Synthesis of graphene oxide–methacrylic acid–sodium allyl sulfonate copolymer and its tanning properties

AbstractGraphite oxide nanosheets (GONs) and the copolymer of GONs with methacrylic acid (MAA) and sodium allyl sulfonate (SAS) (poly(GON–MAA–SAS)) were prepared. The GONs in poly(GON–MAA–SAS) are smaller and uniformly dispersed, allowing them to penetrate into collagen fibers of leather and produce better tanning effects than current nano-tanning agents. Tanning effects due to chemical bonding and nanoeffects are elucidated by measuring the shrinkage temperature (Ts) of wet and dry leather. The results indicate that poly(GON–MAA–SAS) could be used alone as a tanning agent to provide excellent mechanical properties, especially good elasticity and softness, although the Ts is slightly lower than that of chrome-tanned leather. Poly(GON–MAA–SAS) in combination with a chrome tanning agent could allow the dosage of the latter to be halved. These results indicate the potential for new nano-tanning agents to reduce the pollution caused by tanning agents

EMScore: Evaluating Video Captioning via Coarse-Grained and Fine-Grained Embedding Matching

Current metrics for video captioning are mostly based on the text-level comparison between reference and candidate captions. However, they have some insuperable drawbacks, e.g., they cannot handle videos without references, and they may result in biased evaluation due to the one-to-many nature of video-to-text and the neglect of visual relevance. From the human evaluator's viewpoint, a high-quality caption should be consistent with the provided video, but not necessarily be similar to the reference in literal or semantics. Inspired by human evaluation, we propose EMScore (Embedding Matching-based score), a novel reference-free metric for video captioning, which directly measures similarity between video and candidate captions. Benefit from the recent development of large-scale pre-training models, we exploit a well pre-trained vision-language model to extract visual and linguistic embeddings for computing EMScore. Specifically, EMScore combines matching scores of both coarse-grained (video and caption) and fine-grained (frames and words) levels, which takes the overall understanding and detailed characteristics of the video into account. Furthermore, considering the potential information gain, EMScore can be flexibly extended to the conditions where human-labeled references are available. Last but not least, we collect VATEX-EVAL and ActivityNet-FOIl datasets to systematically evaluate the existing metrics. VATEX-EVAL experiments demonstrate that EMScore has higher human correlation and lower reference dependency. ActivityNet-FOIL experiment verifies that EMScore can effectively identify "hallucinating" captions. The datasets will be released to facilitate the development of video captioning metrics. The code is available at: https://github.com/ShiYaya/emscore.Comment: cvpr202

Microglia, TREM2, and Therapeutic Methods of Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common causes of dementia all around the world. It is characterized by the deposition of amyloid-β protein (Aβ) and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), which contribute to neuronal loss and cognitive decline. Microglia, as innate immune cells in brain, plays dual roles in the pathological process of AD. Expression in different subtypes of microglia is diverse in AD genes. Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) is a transmembrane glycoprotein mainly expressed on microglia in the central nervous system (CNS). Soluble TREM2 (sTREM2), a proteolytic product of TREM2, which is abundant in the cerebrospinal fluid, shows a dynamic change in different stages and ameliorates the pathological process of AD. The interplay between the different subtypes of apolipoprotein and TREM2 is closely related to the mechanism of AD and serves as important regulatory sites. Moreover, several therapeutic strategies targeting TREM2 have shown positive outcomes during clinical trials and some novel therapies at different points are in progress. In this review, we mainly talk about the interrelationships among microglia, TREM2, and AD, and hope to give an overview of the strategies of AD

Genetic sources and diversity of the paddy field carp in the Pearl River basin inferred from two mitochondrial loci

Paddy field carp (PF-carp) is an economically important fish cocultured with rice in traditional agricultural systems. Several distinctive strains of PF-carp have been formed through years of artificial and cross breeding. There is a concern about the status of germplasm resources among PF-carp, since little is known about the genetic sources, diversity, or differentiation. In this study we collected 17 PF-carp populations covering Daotian carp (DTL), Ru Yuan No. 1 (RY), Jinbian carp (JBL), Shaijiang carp (SJL), and Wu carp (WL) along the Pearl River basin to explore their genetic sources and diversity using concatenated sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene and the D-Loop region. According to the haplotype network analyses, 1, 9, and 57 haplotypes originated from Cyprinus carpio carpio, Cyprinus carpio haematopterus and Cyprinus carpio rubrofuscus, respectively, confirming that genetic introgression has occurred in Pearl River PF-carp populations and Cyprinus carpio carpio was the most common species for genetic origin. The results showed that RY exhibited the lowest level of nucleotide diversity (π = 0.0011) due to high-intensity breeding and was significantly differentiated from the other four strains. PF-carp strains in these remote traditional systems tended to experience artificial selection and a lack of farmer connection that gradually increased genetic differentiation among strains. Notably, three populations of JBL exhibited significant high-level differentiation, since they originated from mountainous areas hindering farmers from fry exchange. In contrast, no significant differentiation was uncovered in the WL populations, since this strain is the most popular cultured strain and has undergone artificial exchange of parents and fry in many cultured regions. This study helps us to understand the status of germplasm resources among PF-carp and to trace their genetic origin before being introduced for local cultivation

Standard isometric contraction has higher reliability than maximum voluntary isometric contraction for normalizing electromyography during level walking among older adults with knee osteoarthritis

Introduction: Electromyography (EMG) normalization often relies on maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), which may not be suitable for knee osteoarthritis (KOA) patients due to difficulties in generating maximum joint torques caused by pain. This study aims to assess the reliability of standard isometric contraction (SIC) for EMG normalization in older adults with KOA, comparing it with MVIC.Methods: We recruited thirty-five older adults with KOA and collected root mean square EMG amplitudes from seven muscles in the affected limb during level walking, SIC, and MVIC tests. EMG data during level walking were normalized using both SIC and MVIC methods. This process was repeated after at least 1 week. We calculated intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) with 95% confidence intervals to evaluate between- and within-day reliabilities.Results: SIC tests showed higher between- (ICC: 0.75–0.86) and within-day (ICC: 0.84–0.95) ICCs across all seven muscles compared to MVIC tests. When normalized with SIC, all seven muscles exhibited higher between- (ICC: 0.67–0.85) and within-day (ICC: 0.88–0.99) ICCs compared to MVIC normalization.Conclusion: This study suggests that SIC may offer superior movement consistency and reliability compared to MVIC for EMG normalization during level walking in older adults with KOA

Effect of salam [Syzygium polyanthum (Wigt) Walp.] leaves extract on the microorganism population in chicken meat and shrimp and their sensory

Recently, there has been an increasing demand and interest in developing plant extracts as natural food sanitizer, owing to their antimicrobial properties. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of salam (Syzygium polyanthum L.) leaves methanolics extract on the number of microflora on chicken meat and shrimp. Salam leaves extract at different concentrations (0.0%, 0.1%, 1.00%) and exposure times (5, and 10 min) used to treat chicken meat and shrimp by using dilution method. Result showed that the total plate count and Staphylococcus aureus had been detected in untreated chicken and shrimp samples with 6.66 ± 0.12, 8.66 ± 0.15 and 7.25 ± 0.21, 6.54 ± 0.21, respectively. However, there was no Escherichia coli, Salmonella spp. and Vibrio cholera detected in both samples. The number of total plate count (TPC) and S. aureus in chicken meat and shrimp were starting to reduce significantly at 0.01% concentration of salam leaves extract for 5 minutes of exposure time compared to initial count. There was no significantly different between exposure times. The highest reduction in number of microorganism population was at treatment with 1.0% extract for 10 min where TPC was reduced from 6.66 ± 0.12 to 0.00 ± 0.00 log10 CFU/ml, and from 8.66 ± 0.15 to 4.88 ± 0.00 log10 CFU/ml in shrimp while S. aureus reduced from 7.25 ± 0.21 to 3.88 ± 0.01 and from 6.54 ± 0.21 to 4.92 ± 0.04 in chicken and shrimp, respectively. For the sensory acceptability, overall acceptability were accepted by panellists until treatment 0.10% for 5 min and 10 min of soaking time. In conclusion, salam leaves extract might be developed as natural sanitizer for rinsing raw food materials such as chicken meat and shrimp

Sodium Tanshinone IIA Sulfonate Prevents Radiation-Induced Toxicity in H9c2 Cardiomyocytes

The present study was designed to elucidate the key parameters associated with X-ray radiation induced oxidative stress and the effects of STS on X-ray-induced toxicity in H9c2 cardiomyocytes. Cytotoxicity of STS and radiation was assessed by MTT. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by SOD and MDA. Apoptosis was measured by the flow cytometry, Hoechst 33258, clonogenic survival assay, and western blot. It was found that the cell viability of H9c2 cells exposed to X-ray radiation was significantly decreased in a dose-dependent manner and was associated with cell cycle arrest at the G0/G1 phase as well as apoptosis. STS treatment significantly reversed the morphological changes, attenuated radiation-induced apoptosis, and improved the antioxidant activity in the H9c2 cells. STS significantly increased the Bcl-2 and Bcl-2/Bax levels and decreased the Bax and caspase-3 levels, compared with the cells treated with radiation alone. STS treatment also resulted in a significant increase in p38-MAPK activation. STS could protect the cells from X-ray-induced cell cycle arrest, oxidative stress, and apoptosis. Therefore, we suggest the STS could be useful for the treatment of radiation-induced cardiovascular injury

Pediatric intensive care unit treatment alters the diversity and composition of the gut microbiota and antimicrobial resistance gene expression in critically ill children

IntroductionCommon critical illnesses are a growing economic burden on healthcare worldwide. However, therapies targeting the gut microbiota for critical illnesses have not been developed on a large scale. This study aimed to investigate the changes in the characteristics of the gut microbiota in critically ill children after short-term pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) treatments.MethodsAnal swab samples were prospectively collected from March 2021 to March 2022 from children admitted to the PICU of Xinhua Hospital who received broad-spectrum antibiotics on days 1 (the D1 group) and 7 (the D7 group) of the PICU treatment. The structural and functional characteristics of the gut microbiota of critically ill children were explored using metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) technology, and a comparative analysis of samples from D1 and D7 was conducted.ResultsAfter 7 days of PICU admission, a significant decrease was noted in the richness of the gut microbiota in critically ill children, while the bacterial diversity and the community structure between groups remained stable to some extent. The relative abundance of Bacilli and Lactobacillales was significantly higher, and that of Campylobacter hominis was significantly lower in the D7 group than in the D1 group. The random forest model revealed that Prevotella coporis and Enterobacter cloacae were bacterial biomarkers between groups. LEfSe revealed that two Gene Ontology entries, GO:0071555 (cell wall organization) and GO:005508 (transmembrane transport), changed significantly after the short-term treatment in the PICU. In addition, 30 KEGG pathways were mainly related to the activity of enzymes and proteins during the processes of metabolism, DNA catabolism and repair, and substance transport. Finally, 31 antimicrobial resistance genes had significantly different levels between the D7 and D1 groups. The top 10 up-regulated genes were Erm(A), ErmX, LptD, eptB, SAT-4, tetO, adeJ, adeF, APH(3′)-IIIa, and tetM.ConclusionThe composition, gene function, and resistance genes of gut microbiota of critically ill children can change significantly after short PICU treatments. Our findings provide a substantial basis for a better understanding of the structure and function of gut microbiota and their role in critical illnesses