Salvianolic Acid B Ameliorates Motor Dysfuntion in Spinal Cord Injury Rats

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of salvianolic acid B (Sal B) treatment on the motor function of spinal cord injury (SCI) rat.Methods: SCI rats were modelled by contusion, and then received 10 mg/kg Sal B, or methylprednisolone, or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) intraperitoneally daily for 4 weeks, two hours after the trauma occurred. During the treatment, footprint analysis (FA), inclined plane test (IPT), Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) rating and Schnell Swim Test (SST) were used for estimating the recovery of motor function. At the same time, tissue edema was measured by wet-dry weighting, and the secretion of cytokines were indirectly quantitated by real time polymerase chain  reaction (qPCR).Results: Primarily, Sal B group rats scored higher by FA, IPT and BBB rating. Further statistical analysis of comprehensive SST data from   Student-t test indicates that Sal B can significantly ameliorate motor dysfunction after a 4-week treatment (p < 0.05) as well. Furthermore, Sal B decreased water content of the edema by 16.5 % during the first week, and sharply downregulated the transcription of interleukin 6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) 28- and 16-fold, respectively.Conclusion: The beneficial effect of motor function recovery was observed in SCI rats following intraperitoneal administration of Sal B.Keywords: Salvianolic acid B, Spinal cord injury, Motor dysfunction, Cytokine

Aperture Diffraction for Compact Snapshot Spectral Imaging

We demonstrate a compact, cost-effective snapshot spectral imaging system named Aperture Diffraction Imaging Spectrometer (ADIS), which consists only of an imaging lens with an ultra-thin orthogonal aperture mask and a mosaic filter sensor, requiring no additional physical footprint compared to common RGB cameras. Then we introduce a new optical design that each point in the object space is multiplexed to discrete encoding locations on the mosaic filter sensor by diffraction-based spatial-spectral projection engineering generated from the orthogonal mask. The orthogonal projection is uniformly accepted to obtain a weakly calibration-dependent data form to enhance modulation robustness. Meanwhile, the Cascade Shift-Shuffle Spectral Transformer (CSST) with strong perception of the diffraction degeneration is designed to solve a sparsity-constrained inverse problem, realizing the volume reconstruction from 2D measurements with Large amount of aliasing. Our system is evaluated by elaborating the imaging optical theory and reconstruction algorithm with demonstrating the experimental imaging under a single exposure. Ultimately, we achieve the sub-super-pixel spatial resolution and high spectral resolution imaging. The code will be available at: https://github.com/Krito-ex/CSST.Comment: accepted by International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) 202

Effect of Maize (Zea mays L.) Plant-Type on Yield and Photosynthetic Characters of Sweet Potato (Ipomoea balatas L.) in Intercropping System

Sweet potato/maize relay-cropping mode is considered as the main farming practices of dry land in Southwest China. Although relay-cropping would cause the reduction of fresh tuber yield, it still remained unclear that the reason was shade resulted from maize or genotype of sweet potato. The present work aims at exploring the effects of maize (Zea mays L.) plant-type on photosynthetic physiology and yield of sweet potato (Ipomoea balatas L.) in relay-cropping system. Besides, three plant-types maize cultivars including compact, semi-compact and expanded type were used for relay-cropping with different sweet potato cultivars (‘Yushu-2’, ‘Yushu-6’ and ‘Nanshu-88’) in field. The results showed that the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) was declined with the increase of expansion of maize plant-type, which decreased by 77.5%, 80.1% and 82.1% respectively. When relay-cropped with extended maize, the yield reduction rate of sweet potato was the highest (67%). The shade-resistance of different genotype of sweet potatoes was different, and the yield reduction rate of ‘Yushu-2’ was the lowest (37.01%). Through conducting correlations analysis, it showed that fresh tuber yield had significant positive correlation with Effective Quantum Yield (Y(II)) and significant negative correlation with Non Photochemical Quenching Coefficient (NPQ). In terms of ‘Yushu-2’, the proportion of heat dissipation was the lowest, and its light quantum efficiency was higher than others. As a result, its reduction rate of yield was lower than the other two. We suggested that compact maize cultivar relay-cropping with strong shade-resistance sweet potato cultivar should be mainly applied in practice of sweet potato

Observation of Temperature-Induced Crossover to an Orbital-Selective Mott Phase in Ax_{x}Fe2−y_{2-y}Se2_2 (A=K, Rb) Superconductors

In this work, we study the A$_{x}$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ (A=K, Rb) superconductors using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. In the low temperature state, we observe an orbital-dependent renormalization for the bands near the Fermi level in which the dxy bands are heavily renormliazed compared to the dxz/dyz bands. Upon increasing temperature to above 150K, the system evolves into a state in which the dxy bands have diminished spectral weight while the dxz/dyz bands remain metallic. Combined with theoretical calculations, our observations can be consistently understood as a temperature induced crossover from a metallic state at low temperature to an orbital-selective Mott phase (OSMP) at high temperatures. Furthermore, the fact that the superconducting state of A$_{x}$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ is near the boundary of such an OSMP constraints the system to have sufficiently strong on-site Coulomb interactions and Hund's coupling, and hence highlight the non-trivial role of electron correlation in this family of iron superconductors

Study on the actual case of deep excavation in sands and pebble with plenty water

Based on the deep excavation of Fengxihe Station of Chengdu Metro Line 17, the groundwater treatment plan for the deep sandy pebble stratum in Wenjiang district of Chengdu, the hole forming process of the retaining pile and the design of the retaining structure and the on-site monitoring data were analyzed and studied. Through systematic research on key technologies, the design and construction optimization schemes are proposed, and the relevant information of on-site information construction is enriched, which provides reference and reference for the design and construction of station excavations in similar strata

Promoted Photocharge Separation in 2D Lateral Epitaxial Heterostructure for Visible‐Light‐Driven CO2 Photoreduction

Photocarrier recombination remains a big barrier for the improvement of solar energy conversion efficiency. For 2D materials, construction of heterostructures represents an efficient strategy to promote photoexcited carrier separation via an internal electric field at the heterointerface. However, due to the difficulty in seeking two components with suitable crystal lattice mismatch, most of the current 2D heterostructures are vertical heterostructures and the exploration of 2D lateral heterostructures is scarce and limited. Here, lateral epitaxial heterostructures of BiOCl @ Bi2O3 at the atomic level are fabricated via sonicating‐assisted etching of Cl in BiOCl. This unique lateral heterostructure expedites photoexcited charge separation and transportation through the internal electric field induced by chemical bonding at the lateral interface. As a result, the lateral BiOCl @ Bi2O3 heterostructure demonstrates superior CO2 photoreduction properties with a CO yield rate of about 30 µmol g−1 h−1 under visible light illumination. The strategy to fabricate lateral epitaxial heterostructures in this work is expected to provide inspiration for preparing other 2D lateral heterostructures used in optoelectronic devices, energy conversion, and storage fields

Eco-friendly synthesis of self-supported N-doped Sb2S3-carbon fibers with high atom utilization and zero discharge for commercial full lithium-ion batteries

Antimony trisulfide (Sb2S3) is a prospective electrode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) because of its thermal stability, low price, and high specific capacity. However, the commercialization of Sb2S3 as an anode material is greatly hindered by its poor electronic conductivity and massive volume variation during charge/discharge cycles. Moreover, growing demand in reducing greenhouse gas emission requires the material preparation process to be pollution free and highly energy efficient. Herein, we introduce, for the first time, an eco-friendly and highly efficient one-step annealing method to construct a three-dimensional (3D) flexible conductive network and buffer matrix for N-doped Sb2S3-carbon fibers (NSSCs) as a high-performance anode. It is assembled by mixing sulfur and antimony in the atomicity level with a stoichiometric ratio as the electrospinning precursor and then annealed in a sealed quartz tube to assure the high atom utilization of nitrogen and sulfur. Benefiting from the 3D structure and compositional advantages, the NSSC electrode with improved conductivity and carbon buffer matrix exhibits superior Li-storage performance. As a result, this work not only promotes the commercialization of antimony trisulfide but also points out a general eco-friendly method, which can be widely applied to synthesize a variety of flexible metal sulfides and metal nitrides with high atom utilization and zero discharge

Case report of a Li-Fraumeni syndrome-like phenotype with a de novo mutation in <i>CHEK2</i>

BACKGROUND: Cases of multiple tumors are rarely reported in China. In our study, a 57-year-old female patient had concurrent squamous cell carcinoma, mucoepidermoid carcinoma, brain cancer, bone cancer, and thyroid cancer, which has rarely been reported to date. METHODS: To determine the relationship among these multiple cancers, available DNA samples from the thyroid, lung, and skin tumors and from normal thyroid tissue were sequenced using whole exome sequencing. RESULTS: The notable discrepancies of somatic mutations among the 3 tumor tissues indicated that they arose independently, rather than metastasizing from 1 tumor. A novel deleterious germline mutation (chr22:29091846, G->A, p.H371Y) was identified in CHEK2, a Li–Fraumeni syndrome causal gene. Examining the status of this novel mutation in the patient's healthy siblings revealed its de novo origin. CONCLUSION: Our study reports the first case of Li–Fraumeni syndrome-like in Chinese patients and demonstrates the important contribution of de novo mutations in this type of rare disease

Comprehensive Analysis of lncRNA and miRNA Regulatory Network Reveals Potential Prognostic Non-coding RNA Involved in Breast Cancer Progression

Breast cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors in women and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women. The tumorigenesis and progression of breast cancer are not well understood. The existing researches have indicated that non-coding RNAs, which mainly include long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) and microRNA (miRNA), have gradually become important regulators of breast cancer. We aimed to screen the differential expression of miRNA and lncRNA in the different breast cancer stages and identify the key non-coding RNA using TCGA data. Based on series test of cluster (STC) analysis, bioinformatics analysis, and negatively correlated relationships, 122 lncRNAs, 67 miRNAs, and 119 mRNAs were selected to construct the regulatory network of lncRNA and miRNA. It was shown that the miR-93/20b/106a/106b family was at the center of the regulatory network. Furthermore, 6 miRNAs, 10 lncRNAs, and 15 mRNAs were significantly associated with the overall survival (OS, log-rank P &lt; 0.05) of patients with breast cancer. Overexpressed miR-93 in MCF-7 breast cancer cells was associated with suppressed expression of multiple lncRNAs, and these downregulated lncRNAs (MESTIT1, LOC100128164, and DNMBP-AS1) were significantly associated with poor overall survival in breast cancer patients. Therefore, the miR-93/20b/106a/106b family at the core of the regulatory network discovered by our analysis above may be extremely important for the regulation of lncRNA expression and the progression of breast cancer. The identified key miRNA and lncRNA will enhance the understanding of molecular mechanisms of breast cancer progression. Targeting these key non-coding RNA may provide new therapeutic strategies for breast cancer treatment and may prevent the progression of breast cancer from an early stage to an advanced stage