Widespread Presence of Glycolaldehyde and Ethylene Glycol Around Sagittarius B2

We report the detection of widespread CH$_2$OHCHO and HOCH$_2$CH$_2$OH emission in Galactic center giant molecular cloud Sagittarius B2 using the Shanghai Tianma 65m Radio Telescope. Our observations show for the first time that the spatial distribution of these two important prebiotic molecules extends over 15 arc-minutes, corresponding to a linear size of approximately 36 pc. These two molecules are not just distributed in or near the hot cores. The abundance of these two molecules seems to decrease from the cold outer region to the central region associated with star-formation activity. Results present here suggest that these two molecules are likely to form through a low temperature process. Recent theoretical and experimental studies demonstrated that prebiotic molecules can be efficiently formed in icy grain mantles through several pathways. However, these complex ice features cannot be directly observed, and most constraints on the ice compositions come from millimeter observations of desorbed ice chemistry products. These results, combined with laboratory studies, strongly support the existence of abundant prebiotic molecules in ices.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Ap

Dysnatremia is associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality within 365 days post-discharge in patients with atrial fibrillation without heart failure: A prospective cohort study

Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between serum sodium concentrations at hospital admission and all-cause mortality within 365 days post-discharge in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) without heart failure (HF). Methods: The prospective cohort study enrolled 1,446 patients with AF without HF between November 2018 and October 2020. A follow-up was performed 30, 90, 180, and 365 days after enrollment through outpatient visits or telephone interviews. All-cause mortality was estimated in three groups according to serum sodium concentrations: hyponatremia ( \u3c 135 mmol/L), normonatremia (135 – 145 mmol/L), and hypernatremia ( \u3e 145 mmol/L). We estimated the risk of all-cause mortalities using univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards models with normonatremia as the reference. Results: The all-cause mortalities of hyponatremia, normonatremia, and hypernatremia were 20.6, 9.4, and 33.3 % within 365 days post-discharge, respectively. In the univariable analysis, hyponatremia (HR: 2.19, CI 1.5 – 3.2) and hypernatremia (HR: 4.03, CI 2.32 – 7.02) increased the risk of all-cause mortality. The HRs for hyponatremia and hypernatremia were 1.55 (CI 1.05 – 2.28) and 2.55 (CI 1.45 – 4.46) after adjustment for age, diabetes mellitus, loop diuretics, antisterone, antiplatelet drugs, and anticoagulants in the patients with AF without HF. The association between serum sodium concentrations and the HRs of all-cause mortality was U-shaped. Conclusion: Dysnatremia at hospital admission was an independent factor for all-cause mortality in patients with AF without HF within 365 days post-discharge

Precessing jet nozzle connecting to a spinning black hole in M87

The nearby radio galaxy M87 offers a unique opportunity to explore the connections between the central supermassive black hole and relativistic jets. Previous studies of the inner region of M87 revealed a wide opening angle for the jet originating near the black hole. The Event Horizon Telescope resolved the central radio source and found an asymmetric ring structure consistent with expectations from General Relativity. With a baseline of 17 years of observations, there was a shift in the jet's transverse position, possibly arising from an eight to ten-year quasi-periodicity. However, the origin of this sideways shift remains unclear. Here we report an analysis of radio observations over 22 years that suggests a period of about 11 years in the position angle variation of the jet. We infer that we are seeing a spinning black hole that induces the Lense-Thirring precession of a misaligned accretion disk. Similar jet precession may commonly occur in other active galactic nuclei but has been challenging to detect owing to the small magnitude and long period of the variation.Comment: 41 pages, 7 figures, 7 table

Assessing the moderating effect of environmental regulation on the process of media reports affecting enterprise investment inefficiency in China

Abstract To achieve the triple goals of digesting excess capacity, making effective investments, and accelerating green governance, it is important and necessary to comprehensively examine the intrinsic relationship between media reports, environmental regulation, and enterprise investment inefficiency. To this end, this study employs multiple econometric models to investigate the intrinsic relationship between them by using the data of listed companies in China’s A-share heavy-polluting industries between 2010 and 2020. The results of the study are as follows. Firstly, media reports can encourage heavy-polluting enterprises to pay attention to stakeholder demands and significantly ameliorate the enterprise investment inefficiency. In addition, environmental regulation can ameliorate the enterprise investment inefficiency through the “push-back effect” and “compensation effect”. Moreover, pollution fees can positively moderate the amelioration effect of media reports on the investment inefficiency of heavy-polluting enterprises, while it fails in terms of environmental protection subsidies. Finally, conclusions and policy implications are provided

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Camellia sinensis cv. Dahongpao: a most famous variety of Wuyi tea (Synonym: Thea bohea L.)

Here, combining PacBio and Illumina sequencing data, we reported the complete chloroplast genome of the first Wuyi tea (Bohea), Camellia sinensis cv. Dahongpao (DHP) with very high economic value. The chloroplast genome was 157,077 bp in length, with a large single copy (LSC) region of 86,633 bp, a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,282 bp, separated by two inverted repeat (IR) regions of 26,081 bp each. It contained a total of 137 genes, with an overall GC content of 37.29%. The phylogenetic analysis showed that DHP was sister to C. sinensis cv. Longjing

A Parameter Self-Calibration Method for GNSS/INS Deeply Coupled Navigation Systems in Highly Dynamic Environments

The GNSS/INS (Global Navigation Satellite System/Inertial Navigation System) navigation system has been widely discussed in recent years. Because of the unique INS-aided loop structure, the deeply coupled system performs very well in highly dynamic environments. In practice, vehicle maneuvering has a big influence on the performance of IMUs (Inertial Measurement Unit), and determining whether the selected IMUs and receiver parameters satisfy the loop dynamic requirement is still a critical problem for deeply coupled systems. Aiming at this, a new parameter self-calibration method based on the norm principle is proposed which explains the relationship between IMU precision and the velocity error of the system; the method will also provide a detailed solution to calculate the loop steady-state tracking error, so it will eventually make a judgment about the stability of the tracking loop under present system parameter settings. Lastly, a full digital simulation platform is set up, and the results of simulations show good agreement with the proposed method

High-Performance Enhancement of SWIR Images

Short-wave infrared imaging technology has rapidly developed over the past decade. However, image detail and contrast enhancement techniques, which are crucial for infrared imaging systems, are rarely dedicated to SWIR imaging systems. Moreover, the existing IR image enhancement methods generally have difficulty providing real-time performance, which plays a significant role in imaging systems with high data rates. In this paper, we propose a simple and real-time SWIR image enhancement approach based on the difference of Gaussian filter and histogram remapping, and illustrate the implementation of the proposed method on FPGA. The experimental results demonstrated that our method achieves promising detail and contrast enhancement performance with a frame rate of around 50 fps for high-definition images, and that extremely high frame rates can be achieved with pipelined architecture

The Utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT for Monitoring Response and Predicting Prognosis after Glucocorticoids Therapy for Sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis has significant heterogeneity involving multiple organs; treatment of the disease is a significant therapeutic challenge due to the difficulties in accurately monitoring disease activity and estimating prognosis. Fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG-PET/CT) plays an important role in assessing the metabolic activity. However, there is not enough evidence about the influence of this method in the clinical management and prognosis prediction for sarcoidosis. This study aims to investigate the clinical utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT for therapeutic evaluation and prognostic prediction in sarcoidosis. We had retrospectively enrolled 23 patients with sarcoidosis assigned to receive systemic glucocorticoids. All patients underwent baseline 18F-FDG PET/CT before initiating therapy and follow-up 18F-FDG PET/CT within 3 months after the therapy. The metabolic and clinical responses were classified. The baseline 18F-FDG PET/CT showed increased uptake in all patients. Based solely on biopsy-proven sites, the sensitivity of 18F-FDG PET/CT was 91.7%, and the sensitivity improved to 100% after excluding skin involvement. In the subsequent follow-up PET scans within 3 months after glucocorticoids therapy, the SUVmax were variously decreased except one; there are significant differences in the clinical remission rates and the relapse rates between patients with a favorable response and cases with no response on follow-up PET scan, the increasing metabolic response was associated with the increase in clinical remission rates and the reduction in recurrence rates. In conclusion, the present study shows that 18F-FDG PET/CT is an effective way to monitor the early therapeutic reaction and is helpful in predicting the long-term prognosis of sarcoidosis