Suicidal ideation and attempted suicide amongst Chinese transgender persons:National population study

BACKGROUND: This study aims to understand suicidal ideation and suicide attempts among transgender individuals through an in-depth analysis of a nation-wide population general survey in China. METHODS: Transgender Men (TM) and Women (TW) were investigated through a cross-sectional survey. A structured questionnaire was used to investigate participants\u27 demographic information, perceived sexuality conflicts, childhood adversity and mental health conditions. Logistic regression models were utilized to investigate risk factors associated with suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in these groups. We also conducted a quasi-meta-analysis in order to compare the prevalence of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide between general and transgender populations in China. RESULTS: A total of 1309 participants across 32 provinces and municipalities in China took part in this survey, out of 2060 valid questionnaires. In this transgender population, the lifetime prevalence of suicidal ideation and an attempt at suicide were 56.4% and 16.1%, respectively. This estimated prevalence rate is far greater than in Chinese community samples. For all transgender people, disliking birth-assigned sex, seeking sex reassignment surgery, having intense conflicts with parents, lifetime history of suffering from major depressive disorder, a recent episode of depression, self-harm, and seeking mental health services were significantly associated with increased risk of suicidal ideation. An education level of high school or equivalent, being married and/or separated/divorced, having intense conflicts with parents, or self-harm and seeking mental health services were all significantly associated with increased risk of suicide attempt. Although most risk factors for TM and TW were equivalent across groups, differences were observed in both suicidal ideation and suicide attempt models. LIMITATIONS: The cross-sectional study design and lack of follow-up data are limitations of this study. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to examine suicide within a Chinese transgender population. The clinical implications of these findings for Chinese mental health professionals are discussed. Also, the evidence from this study can be used to inform the practices of suicide prevention workers, and policy makers working with the transgender population

AcoMYB4, an Ananas comosus L. MYB transcription factor, functions in osmotic stress through negative regulation of ABA signaling

Drought and salt stress are the main environmental cues affecting the survival, development, distribution, and yield of crops worldwide. MYB transcription factors play a crucial role in plants’ biological processes, but the function of pineapple MYB genes is still obscure. In this study, one of the pineapple MYB transcription factors, AcoMYB4, was isolated and characterized. The results showed that AcoMYB4 is localized in the cell nucleus, and its expression is induced by low temperature, drought, salt stress, and hormonal stimulation, especially by abscisic acid (ABA). Overexpression of AcoMYB4 in rice and Arabidopsis enhanced plant sensitivity to osmotic stress; it led to an increase in the number stomata on leaf surfaces and lower germination rate under salt and drought stress. Furthermore, in AcoMYB4 OE lines, the membrane oxidation index, free proline, and soluble sugar contents were decreased. In contrast, electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde (MDA) content increased significantly due to membrane injury, indicating higher sensitivity to drought and salinity stresses. Besides the above, both the expression level and activities of several antioxidant enzymes were decreased, indicating lower antioxidant activity in AcoMYB4 transgenic plants. Moreover, under osmotic stress, overexpression of AcoMYB4 inhibited ABA biosynthesis through a decrease in the transcription of genes responsible for ABA synthesis (ABA1 and ABA2) and ABA signal transduction factor ABI5. These results suggest that AcoMYB4 negatively regulates osmotic stress by attenuating cellular ABA biosynthesis and signal transduction pathways

ERNIE-ViLG 2.0: Improving Text-to-Image Diffusion Model with Knowledge-Enhanced Mixture-of-Denoising-Experts

Recent progress in diffusion models has revolutionized the popular technology of text-to-image generation. While existing approaches could produce photorealistic high-resolution images with text conditions, there are still several open problems to be solved, which limits the further improvement of image fidelity and text relevancy. In this paper, we propose ERNIE-ViLG 2.0, a large-scale Chinese text-to-image diffusion model, which progressively upgrades the quality of generated images~by: (1) incorporating fine-grained textual and visual knowledge of key elements in the scene, and (2) utilizing different denoising experts at different denoising stages. With the proposed mechanisms, ERNIE-ViLG 2.0 not only achieves the state-of-the-art on MS-COCO with zero-shot FID score of 6.75, but also significantly outperforms recent models in terms of image fidelity and image-text alignment, with side-by-side human evaluation on the bilingual prompt set ViLG-300

Distinct functions of TIR1 and AFB1 receptors in auxin signalling.

Auxin is the major plant hormone regulating growth and development (Friml, 2022). Forward genetic approaches in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana have identified major components of auxin signalling and established the canonical mechanism mediating transcriptional and thus developmental reprogramming. In this textbook view, TRANSPORT INHIBITOR RESPONSE 1 (TIR1)/AUXIN-SIGNALING F-BOX (AFBs) are auxin receptors, which act as F-box subunits determining the substrate specificity of the Skp1-Cullin1-F box protein (SCF) type E3 ubiquitin ligase complex. Auxin acts as a “molecular glue” increasing the affinity between TIR1/AFBs and the Aux/IAA repressors. Subsequently, Aux/IAAs are ubiquitinated and degraded, thus releasing auxin transcription factors from their repression making them free to mediate transcription of auxin response genes (Yu et al., 2022). Nonetheless, accumulating evidence suggests existence of rapid, non-transcriptional responses downstream of TIR1/AFBs such as auxin-induced cytosolic calcium (Ca2+) transients, plasma membrane depolarization and apoplast alkalinisation, all converging on the process of root growth inhibition and root gravitropism (Li et al., 2022). Particularly, these rapid responses are mostly contributed by predominantly cytosolic AFB1, while the long-term growth responses are mediated by mainly nuclear TIR1 and AFB2-AFB5 (Li et al., 2021; Prigge et al., 2020; Serre et al., 2021). How AFB1 conducts auxin-triggered rapid responses and how it is different from TIR1 and AFB2-AFB5 remains elusive. Here, we compare the roles of TIR1 and AFB1 in transcriptional and rapid responses by modulating their subcellular localization in Arabidopsis and by testing their ability to mediate transcriptional responses when part of the minimal auxin circuit reconstituted in yeast

Interest Point Detection for Multispectral Remote Sensing Image Using Phase Congruency in Illumination Space

A robust interest point detection algorithm based on illumination space and phase congruency is proposed in this paper. Firstly, image illumination space is constructed by using a parameters adaptive method. Secondly, a phase congruency based interest point detection algorithm is adopted to compute candidate points in illumination space. Then, all interest point candidates are mapped back to the original image and a non-maximum suppression step is added to find final interest points. Finally, the feature scale values of all interest points are calculated based on the Laplacian function. The proposed algorithm combines the advantages of illumination space and phase congruency, which makes the proposed method robust to the radiation variation of multispectral images. The experimental results show that the proposed method performs better than other traditional methods in feature repeatability rate and repeated features number

Feature Matching for SAR and Optical Images Based on Gaussian-Gamma-shaped Edge Strength Map

A matching method for SAR and optical images, robust to pixel noise and nonlinear grayscale differences, is presented. Firstly, a rough correction to eliminate rotation and scale change between images is performed. Secondly, features robust to speckle noise of SAR image are detected by improving the original phase congruency based method. Then, feature descriptors are constructed on the Gaussian-Gamma-shaped edge strength map according to the histogram of oriented gradient pattern. Finally, descriptor similarity and geometrical relationship are combined to constrain the matching processing.The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method provides significant improvement in correct matches number and image registration accuracy compared with other traditional methods

The influence of social network on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among healthcare workers: a cross-sectional survey in Chongqing, China

The factors that lead to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine hesitancy among health-care workers (HCWs) are unclear. We aimed to identify the factors that influence HCWs’ hesitancy, especially the influence of their social network. Using an online platform, we surveyed HCWs in Chongqing, China, in January 2021 to understand the factors that influence the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among HCWs. Proportional allocation stratified sampling method was used to recruit respondents. Multivariable logistic regression and social network analysis (SNA) were used to analyze the influence factors. A total of 5247 HCWs were included and 23.3% of them were vaccine-hesitant. Participants were more hesitant if they had chronic diseases (OR = 1.411, 95% CI: 1.146–1.738), worked in tertiary hospitals (OR = 1.546, 95% CI: 1.231–1.942), and reported a history of vaccine hesitancy (OR = 1.637, 95% CI: 1.395–1.920) and refusal toward other vaccines (OR = 2.433, 95% CI: 2.067–2.863). The participants with a social network to communicate COVID-19 immunization were less hesitant (OR = 0.850, 95% CI: 0.728–0.993). Several influential members with social networks were found in SNA. Most of these influential members in the networks were department leaders who were willing to get COVID-19 vaccines (P < .05). Hesitant subgroups among Chinese HCWs were linked to the lack of a social network to communicate COVID-19 immunization. Our findings may lead to tailored interventions to enhance COVID-19 vaccine uptake among HCWs by targeting key members in social network

Secondary Cracking and Upgrading of Shale Oil from Pyrolyzing Oil Shale over Shale Ash

Considering oil shale pyrolysis with a solid heat carrier, this article investigated the effect of shale ash, as the bed material for secondary reactions of pyrolysis volatile, on final product distribution and quality of oil shale pyrolysis in a laboratory dual-stage fixed bed reactor. The examined factors included the residence time of pyrolysis volatile in a shale ash bed and the temperature of shale ash (i.e., cracking temperature). Prolonging the pyrolysis volatile residence time in the shale ash bed from 0 to 10 s decreased the shale oil yield by 31.0% but increased the fraction of gasoline and diesel (boiling point 773 K) was cracked to increase the yields of light oil and pyrolysis gas (especially H-2 and CH4). The shale ash bed temperature was the key factor affecting the product distribution. The catalytic effect of shale ash lowered the shale oil cracking temperature for achieving the same degree of oil cracking. The catalytic activity of shale ash for cracking shale oil was shown to be closely dependent on the metal oxides in the ash. While CaO and Na2O tended to inhibit the formation of coke and to promote catalytic reforming, Fe2O3 showed good activity in cracking shale oil and forming coke

Effect of Pulping Waste Liquid on the Physicochemical Properties and the Prediction Model of Wheat Straw Residue Granular Fuels

Herein, wheat straw residue and pulping waste liquid were collected from pulping mill and mixed to prepare bio-based granular fuels by using compression molding technology, and to explore the comprehensive utilization of the industrial waste of pulping and papermaking. The effects of pulping waste liquid on granular fuel properties were analyzed systemically. Further study of the function of pulping waste liquid, cellulose and hemicellulose was used to replace wheat straw residue and avoid the interference factors. Therefore, the prediction models of granular fuels were established with influencing factors that included cellulose, hemicellulose and pulping waste liquid. The granular fuels had the best performance with 18.30% solid content of pulping waste liquid. The highest transverse compressive strength of granular fuel was 102.61 MPa, and the activation energy was 81.71 KJ·mol−1. A series of curve fitting prediction models were established to clarify the forming process of granular fuel, and it turned out that the pulping waste liquid could improve the adhesion between solid particles and increase their compression resistance

Facile Synthesis of 3D Amino-Functional Graphene-Sponge Composites Decorated by Graphene Nanodots with Enhanced Removal of Indoor Formaldehyde

Amino-functional graphene-sponge composites decorated by graphene nanodots (G-GND/S) were synthesized. The preparation technology contributes to prevent the loss of nano-materials and reduce the adding amount of graphene. G-GND/S was used as adsorbents to remove formaldehyde, and then their performances for formaldehyde adsorption were evaluated by dynamic adsorption experiment. The adsorption properties of three different materials: sponge, graphene-sponge, and G-GND/S, the breakthrough time and adsorption capacity had been compared, the results showed G-GND/S had better formaldehyde adsorption properties with longer breakthrough time (~2137 min/g) and adsorption ability of formaldehyde (22.8 mg/g). Large amounts of amine groups were the most important factor for the strength enhancement of the adsorption efficiency