Large manipulative experiments revealed variations of insect abundance and trophic levels in response to the cumulative effects of sheep grazing

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, 31672485, the Earmarked Fund for China Agriculture Research System, CARS-34-07, and the Innovation Project of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.Livestock grazing can affect insects by altering habitat quality; however, the effects of grazing years and intensities on insect abundance and trophic level during manipulative sheep grazing are not well understood. Therefore, we investigated these effects in a large manipulative experiment from 2014 to 2016 in the eastern Eurasian steppe, China. Insect abundance decreased as sheep grazing intensities increased, with a significant cumulative effect occurring during grazing years. The largest families, Acrididae and Cicadellidae, were susceptible to sheep grazing, but Formicidae was tolerant. Trophic primary and secondary consumer insects were negatively impacted by increased grazing intensities, while secondary consumers were limited by the decreased primary consumers. Poor vegetation conditions caused by heavy sheep grazing were detrimental to the existence of Acrididae, Cicadellidae, primary and secondary consumer insects, but were beneficial to Formicidae. This study revealed variations in insect abundance and trophic level in response to continuous sheep grazing in steppe grasslands. Overall, our results indicate that continuous years of heavy- and over- sheep grazing should be eliminated. Moreover, our findings highlight the importance of more flexible sheep grazing management and will be useful for developing guidelines to optimize livestock production while maintaining species diversity and ecosystem health.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

The treatment effect of posterior lumbar fusion surgery on patients suffering from lumbar disc herniation concurrent with peroneal nerve paralysis

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical effect of posterior lumbar fusion surgery on patients who suffer from lumbar disc herniation concurrent with peroneal nerve paralysis.MethodsThe patients suffering from peroneal nerve paralysis and undergoing posterior lumbar fusion surgery between January 2012 and December 2019 were retrospectively reviewed. The data of the identified patients were then collected and processed. All patients were followed up post-operatively after discharge from the hospital. The data was analyzed in terms of Oswestry disability index (ODI), visual analogue scale (VAS) score, and relative lower-limb muscle strength.ResultsA total of 87 patients (52 males and 35 females) aged 54 ± 11 years met the inclusion criteria for this study. These patients stayed in hospital for 16 ± 6 days and were followed up for 81 ± 24 months. Data analysis showed that muscle strength of the tibialis anterior and extensor digitorum significantly recovered at the last follow-up with a grade of 3 (median), compared to grade 0 at admission (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the median VAS score decreased to 1 at the last follow-up from 6 at admission (p < 0.001), and the ODI greatly improved with 10% (median) at the last follow-up, while it was 58% at admission (p < 0.001). The ODI improvement rate was 60% on average at the last follow-up. Multivariate regression analysis regarding the ODI and muscle strength improvement rates showed that advanced age was a risk factor for postoperative recovery.ConclusionsMost of the patients suffering from lumbar disc herniation concurrent with peroneal nerve paralysis can improve after undergoing posterior lumbar fusion surgery, but few can reach full recovery. Advanced age might be a risk factor that affects the prognosis of these patients after surgery

Lipid profiles in the cerebrospinal fluid of rats with 6-hydroxydopamine-induced lesions as a model of Parkinson’s disease

BackgroundParkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with characteristic pathological abnormalities, including the loss of dopaminergic (DA) neurons, a dopamine-depleted striatum, and microglial activation. Lipid accumulation exhibits a close relationship with these pathologies in PD.MethodsHere, 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) was used to construct a rat model of PD, and the lipid profile in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) obtained from model rats was analyzed using lipidomic approaches.ResultsEstablishment of this PD model was confirmed by apomorphine-induced rotation behaviors, loss of DA neurons, depletion of dopamine in the striatum, and microglial activation after 6-OHDA-induced lesion generation. Unsupervised and supervised methods were employed for lipid analysis. A total of 172 lipid species were identified in CSF and subsequently classified into 18 lipid families. Lipid families, including eicosanoids, triglyceride (TG), cholesterol ester (CE), and free fatty acid (FFA), and 11 lipid species exhibited significantly altered profiles 2 weeks after 6-OHDA administration, and significant changes in eicosanoids, TG, CE, CAR, and three lipid species were noted 5 weeks after 6-OHDA administration. During the period of 6-OHDA-induced lesion formation, the lipid families and species showed concentration fluctuations related to the recovery of behavior and nigrostriatal abnormalities. Correlation analysis showed that the levels of eicosanoids, CE, TG families, and TG (16:0_20:0_18:1) exhibited positive relationships with apomorphine-induced rotation behaviors and negative relationships with tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression in the midbrain.ConclusionThese results revealed that non-progressive nigrostriatal degeneration induced by 6-OHDA promotes the expression of an impairment-related lipidomic signature in CSF, and the level of eicosanoids, CE, TG families, and TG (16:0_20:0_18:1) in CSF may reveal pathological changes in the midbrain after 6-OHDA insult

Integrative Analysis of Many Weighted Co-Expression Networks Using Tensor Computation

The rapid accumulation of biological networks poses new challenges and calls for powerful integrative analysis tools. Most existing methods capable of simultaneously analyzing a large number of networks were primarily designed for unweighted networks, and cannot easily be extended to weighted networks. However, it is known that transforming weighted into unweighted networks by dichotomizing the edges of weighted networks with a threshold generally leads to information loss. We have developed a novel, tensor-based computational framework for mining recurrent heavy subgraphs in a large set of massive weighted networks. Specifically, we formulate the recurrent heavy subgraph identification problem as a heavy 3D subtensor discovery problem with sparse constraints. We describe an effective approach to solving this problem by designing a multi-stage, convex relaxation protocol, and a non-uniform edge sampling technique. We applied our method to 130 co-expression networks, and identified 11,394 recurrent heavy subgraphs, grouped into 2,810 families. We demonstrated that the identified subgraphs represent meaningful biological modules by validating against a large set of compiled biological knowledge bases. We also showed that the likelihood for a heavy subgraph to be meaningful increases significantly with its recurrence in multiple networks, highlighting the importance of the integrative approach to biological network analysis. Moreover, our approach based on weighted graphs detects many patterns that would be overlooked using unweighted graphs. In addition, we identified a large number of modules that occur predominately under specific phenotypes. This analysis resulted in a genome-wide mapping of gene network modules onto the phenome. Finally, by comparing module activities across many datasets, we discovered high-order dynamic cooperativeness in protein complex networks and transcriptional regulatory networks

Novel power electronic multilevel converters

The classic NNPC converter has the problem of large voltage fluctuation across the flying capacitor. To deal with this problem, this paper proposes an improved ANNPC 5-level converter. A finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) approach for the proposed new converter system is designed to achieve accurate tracking of the output current and voltage balance across the flying capacitors. The proposed new ANNPC converter has the advantages of small flying capacitor voltage ripple and less optimization targets, which can be widely used in photovoltaic power generation systems. Finally, experimental results in multiple cases verify the effectiveness of the proposed novel converter.Master of Science (Power Engineering

Unilateral versus bilateral pedicle screw fixation in lumbar fusion: A systematic review of overlapping meta-analyses.

ObjectivesTo carry out a systematic review on the basis of overlapping meta-analyses that compare unilateral with bilateral pedicle screw fixation (PSF) in lumbar fusion to identify which study represents the current best evidence, and to provide recommendations of treatment on this topic.MethodsA comprehensive literature search in PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases was conducted to identify meta-analyses that compare unilateral with bilateral PSF in lumbar fusion. Only meta-analyses exclusively covering randomized controlled trials were included. Study quality was evaluated using the Oxford Levels of Evidence and Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) instrument. Then, the Jadad decision algorithm was applied to select the highest-quality study to represent the current best evidence.ResultsA total of 9 studies with Level II of evidence fulfilled the eligibility criteria and were included. The scores of AMSTAR criteria for them varied from 5 to 9 (mean 7.78). The current best evidence detected no significant differences between unilateral and bilateral PSF for short-segment lumbar fusion in the functional scores, length of hospital stay, fusion rate, and complication rate. However, unilateral PSF involved a remarkable decrease in operative time and blood loss but increase of cage migration when compared with bilateral PSF.ConclusionsAccording to this systematic review, unilateral PSF is an effective method of fixation for short-segment lumbar fusion, has the advantages of reduced operative time and blood loss over bilateral PSF, but increases the risk of cage migration

An Adaptive Non-Uniform Vertical Stratification Method for Troposphere Water Vapor Tomography

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) water vapor tomography provides a four-dimensional (4-D) distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere for weather monitoring. It has developed into a widely used technique in numerical weather prediction (NWP). Vertical stratification is essential in discretizing the tomographic region. Traditional discretization methods divide the tomographic area into regular voxels with an equal height interval, which ignores the dynamic exponential distribution of water vapor. In recent years, non-uniform stratification methods have been widely validated by tomographic experiments. However, such experiments have not proposed a specific calculation method for stratification thickness. Therefore, in this paper, we introduced an adaptive non-uniform stratification method that follows the exponential distribution of water vapor in the tomographic region and presented the process of iterative calculation to acquire the optimal stratification interval. The proposed approach was applied based on the exponential decreasing trend in water vapor with increasing altitude. Moreover, it could adaptively calculate the interval of stratification height according to water vapor content. The tomographic experiments were performed using Global Positioning System (GPS) data from 19 ground-based stations in the Hong Kong Satellite Positioning Reference Station Network (SatRef) from 1 to 31 August 2019. The results indicated that, compared to the traditional stratification method, the root mean square error derived from the proposed approach was reduced by 0.26 g/m3. Additionally, severe weather can negatively affect the accuracy of the tomographic results. The results also showed that the accuracy of the tomographic results was reduced with increasing altitude. Moreover, the performance of the tomographic water vapor fields below 3000 m was improved by the proposed approach

Effects of Reserve Capacity on Seismic Response of Concentrically Braced Frames by Considering Brace Failure

In order to study the influence of brace failure on the seismic response of concentrically braced frames and the improvement of the residual structure’s resistance to collapse due to reserve capacity, a series of concentrically braced frame prototypes with different story numbers is designed. A matrix of six finite-element concentrically braced-frame (CBF) models is established, which is varied by the number of stories and the level of reserve capacities. Accuracy of the numerical model is verified by comparing the responses of the shaking-table test of the concentrically braced frames, under 10 different working conditions. Then, a nonlinear time-history analysis, considering brace failure in one specified story, is carried out. The results show that the story-drift angle of the failure story as well as its adjacent stories increases greatly in the ideal pinned model. The above phenomenon is particularly serious, when the failure occurs at the top or bottom of the structure. With the reserve capacity brought by column continuity, and the semi-rigid rotation capacity of the beam-to-column and column-to-base connections are taken into consideration, the increase in story-drift angle caused by the brace failure is effectively reduced. However, the inherent reserve capacity has little influence on the dynamic characteristics of concentrically braced frames in the elastic stage