Congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation of lung in adults: 2 rare cases report and review of the literature

Congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation (CCAM), also named congenital pulmonary airway malformation (CPAM), is a congenital abnormality of lung which is uncommon in adults. Here we present 2 adult cases of CCAM with unusual clinical and pathologic findings. One case was complicated with aspergillosis which was seldom reported. The other case was suffered bilateral lesions and the patient's mother had been previously radiographically discovered bilateral cystic lesions that CCAM could not be ruled out. A review of currently published related literatures has also been provided

Enhanced oil agglomeration separation of coal gasification fine slag by ultrasonic cavitation-fluid shear

Coal gasification fine slag (CGFS) has high utilization value, but the low recovery rate of residue carbon greatly restricts its resource utilization. The oil agglomeration separation method has obvious advantages in the CGFS separation process, but its separation efficiency is severely limited by the symbiotic structure of carbon and ash. In order to break through the bottleneck problem of residue carbon separation and enrichment technology by oil agglomeration method, the effects of ultrasonic time, ultrasonic power, fluid shear time and their interaction on oil agglomeration and separation were investigated in this paper. Combined with BET, particle size distribution, FT-IR, XPS and SEM-EDS analysis methods, the strengthening mechanism of ultrasonic cavitation and fluid shear (UC-FS) pretreatment on oil agglomeration separation was revealed. The results show that when the ultrasonic power is 270 W, the ultrasonic treatment time is 29 min, and the fluid shear time is 23 min, the concentrate with ash content of 9.55% and the tailings with ash content of 91.51% can be obtained, and the combustible recovery rate can be increased to 90.54%. Ultrasonic cavitation gradually loosens the original dense carbon ash structure, and promotes the development of the pore structure of CGFS in coordination with the scouring effect of fluid shear, which increases the dissociation degree of carbon ash particles and thus reduces the ash content of concentrate. UC-FS pretreatment can effectively increase the proportion of hydrophobic groups such as C—C, C=C and C—H on the surface of carbon residue, increase its contact angle from 110.34° to 121.16°, and further expand the difference of hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties on the surface of carbon and ash particles, thus improving the effect of oil agglomeration separation. The mechanism of UC-FS synergistic pretreatment to improve the efficient separation of carbon ash particles is mainly attributed to the micro-abrasive effect generated by the coupling of ultrasonic cavitation bubbles and fine-grained microspheres. This study can provide theoretical basis and technical guidance for the separation and utilization of CGFS

Marine Low Cloud Sensitivity to An Idealized Climate Change: The CGILS LES Intercomparison

Subtropical marine low cloud sensitivity to an idealized climate change is compared in six large-eddy simulation (LES) models as part of CGILS. July cloud cover is simulated at three locations over the subtropical northeast Pacific Ocean, which are typified by cold sea surface temperatures (SSTs) under well-mixed stratocumulus, cool SSTs under decoupled stratocumulus, and shallow cumulus clouds overlying warmer SSTs. The idealized climate change includes a uniform 2 K SST increase with corresponding moist-adiabatic warming aloft and subsidence changes, but no change in free-tropospheric relative humidity, surface wind speed, or CO2. For each case, realistic advective forcings and boundary conditions are generated for the control and perturbed states which each LES runs for 10 days into a quasi-steady state. For the control climate, the LESs correctly produce the expected cloud type at all three locations. With the perturbed forcings, all models simulate boundary-layer deepening due to reduced subsidence in the warmer climate, with less deepening at the warm-SST location due to regulation by precipitation. The models do not show a consistent response of liquid water path and albedo in the perturbed climate, though the majority predict cloud thickening (negative cloud feedback) at the cold-SST location and slight cloud thinning (positive cloud feedback) at the cool-SST and warm-SST locations. In perturbed climate simulations at the cold-SST location without the subsidence decrease, cloud albedo consistently decreases across the models. Thus, boundary-layer cloud feedback on climate change involves compensating thermodynamic and dynamic effects of warming and may interact with patterns of subsidence change

Marine Low Cloud Sensitivity to An Idealized Climate Change: The CGILS LES Intercomparison

Subtropical marine low cloud sensitivity to an idealized climate change is compared in six large-eddy simulation (LES) models as part of CGILS. July cloud cover is simulated at three locations over the subtropical northeast Pacific Ocean, which are typified by cold sea surface temperatures (SSTs) under well-mixed stratocumulus, cool SSTs under decoupled stratocumulus, and shallow cumulus clouds overlying warmer SSTs. The idealized climate change includes a uniform 2 K SST increase with corresponding moist-adiabatic warming aloft and subsidence changes, but no change in free-tropospheric relative humidity, surface wind speed, or CO2. For each case, realistic advective forcings and boundary conditions are generated for the control and perturbed states which each LES runs for 10 days into a quasi-steady state. For the control climate, the LESs correctly produce the expected cloud type at all three locations. With the perturbed forcings, all models simulate boundary-layer deepening due to reduced subsidence in the warmer climate, with less deepening at the warm-SST location due to regulation by precipitation. The models do not show a consistent response of liquid water path and albedo in the perturbed climate, though the majority predict cloud thickening (negative cloud feedback) at the cold-SST location and slight cloud thinning (positive cloud feedback) at the cool-SST and warm-SST locations. In perturbed climate simulations at the cold-SST location without the subsidence decrease, cloud albedo consistently decreases across the models. Thus, boundary-layer cloud feedback on climate change involves compensating thermodynamic and dynamic effects of warming and may interact with patterns of subsidence change

Evolutionary conservation of nested MIR159 structural microRNA genes and their promoter characterization in Arabidopsis thaliana

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small RNAs, that are vital for gene expression regulation in eukaryotes. Whenever a pri-miRNA precursor includes another miRNA precursor, and both of these precursors may generate independent, non-overlapping mature miRNAs, we named them nested miRNAs. However, the extent of nested miR159 structural evolutionary conservation and its promoter characterization remains unknown. In this study, the sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis reveal that the MIR159 family is ancient, and its nested miR159 structures are evolutionary conserved in different plant species. The overexpression of ath-MIR159a, including the 1.2 kb downstream region, has no effect on rescuing the mir159ab phenotype. The promoter truncation results revealed that the 1.0 kb promoter of ath-MIR159a is sufficient for rescuing the mir159ab phenotype. The cis-regulatory elements in the ath-miR159a promoters indicated functions related to different phytohormones, abiotic stresses, and transcriptional activation. While the MybSt1 motif-containing region is not responsible for activating the regulation of the miR159a promoter. The qRT-PCR results showed that overexpression of ath-MIR159a led to high expression levels of miR159a.1–5 and miR159a.1–3 and complemented the growth defect of mir159ab via downregulation of MYB33 and MYB65. Furthermore, continuously higher expression of the miR159a.2 duplex in transgenic lines with the curly leaf phenotype indicates that miR159a.2 is functional in Arabidopsis and suggests that it is possible for a miRNA precursor to encode several regulatory small RNAs in plants. Taken together, our study demonstrates that the nested miR159 structure is evolutionary conserved and miRNA-mediated gene regulation is more complex than previously thought

Metazoan diversity and community assemblages in sediments across a Western Pacific Trench-Arc-Basin system: insights from eDNA metabarcoding

Trench-arc-basin (TAB) systems are widely distributed in the deep sea, yet our understanding of their biodiversity patterns and community assemblages remains limited. In this study, we collected sediment samples from 22 stations across a Western Pacific TAB system and identified 85 families of marine benthos from 15 phyla by using eDNA metabarcoding with the 18S rRNA gene V4 region. Nematodes were the most dominant metazoan taxa followed by echinoderms, arthropods, and annelids. The highest biodiversity and species specificity were observed at stations located near seamounts. The community assemblages were highly heterogeneous in this TAB system, likely induced by the large geographic barriers and the high habitat heterogeneity. Furthermore, the total organic carbon content and median grain size of the sediment drive the overall community composition, and the water depth exerts a significant influence on species richness and abundance. Our results provide insight into benthos diversity and distribution across a TAB system and data for further comparisons and modeling studies

Residual strain reduction leads to efficiency and operational stability improvements in flexible perovskite solar cells

Flexible perovskite solar cells (F-PSCs) hold promise for portable power sources for applications in various fields, such as wearable and portable electronics and lightweight power supply in stratosphere and space applications. To date, it is still a challenge to achieve efficient and stable F-PSCs. Herein, a pre-applied strain on a flexible substrate to release the residual strain of the perovskite layers of the F-PSCs is reported. As a result, the F-PSC based on this strategy yielded a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up to 18.71%, approaching that of its counterpart based on a glass substrate (20.32%). And it retained 90% of its initial PCE after 300 h under AM 1.5G light illumination with an extrapolated T80 lifetime (the time over which the device efficiency reduces to 80% of its initial value) exceeding 700 h. Furthermore, the PCE remained above 80% of its initial value even after 1500 tension-only bending cycles. The result of this work paves a possible way toward fabricating efficient and stable F-PSCs

CGILS: Results From The First Phase of An International Project to Understand The Physical Mechanisms of Low Cloud Feedbacks in Single Column Models

CGILS—the CFMIP-GASS Intercomparison of Large Eddy Models (LESs) and single column models (SCMs)—investigates the mechanisms of cloud feedback in SCMs and LESs under idealized climate change perturbation. This paper describes the CGILS results from 15 SCMs and 8 LES models. Three cloud regimes over the subtropical oceans are studied: shallow cumulus, cumulus under stratocumulus, and well-mixed coastal stratus/stratocumulus. In the stratocumulus and coastal stratus regimes, SCMs without activated shallow convection generally simulated negative cloud feedbacks, while models with active shallow convection generally simulated positive cloud feedbacks. In the shallow cumulus alone regime, this relationship is less clear, likely due to the changes in cloud depth, lateral mixing, and precipitation or a combination of them. The majority of LES models simulated negative cloud feedback in the well-mixed coastal stratus/stratocumulus regime, and positive feedback in the shallow cumulus and stratocumulus regime. A general framework is provided to interpret SCM results: in a warmer climate, the moistening rate of the cloudy layer associated with the surface-based turbulence parameterization is enhanced; together with weaker large-scale subsidence, it causes negative cloud feedback. In contrast, in the warmer climate, the drying rate associated with the shallow convection scheme is enhanced. This causes positive cloud feedback. These mechanisms are summarized as the “NESTS” negative cloud feedback and the “SCOPE” positive cloud feedback (Negative feedback from Surface Turbulence under weaker Subsidence—Shallow Convection PositivE feedback) with the net cloud feedback depending on how the two opposing effects counteract each other. The LES results are consistent with these interpretations

Effect of low-dose rituximab treatment on autoimmune nodopathy with anti-contactin 1 antibody

BackgroundAutoimmune nodopathy with anti-contactin-1 (CNTN1) responds well to rituximab instead of traditional therapies. Although a low-dose rituximab regimen was administered to patients with other autoimmune diseases, such as myasthenia gravis and neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders, and satisfactory outcomes were obtained, this low-dose rituximab regimen has not been trialed in anti-CNTN1-positive patients.MethodsAnti–CNTN1 nodopathy patients were enrolled in this prospective, open-label, self-controlled pilot study. A cell-based assay was used to detect anti-CNTN1 antibodies and their subclasses in both serum and cerebrospinal fluid. Clinical features were evaluated at baseline, 2 days, 14 days, and 6 months after single low-dose rituximab treatment (600 mg). The titers of the subclasses of anti-CNTN1 antibody and peripheral B cells were also evaluated at baseline, 2 days, and 6 months after the rituximab regimen.ResultsTwo patients with anti–CNTN1 antibodies were enrolled. Both patients had neurological symptoms including muscle weakness, tremor, sensory ataxia, numbness and mild nephrotic symptoms. In the field of neurological symptoms, sensory ataxia markedly improved, and the titer of anti-CNTN1 antibody as well as CD19+ B cells decreased only two days following low-dose rituximab treatment. Other neurological symptoms improved within two weeks of rituximab treatment. At the 6-month follow-up, all neurological symptoms steadily improved with steroid reduction, and both the anti-CNTN1 antibody titer and CD19+ B cells steadily decreased. No adverse events were observed after this single low-dose rituximab treatment.ConclusionsWe confirmed the clinical efficacy of low-dose rituximab by B cell depletion in autoimmune nodopathy with anti-CNTN1 antibody. This rapid and long-lasting response suggests that low-dose rituximab is a promising option for anti-CNTN1 nodopathy