Corn silk polysaccharide ameliorates high fat diet induced hepatic steatosis in mice

To study the therapeutic effect of corn silk polysaccharide (CSP) on NAFLD mice induced by high fat diet. C57BL/6J mice were divided into normal control group (NC), high fat diet (HFD) group, HFD+200 mg/kg CSP group, and HFD+600 mg/kg CSP group. NAFLD mouse model was established by HFD feeding. Blood and liver tissues of each group were collected and biochemical and pathological tests were performed. The energy intake of NAFLD model group was higher than that of normal control group, and the food intake, water intake, and excretion of NAFLD model group were lower than that of normal control group. There was no statistical significance in the food intake, energy intake, water intake, and excretion of CSP group compared with that of NAFLD model group, nor was there any statistical significance between CSP and two doses of CSP. Biochemical tests showed that CSP decreased the levels of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, triglyceride and total cholesterol in serum of HFDfed mice, and inhibited the expressions of IL-6 and TNF-α in liver tissue. Pathological results showed that CSP improved HFD-induced hepatic steatosis

Artificial Intelligence for Science in Quantum, Atomistic, and Continuum Systems

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are fueling a new paradigm of discoveries in natural sciences. Today, AI has started to advance natural sciences by improving, accelerating, and enabling our understanding of natural phenomena at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, giving rise to a new area of research known as AI for science (AI4Science). Being an emerging research paradigm, AI4Science is unique in that it is an enormous and highly interdisciplinary area. Thus, a unified and technical treatment of this field is needed yet challenging. This work aims to provide a technically thorough account of a subarea of AI4Science; namely, AI for quantum, atomistic, and continuum systems. These areas aim at understanding the physical world from the subatomic (wavefunctions and electron density), atomic (molecules, proteins, materials, and interactions), to macro (fluids, climate, and subsurface) scales and form an important subarea of AI4Science. A unique advantage of focusing on these areas is that they largely share a common set of challenges, thereby allowing a unified and foundational treatment. A key common challenge is how to capture physics first principles, especially symmetries, in natural systems by deep learning methods. We provide an in-depth yet intuitive account of techniques to achieve equivariance to symmetry transformations. We also discuss other common technical challenges, including explainability, out-of-distribution generalization, knowledge transfer with foundation and large language models, and uncertainty quantification. To facilitate learning and education, we provide categorized lists of resources that we found to be useful. We strive to be thorough and unified and hope this initial effort may trigger more community interests and efforts to further advance AI4Science

Emerging Themes and Future Directions of Multi-Sector Nexus Research and Implementation

Water, energy, and food are all essential components of human societies. Collectively, their respective resource systems are interconnected in what is called the “nexus”. There is growing consensus that a holistic understanding of the interdependencies and trade-offs between these sectors and other related systems is critical to solving many of the global challenges they present. While nexus research has grown exponentially since 2011, there is no unified, overarching approach, and the implementation of concepts remains hampered by the lack of clear case studies. Here, we present the results of a collaborative thought exercise involving 75 scientists and summarize them into 10 key recommendations covering: the most critical nexus issues of today, emerging themes, and where future efforts should be directed. We conclude that a nexus community of practice to promote open communication among researchers, to maintain and share standardized datasets, and to develop applied case studies will facilitate transparent comparisons of models and encourage the adoption of nexus approaches in practice

Emerging Themes and Future Directions of Multi-Sector Nexus Research and Implementation

Water, energy, and food are all essential components of human societies. Collectively, their respective resource systems are interconnected in what is called the “nexus”. There is growing consensus that a holistic understanding of the interdependencies and trade-offs between these sectors and other related systems is critical to solving many of the global challenges they present. While nexus research has grown exponentially since 2011, there is no unified, overarching approach, and the implementation of concepts remains hampered by the lack of clear case studies. Here, we present the results of a collaborative thought exercise involving 75 scientists and summarize them into 10 key recommendations covering: the most critical nexus issues of today, emerging themes, and where future efforts should be directed. We conclude that a nexus community of practice to promote open communication among researchers, to maintain and share standardized datasets, and to develop applied case studies will facilitate transparent comparisons of models and encourage the adoption of nexus approaches in practice

Risk Dynamics─An Analysis for the Risk of Change

The concept of risk has evolved over the centuries of human history. People care about risk because much of our property and human lives are constantly at stake in the face of unforeseeable future. Unlike the fixed, known past, the future is always uncertain to us. In fact, such uncertainty is where risk arises. Thus, people assess risk by identifying sources of uncertainty and manage risk by trying to reduce those uncertainties. Indeed, existing risk analysis may be reduced to an endless anticipation of hazardous events, followed by a quantification of how likely those events are to happen and what their consequences are. Those approaches were originally developed for relatively well structured mechanical problems. However, our society inexorably marches towards greater complexity. On top of such natural progression, the advance of information and communication technology has made the rate of society's development faster than ever. Everything in society changes over time and the complexity of change brings us the uncertain future that perplexes our decision-making processes. Our current conceptual framework for risk analysis is now facing serious challenges due to the rapid pace of change in today's societies. How can we analyze risk when systems are constantly changing? To answer this question, this research will reexamine the concept of risk and investigate the uncertainty and complexity of change, to understand the very nature of risk in the ever-changing systems. In Newton's laws of motion and the ways of traditional Chinese medicine, we have found a new perspective of risk and a new way to analyze it

Risk Dynamics─An Analysis for the Risk of Change

The concept of risk has evolved over the centuries of human history. People care about risk because much of our property and human lives are constantly at stake in the face of unforeseeable future. Unlike the fixed, known past, the future is always uncertain to us. In fact, such uncertainty is where risk arises. Thus, people assess risk by identifying sources of uncertainty and manage risk by trying to reduce those uncertainties. Indeed, existing risk analysis may be reduced to an endless anticipation of hazardous events, followed by a quantification of how likely those events are to happen and what their consequences are. Those approaches were originally developed for relatively well structured mechanical problems. However, our society inexorably marches towards greater complexity. On top of such natural progression, the advance of information and communication technology has made the rate of society's development faster than ever. Everything in society changes over time and the complexity of change brings us the uncertain future that perplexes our decision-making processes. Our current conceptual framework for risk analysis is now facing serious challenges due to the rapid pace of change in today's societies. How can we analyze risk when systems are constantly changing? To answer this question, this research will reexamine the concept of risk and investigate the uncertainty and complexity of change, to understand the very nature of risk in the ever-changing systems. In Newton's laws of motion and the ways of traditional Chinese medicine, we have found a new perspective of risk and a new way to analyze it

Corn silk polysaccharide ameliorates high fat diet induced hepatic steatosis in mice

To study the therapeutic effect of corn silk polysaccharide (CSP) on NAFLD mice induced by high fat diet. C57BL/6J mice were divided into normal control group (NC), high fat diet (HFD) group, HFD+200 mg/kg CSP group, and HFD+600 mg/kg CSP group. NAFLD mouse model was established by HFD feeding. Blood and liver tissues of each group were collected and biochemical and pathological tests were performed. The energy intake of NAFLD model group was higher than that of normal control group, and the food intake, water intake, and excretion of NAFLD model group were lower than that of normal control group. There was no statistical significance in the food intake, energy intake, water intake, and excretion of CSP group compared with that of NAFLD model group, nor was there any statistical significance between CSP and two doses of CSP. Biochemical tests showed that CSP decreased the levels of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase, triglyceride and total cholesterol in serum of HFDfed mice, and inhibited the expressions of IL-6 and TNF-α in liver tissue. Pathological results showed that CSP improved HFD-induced hepatic steatosis

Features of the Asynchronous Correlation between the China Coal Price Index and Coal Mining Accidental Deaths.

The features of the asynchronous correlation between accident indices and the factors that influence accidents can provide an effective reference for warnings of coal mining accidents. However, what are the features of this correlation? To answer this question, data from the China coal price index and the number of deaths from coal mining accidents were selected as the sample data. The fluctuation modes of the asynchronous correlation between the two data sets were defined according to the asynchronous correlation coefficients, symbolization, and sliding windows. We then built several directed and weighted network models, within which the fluctuation modes and the transformations between modes were represented by nodes and edges. Then, the features of the asynchronous correlation between these two variables could be studied from a perspective of network topology. We found that the correlation between the price index and the accidental deaths was asynchronous and fluctuating. Certain aspects, such as the key fluctuation modes, the subgroups characteristics, the transmission medium, the periodicity and transmission path length in the network, were analyzed by using complex network theory, analytical methods and spectral analysis method. These results provide a scientific reference for generating warnings for coal mining accidents based on economic indices

Urban Metabolic Analysis of a Food-Water-Energy System for Sustainable Resources Management

Urban metabolism analyzes the supply and consumption of nutrition, material, energy, and other resources within cities. Food, water, and energy are critical resources for the human society and have complicated cooperative/competitive influences on each other. The management of interactive resources is essential for supply chain analysis. This research analyzes the food-water-energy system of urban metabolism for sustainable resources management. A system dynamics model is established to investigate the urban metabolism of food, water, and energy resources. This study conducts a case study of Shihmen Reservoir system, hydropower generation, paddy rice irrigation of Taoyuan and Shihmen Irrigation Associations, and water consumption in Taoyuan, New Taipei, and Hsinchu cities. The interactive influence of the food-water-energy nexus is quantified in this study; the uncertainty analysis of food, water, and energy nexus is presented

Socio-metabolic risk and tipping points on islands

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) face enormous sustainability challenges such as heavy reliance on imports to meet basic needs, tenuous resource availability, coastal squeeze, and reduced waste absorption capacity. At the same time, the adverse effects of global environmental change such as global warming, extreme events, and outbreaks of pandemics significantly hinder SIDS’ progress towards sustainable development. This paper makes a conceptual contribution by framing the vulnerability of small islands from the perspective of socio-metabolic risk (SMR). SMR is defined as systemic risk associated with the availability of critical resources, the integrity of material circulation, and the (in)equitable distribution of derived products and societal services in a socio-ecological system. We argue that specific configurations and combinations of material stocks and flows on islands and their ‘resistance to change’ contribute to the system’s proliferation of SMR. For better or for worse, these influence the system’s ability to consistently and effectively deliver societal services necessary for survival. By positioning SMR as a subset of systemic risk, the paper illustrates SMRs and tipping points on small islands using insights from three sectors: water, waste, and infrastructure. We also identify effective leverage points and adaptation strategies for building system resilience on small islands. In conclusion, our synthesis suggests that governing SMR on SIDS would mean governing socio-metabolic flows to avoid potential disruptions in the circulation of critical resources and the maintenance of vital infrastructures and services while inducing interventions towards positive social tipping dynamics. Such interventions will need strategies to reconfigure resource-use patterns and associated services that are sustainable and socially equitable