (TB) model. Following the TB model and further based on first-principles electronic structure calculations, we demonstrate that the structurally stable (4,0) carbon nanotube derivatives are an ideal platform to explore the semiconductor/nodal-point semimetal states in 1D nanoribbons [1D-(4,0)-C16H4 and 1D-(4,0)-C32H4], nodal-ring semimetal state in 2D sheet [2D-(4,0)-C16], and nodal-cage semimetal state in 3D bulk [3D-(4,0)-C16]. Furthermore, we calculate the characteristic band structures and the edge/surface states of 2D-(4,0)-C16 and 3D-(4,0)-C16 to confirm their nontrivial topological properties. Our work not only provides new excellent 2D and 3D members for the topological carbon material family, but also serves as an ideal template for the study of TS and TPT with the change of system dimension.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Plasma Lipoprotein-associated Phospholipase A2 in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome and Carotid Atherosclerosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A₂(Lp-PLA₂) is a recently identified and potentially useful plasma biomarker for cardiovascular and atherosclerotic diseases. However, the correlation between the Lp-PLA₂activity and carotid atherosclerosis remains poorly investigated in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS). The present study aimed to evaluate the potential role of Lp-PLA₂as a comprehensive marker of metabolic syndrome in individuals with and without carotid atherosclerosis.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We documented 118 consecutive patients with MetS and 70 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects served as controls. The patients were further divided into two groups: 39 with carotid plaques and 79 without carotid plaques to elucidate the influence of Lp-PLA₂on carotid atherosclerosis. The plasma Lp-PLA₂activity was measured by using ELISA method and carotid intimal-media thickness (IMT) was performed by ultrasound in all participants.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Lp-PLA₂activity was significantly increased in MetS subgroups when compared with controls, and was higher in patients with carotid plaques than those without plaques (<it>P </it>< 0.05). Furthermore, we found that significant difference in Lp-PLA₂was obtained between patients with three and four disorders of metabolic syndrome (<it>P </it>< 0.01). Age (β = 0.183, <it>P </it>= 0.029), LDL-cholesterol (β = 0.401, <it>P </it>= 0.000) and waist-hip ratio (β = 0.410, <it>P </it>= 0.000) emerged as significant and independent determinants of Lp-PLA₂activity. Multiple stepwise regression analysis revealed that LDL-cholesterol (β = 0.309, <it>P </it>= 0.000), systolic blood pressure (β = 0.322, <it>P </it>= 0.002) and age (β = 0.235, <it>P </it>= 0.007) significantly correlated with max IMT, and Lp-PLA₂was not an independent predictor for carotid IMT.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Lp-PLA₂may be a modulating factor for carotid IMT via age and LDL-cholesterol, not independent predictor in the pathophysiological process of carotid atherosclerosis in patients with MetS.</p

Valine induces inflammation and enhanced adipogenesis in lean mice by multi-omics analysis

IntroductionThe branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are essential to mammalian growth and development but aberrantly elevated in obesity and diabetes. Each BCAA has an independent and specific physio-biochemical effect on the host. However, the exact molecular mechanism of the detrimental effect of valine on metabolic health remains largely unknown.Methods and resultsThis study showed that for lean mice treated with valine, the hepatic lipid metabolism and adipogenesis were enhanced, and the villus height and crypt depth of the ileum were significantly increased. Transcriptome profiling on white and brown adipose tissues revealed that valine disturbed multiple signaling pathways (e.g., inflammation and fatty acid metabolism). Integrative cecal metagenome and metabolome analyses found that abundances of Bacteroidetes decreased, but Proteobacteria and Helicobacter increased, respectively; and 87 differential metabolites were enriched in several molecular pathways (e.g., inflammation and lipid and bile acid metabolism). Furthermore, abundances of two metabolites (stercobilin and 3-IAA), proteins (AMPK/pAMPK and SCD1), and inflammation and adipogenesis-related genes were validated.DiscussionValine treatment affects the intestinal microbiota and metabolite compositions, induces gut inflammation, and aggravates hepatic lipid deposition and adipogenesis. Our findings provide novel insights into and resources for further exploring the molecular mechanism and biological function of valine on lipid metabolism

Treatment and observation of postvitrectomy diabetic vitreous haemorrhage in patients with PDR

AIM: To discuss the treatment and to evaluate the therapeutic effect by reviewing a group of postvitrectomy diabetic vitreous haemorrhage(PDVH)cases after vitrectomy for proliferative diabetic retinopathy(PDR). METHODS: Retrospective analysis of 12 cases of 12 PDR patients with PDVH in our hospital from September 2015 to June 2017. First, conservative treatment was performed and then surgical treatments were performed on patients with large amount of bleeding and poor effect of conservative treatment(including anterior chamber flushing, vitreous lavage, vitrectomy, or combination of cataract surgery). The patients were observed and analyzed during and after surgeries. RESULTS: The mean duration between the first surgery and PDVH ranged from 1d to 10mo(mean 61.58±92.69d). The cases of early and late PDVH was 8 eyes and 4 eyes, respectively. Two eyes were treated with conservative treatment and the bleeding were absorbed after 2wk-1mo. Ten eyes without obvious improvement after treatment or intraocular pressure(IOP)increased again received surgical treatment, in which 2 eyes were treated with simple anterior chamber flushing, 8 eyes underwent vitreous lavage(2 eyes combined with cataract surgery, 1 eyes combined with silicone oil injection). Seven eyes received supplementary photocoagulation. Till the last follow-up, all vitreous haemorrhages resolved, and 9 eyes had better visual acuity. CONCLUSION: PDVH can be induced by various reasons and appropriate measures should be taken by regulating blood glucose, improving operative skills and timely symptomatic treatments to improve the visual acuity