Vulnerability assessment of landslide hazards based on hazard intensity at slope level: A case study in Xiangxiang County of Hunan

Taking a slope as a unit, the regional vulnerability assessment based on potential disaster intensity is one of the important problems to be solved urgently. In this paper, the city of Xiangxiang in Hunan is selected as the research area. On the basis of susceptibility regionalization with the weighted information value method, the elevation, slope height, slope, slope direction and monthly average rainfall of the highest prone points of slope units are extract one by one as the characteristic parameters, which are put into the BP neural network, PSO-BP neural network, random forest and support vector machine model, respectively. A landslide volume prediction model based on BP neural network algorithm optimized by PSO is constructed through training and precision test comparison. A comprehensive vulnerability evaluation model is established with disaster volume as disaster intensity index and building density, population density and property density as vulnerability indexes. Regional vulnerability evaluation based on potential disaster intensity is carried out for the study area. The divisions of high-vulnerable areas (1.5% of the total area), medium-vulnerable areas (28.5% of the total area) and low-vulnerable areas (70% of the total area) are completed, which realize the organic combination of the disaster intensity of the disaster-causing body and the vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body in the process of regional vulnerability evaluation, and enhance the objectivity and scientific nature of the evaluation

Classification optimization of geological hazard susceptibility evaluation factors based on AIFFC algorithm

This paper addresses the issue of uncertainty in the grading of geological hazard susceptibility evaluation factors and introduces the adaptive expansion factor fuzzy coverage grading method (AIFFC) to optimize the grading of geological hazard susceptibility evaluation factors. Taking Xiangxiang City, Hunan Province as the research area, nine evaluation factors, including slope, slope direction, elevation and average annual rainfall, normalized difference vegetation index for land use, roads, faults, lithology, were extracted. The AIFFC method and the natural breakpoint method were used to grade continuous factors. These graded factors were then incorporated into a weighted information model and random forest model to obtain a susceptibility zoning map for the study area. The superiority of the AIFFC classification method was tested through the comparison of single-factor grading results, disaster product ratio analysis,and ROC curve comparison of susceptibility zoning results. Based on AIFFC, the hazard accumulation ratio of the random forest model and the weighted information entropy model in the high susceptibility areas increased by 56.3% and 74.6%, respectively, while in the low susceptibility areas, it decreased by 48% and 58.1%, respectively. The AUC values increased by 7.6% and 2.7%, respectively. The AIFFC classification method is used to optimize the evaluation factor classification of geological disaster susceptibility, which significantly improves the rationality of the evaluation of geological disaster susceptibility

PARP9 affects myocardial function through TGF-β/Smad axis and pirfenidone

Cardiac arrhythmias are often linked to the overactivity of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs). Investigating the impact of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase 9 (PARP9) on Angiotensin II (Ang II)-induced fibroblast activation and the therapeutic effects of pirfenidone (PFD) offers valuable insights into cardiac arrhythmias. This study utilized weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), differential gene expression (DEG) analysis, protein-protein interaction (PPI), and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis on the GSE42955 dataset to identify the hub gene with significant diagnostic value. The ImmuCellAI tool revealed an association between PARP9 and immune cell infiltration. Our in vitro assessments focused on the influence of PFD on myofibroblast differentiation, TGF-β expression, and Ang II-induced proliferation and migration in CFs. Additionally, we explored the impact on fibrosis markers and the TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway in the context of PARP9 overexpression. Analysis of the GSE42955 dataset revealed PARP9 as a central gene with high clinical diagnostic value, linked to seven types of immune cells. The in vitro studies demonstrated that PFD significantly mitigates Ang II-induced CF proliferation, migration, and fibrosis. It also reduces Ang II-induced PARP9 expression and decreases fibrosis markers, including TGF-β, collagen I, collagen III, and α-SMA. Notably, PARP9 overexpression can partially counteract PFD's inhibitory effects on CFs and modify the expression of fibronectin, CTGF, α-SMA, collagen I, collagen III, MMP2, MMP9, TGF-β, and p-Smad2/3 in the TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway. In summary, our findings suggestes that PFD effectively counteracts the adverse effects of Ang II-induced CF proliferation and fibrosis, and modulates the TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway and PARP9 expression. This identifies a potential therapeutic approach for managing myocardial fibrosis

Microarray-Based Approach Identifies Differentially Expressed MicroRNAs in Porcine Sexually Immature and Mature Testes

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNA molecules which are proved to be involved in mammalian spermatogenesis. Their expression and function in the porcine germ cells are not fully understood.We employed a miRNA microarray containing 1260 unique miRNA probes to evaluate the miRNA expression patterns between sexually immature (60-day) and mature (180-day) pig testes. One hundred and twenty nine miRNAs representing 164 reporter miRNAs were expressed differently (p<0.1). Fifty one miRNAs were significantly up-regulated and 78 miRNAs were down-regulated in mature testes. Nine of these differentially expressed miRNAs were validated using quantitative RT-PCR assay. Totally 15,919 putative miRNA-target sites were detected by using RNA22 method to align 445 NCBI pig cDNA sequences with these 129 differentially expressed miRNAs, and seven putative target genes involved in spermatogenesis including DAZL, RNF4 gene were simply confirmed by quantitative RT-PCR.Overall, the results of this study indicated specific miRNAs expression in porcine testes and suggested that miRNAs had a role in regulating spermatogenesis

Analysis of the Influence of Different Fracture Network Structures on the Production of Shale Gas Reservoirs

Volume fracturing is a key technology in developing unconventional gas reservoirs that contain nano/micron pores. Different fracture structures exert significantly different effects on shale gas production, and a fracture structure can be learned only in a later part of detection. On the basis of a multiscale gas seepage model considering diffusion, slippage, and desorption effects, a three-dimensional finite element algorithm is developed. Two finite element models for different fracture structures for a shale gas reservoir in the Sichuan Basin are established and studied under the condition of equal fracture volumes. One is a tree-like fracture, and the other is a lattice-like fracture. Their effects on the production of a fracture network structure are studied. Numerical results show that under the same condition of equal volumes, the production of the tree-like fracture is higher than that of the lattice-like fracture in the early development period because the angle between fracture branches and the flow direction plays an important role in the seepage of shale gas. In the middle and later periods, owing to a low flow rate, the production of the two structures is nearly similar. Finally, the lattice-like fracture model is regarded as an example to analyze the factors of shale properties that influence shale gas production. The analysis shows that gas production increases along with the diffusion coefficient and matrix permeability. The increase in permeability leads to a larger increase in production, but the decrease in permeability leads to a smaller decrease in production, indicating that the contribution of shale gas production is mainly fracture. The findings of this study can help better understand the influence of different shapes of fractures on the production in a shale gas reservoir.Peer Reviewe

Comprehensive analysis of gravity and magnetic anomalies in Jinniu volcanic basin for prediction of ore deposits

The middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River is an important iron, copper, gold and other polymetallic metallogenic belt in China. The southern part of the Yangtze River is the southeast Hubei ore concentration area. As an important source of iron and copper deposits in China, several iron-rich copper deposits are concentrated in this area. The Jinniu volcanic basin is located in the southeastern Hubei ore concentration area. The basin has the ore potential of iron, copper, gold and other polymetallic deposits with the similar metallogenic conditions of other mining areas in this metallogenic belt. However, the basin has a thick overlying strata of magnetic rock and sedimentary rock, which increases the difficulty of ore prospecting. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the application of technologies for improving the effect of ore prediction. In the adjacent ore concentration areas, the prospecting work mainly focuses on gravity and magnetic data and combined with other geophysical data for comprehensive analysis, which lays a good foundation for the study of structural characteristics and the guidance of prospecting prediction. These previous works has proved that by comprehensive analysis and interpretation of high-precision gravity and magnetic data combined with other geophysical data, the tectonic framework characteristics, buried rocks and physical property distribution of the study area can be extracted, so as to infer the tectonic characteristics of the basin and its basement and put forward prospecting prediction. For the lack of systematic research and demand for prospecting in Jinniu volcanic basin, based on measured and collected geological and geophysical data, comprehensive analysis and interpretation of gravity and magnetic data combined with MT data were carried out. The techniques of linear signal extraction, multi-scale analysis, inversion and resistivity imaging, etc., were utilized to estimate the depth of the basin basement, delineate volcanic mechanism and buried rocks, and speculate fractures, basin boundary, and some areas of prospecting prospect. The such research has the guidance or reference significance for the basic geological survey and deep ore prediction in this area

DAG/PKCδ and IP3/Ca2+/CaMK IIβ Operate in Parallel to Each Other in PLCγ1-Driven Cell Proliferation and Migration of Human Gastric Adenocarcinoma Cells, through Akt/mTOR/S6 Pathway

Phosphoinositide specific phospholipase Cγ (PLCγ) activates diacylglycerol (DAG)/protein kinase C (PKC) and inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3)/Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMK II) axes to regulate import events in some cancer cells, including gastric adenocarcinoma cells. However, whether DAG/PKCδ and IP3/Ca2+/CaMK IIβ axes are simultaneously involved in PLCγ1-driven cell proliferation and migration of human gastric adenocarcinoma cells and the underlying mechanism are not elucidated. Here, we investigated the role of DAG/PKCδ or CaMK IIβ in PLCγ1-driven cell proliferation and migration of human gastric adenocarcinoma cells, using the BGC-823 cell line. The results indicated that the inhibition of PKCδ and CaMK IIβ could block cell proliferation and migration of BGC-823 cells as well as the effect of inhibiting PLCγ1, including the decrease of cell viability, the increase of apoptotic index, the down-regulation of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 9 expression level, and the decrease of cell migration rate. Both DAG/PKCδ and CaMK IIβ triggered protein kinase B (Akt)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR)/S6 pathway to regulate protein synthesis. The data indicate that DAG/PKCδ and IP3/Ca2+/CaMK IIβ operate in parallel to each other in PLCγ1-driven cell proliferation and migration of human gastric adenocarcinoma cells through Akt/mTOR/S6 pathway, with important implication for validating PLCγ1 as a molecular biomarker in early gastric cancer diagnosis and disease surveillance

Genomic and Transcriptomic Analysis Reveal Multiple Strategies for the Cadmium Tolerance in <i>Vibrio parahaemolyticus</i> N10-18 Isolated from Aquatic Animal <i>Ostrea gigas Thunberg</i>

The waterborne Vibrio parahaemolyticus can cause acute gastroenteritis, wound infection, and septicemia in humans. Pollution of heavy metals in aquatic environments is proposed to link high incidence of the multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogen. Nevertheless, the genome evolution and heavy metal tolerance mechanism of V. parahaemolyticus in aquatic animals remain to be largely unveiled. Here, we overcome the limitation by characterizing an MDR V. parahaemolyticus N10-18 isolate with high cadmium (Cd) tolerance using genomic and transcriptomic techniques. The draft genome sequence (4,910,080 bp) of V. parahaemolyticus N10-18 recovered from Ostrea gigas Thunberg was determined, and 722 of 4653 predicted genes had unknown function. Comparative genomic analysis revealed mobile genetic elements (n = 11) and heavy metal and antibiotic-resistance genes (n = 38 and 7). The bacterium significantly changed cell membrane structure to resist the Cd2+ (50 μg/mL) stress (p p V. parahaemolyticus