Cautious explorers generate more future academic impact

Some scientists are more likely to explore unfamiliar research topics while others tend to exploit existing ones. In previous work, correlations have been found between scientists' topic choices and their career performances. However, literature has yet to untangle the intricate interplay between scientific impact and research topic choices, where scientific exploration and exploitation intertwine. Here we study two metrics that gauge how frequently scientists switch topic areas and how large those jumps are, and discover that 'cautious explorers' who switch topics frequently but do so to 'close' domains have notably better future performance and can be identified at a remarkably early career stage. Cautious explorers who balance exploration and exploitation in their first four career years have up to 19% more citations per future paper. Our results suggest that the proposed metrics depict the scholarly traits of scientists throughout their careers and provide fresh insight, especially for nurturing junior scientists.Comment: 16 pages of main text and 94 pages of supplementary informatio

TGFBI promoter hypermethylation correlating with paclitaxel chemoresistance in ovarian cancer

The purpose of this study is to determine the methylation status of Transforming growth factor-beta-inducible gene-h3 (TGFBI) and its correlation with paclitaxel chemoresistance in ovarian cancer. The methylation status of TGFBI was examined in ovarian cancer and control groups by methylation-specific PCR (MSP) and bisulfite sequencing PCR (BSP). The TGFBI expression and cell viability were compared by Quantitative Real-Time PCR, Western Blotting and MTT assay before and after demethylating agent 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine (5-aza-dc) treatment in 6 cell lines (SKOV3, SKOV3/TR, SKOV3/DDP, A2780, 2780/TR, OVCAR8). In our results, TGFBI methylation was detected in 29/40 (72.5%) of ovarian cancer and 1/10 (10%) of benign ovarian tumors. No methylation was detected in normal ovarian tissues (P < 0.001). No statistical correlation between RUNX3 methylation and clinicopathological characteristics was observed. A significant correlation between TGFBI methylation and loss of TGFBI mRNA expression was found (P < 0.001). The methylation level of TGFBI was significantly higher in paclitaxel resistant cell lines (SKOV3/TR and 2780/TR) than that in the sensitive pairs (P < 0.001). After 5-aza-dc treatment, the relative expression of TGFBI mRNA and protein increased significantly in SKOV3/TR and A2780/TR cells. However, no statistical differences of relative TGFBI mRNA expression and protein were found in other cells (all P > 0.05), which showed that re-expression of TGFBI could reverse paclitaxel chemoresistance. Our results show that TGFBI is frequently methylated and associated with paclitaxel-resistance in ovarian cancer. TGFBI might be a potential therapeutic target for the enhancement of responses to chemotherapy in ovarian cancer patients

Fungi and cercozoa regulate methane-associated prokaryotes in wetland methane emissions

Wetlands are natural sources of methane (CH4) emissions, providing the largest contribution to the atmospheric CH4 pool. Changes in the ecohydrological environment of coastal salt marshes, especially the surface inundation level, cause instability in the CH4 emission levels of coastal ecosystems. Although soil methane-associated microorganisms play key roles in both CH4 generation and metabolism, how other microorganisms regulate methane emission and their responses to inundation has not been investigated. Here, we studied the responses of prokaryotic, fungal and cercozoan communities following 5 years of inundation treatments in a wetland experimental site, and molecular ecological networks analysis (MENs) was constructed to characterize the interdomain relationship. The result showed that the degree of inundation significantly altered the CH4 emissions, and the abundance of the pmoA gene for methanotrophs shifted more significantly than the mcrA gene for methanogens, and they both showed significant positive correlations to methane flux. Additionally, we found inundation significantly altered the diversity of the prokaryotic and fungal communities, as well as the composition of key species in interactions within prokaryotic, fungal, and cercozoan communities. Mantel tests indicated that the structure of the three communities showed significant correlations to methane emissions (p &lt; 0.05), suggesting that all three microbial communities directly or indirectly contributed to the methane emissions of this ecosystem. Correspondingly, the interdomain networks among microbial communities revealed that methane-associated prokaryotic and cercozoan OTUs were all keystone taxa. Methane-associated OTUs were more likely to interact in pairs and correlated negatively with the fungal and cercozoan communities. In addition, the modules significantly positively correlated with methane flux were affected by environmental stress (i.e., pH) and soil nutrients (i.e., total nitrogen, total phosphorus and organic matter), suggesting that these factors tend to positively regulate methane flux by regulating microbial relationships under inundation. Our findings demonstrated that the inundation altered microbial communities in coastal wetlands, and the fungal and cercozoan communities played vital roles in regulating methane emission through microbial interactions with the methane-associated community

Efficacy and safety of immunotherapy combined with single-agent chemotherapy as second- or later-line therapy for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer

ObjectiveThis study sought to assess the efficacy and safety of immunotherapy combined with single-agent chemotherapy as a second- or later-line setting for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and to provide clinical evidence for this treatment regimen. The predictive value of extracellular vesicle (EV) membrane proteins was explored in patients who underwent this treatment.MethodsClinical data from patients diagnosed with metastatic NSCLC who received immunotherapy plus single-agent chemotherapy as a second- or later-line setting were retrospectively collected between March 2019 and January 2022. A total of 30 patients met the inclusion criteria, and all were pathologically confirmed to have NSCLC. Short-term efficacy, progression-free survival (PFS), EV markers for response prediction, and adverse events were assessed.ResultsEfficacy data were available for all 30 patients and included a partial response in 5 patients, stable disease in 18 patients, and disease progression in 7 patients. The objective response rate was 16.7%, the disease control rate was 76.7%, and the median PFS was 3.2 months. Univariate analysis showed that PFS was not associated with sex, age, smoking status, treatment lines, prior use of immunotherapy, or prior use of antiangiogenic drugs. The EV membrane proteins MET proto-oncogene, receptor tyrosine kinase (c-MET), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) at baseline were associated with poor prognosis and correlated with the efficacy of immunotherapy plus chemotherapy. According to the receiver operating characteristics and Kaplan–Meier curve analyses, patients with high c-MET, EGFR, and VEGFR2 expression at baseline had significantly shorter PFS than those with low expression. In addition, VEGFR2 expression was increased after combined immunotherapy in responders, which was decreased in non-responders. The most common grade 2 or higher adverse events were neutropenia, gastrointestinal reactions, and thyroid dysfunction, all of which were tolerated.ConclusionsImmunotherapy plus single-agent chemotherapy as a second- or later-line treatment is safe, effective, and tolerable for metastatic NSCLC. EV markers can be used as predictive markers of efficacy in patients with metastatic NSCLC treated with immunotherapy plus chemotherapy to help monitor treatment efficacy and guide treatment decisions

College students’ happiness personality attitude and correlation analysis of physical exercise

An empirical analysis in this paper, the frequency of exercise, exercise intensity and exercise time according to the option of the survey, analyze the motivation of college students based on exercise sample T test results, are analyzed based on different genders, different students, different personality attitude subject categories and whether belong to one child policy differences T test results, the analysis was based on different gender, different students and whether happiness belong to one child policy differences T test results, are analyzed based on different exercise intensity, exercise time and different frequency of subjective well-being and personality attitude the correlation of test results

Cultural-Based Genetic Tabu Algorithm for Multiobjective Job Shop Scheduling

The job shop scheduling problem, which has been dealt with by various traditional optimization methods over the decades, has proved to be an NP-hard problem and difficult in solving, especially in the multiobjective field. In this paper, we have proposed a novel quadspace cultural genetic tabu algorithm (QSCGTA) to solve such problem. This algorithm provides a different structure from the original cultural algorithm in containing double brief spaces and population spaces. These spaces deal with different levels of populations globally and locally by applying genetic and tabu searches separately and exchange information regularly to make the process more effective towards promising areas, along with modified multiobjective domination and transform functions. Moreover, we have presented a bidirectional shifting for the decoding process of job shop scheduling. The computational results we presented significantly prove the effectiveness and efficiency of the cultural-based genetic tabu algorithm for the multiobjective job shop scheduling problem

Optimization of Multi-zone Cooling System of Complex Pipe Network Based on Particle Swarm and Genetic Algorithm

The cooling pipe network system of the power plant has the characteristics of multiple users, multiple working conditions, and complex topological structure. The division of water supply to the pipe network can simplify the topological structure of the pipe network, facilitate flow regulation, and adapt to the requirements of multiple working conditions. District water supply can be divided into districts according to flow, pressure and structure. The user allocation of pipe network water supply system is a typical combined optimization problem. When the system is relatively complex and the number of users is huge, conventional enumeration methods, dynamic programming and other methods are often unable to solve such problems. The combined algorithm of particle swarm algorithm and genetic algorithm can obtain approximate solutions to such problems. By using a combination of particle swarm algorithm and genetic algorithm to analyze and determine the distribution of pipe network user traffic, it is possible to avoid the waste of energy in the distribution of pipe network users based on experience. The combined algorithm proposed in this paper has high stability, can change the number of partitions to adjust user allocation according to actual needs, and has strong versatility. For the case described in this article, when the number of partitions is 2, compared to the cases where the number of partitions is 3 and 4, the flow rate and pressure drop of each partition are not much different, which can better meet the reliability and maintainability requirement

An Improved Multi-Swarm Migrating Birds Optimization Algorithm for Hybrid Flow Shop Scheduling

An improved multi-swarm migrating birds optimization (IMMBO) algorithm is proposed for hybrid flow shop scheduling with sequence-dependent setup times (HFS-SDST), to minimize the total maximum completion time (i.e., makespan). Permutation-based encoding is adopted to substitute the individual. The modified Nawaz-Enscore-Ham (MNEH) algorithm is employed to generate initial population which are assigned to each sub-swarm according to the makespan. For each sub-swarm, the neighborhood individuals of the leader and followers are generated respectively by performing serial and parallel neighborhood strategies. If the follower is better than the leader according to their makespan, they are exchanged to ensure the information interaction of individuals within the sub-swarm. Moreover, the discrete whale optimization strategy is embedded in IMMBO to optimize the leaders of all sub-swarms to enhance the interaction among them. Furthermore, the local search is designed for the optimal individual to further improve the local search ability of the algorithm. Meanwhile, to avoid algorithm premature convergence, the control strategy for population diversification is designed to the leader of each sub-swarm. Finally, based on adjusting the algorithm parameters experimentally, simulation experiments are conducted on four variants of IMMBO to verify the function of each part by testing an adaptation dataset of Ta. Moreover, the IMMBO is compared with three existing algorithms by testing an adaptation dataset of Ta, and the experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the IMMBO algorithm to solve the hybrid flow shop scheduling problem

Impact of perioperative red blood cell transfusion on the prognosis of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer

Background: Surgery for advanced ovarian cancer tends to be extensive. We performed an analysis to determine whether perioperative red blood cell transfusion (PRBCT) is associated with a poor prognosis in women with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Methods: Our retrospective analysis included 314 women. The Mann-Whitney rank-sum test and chi-square test were used to analyze the clinical characteristics of the PRBCT and non-PRBCT groups, and Cox proportional hazard models were used for the multivariate analysis. Results: PRBCT was associated with higher relapse and mortality rates in 121 (38.54 %) patients. After multivariate analysis, transfused patients were 1.59 times at risk of death (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.59; 95%CI, 1.12–2.25) and 1.63 times at risk of recurrence (HR = 1.63; 95%CI, 1.22–2.18) than non-transfused patients. Conclusions: PRBCT could prolong hospital stay, and increased hospital costs were significantly associated with increased cancer recurrence and overall mortality in patients with EOC