Recognizing two new Hippolyte species (Decapoda, Caridea, Hippolytidae) from the South China Sea based on integrative taxonomy

Hippolyte shrimps exhibit abundant biological diversity and display great ecological significance in seaweed bed ecosystems. Dozens of Hippolyte specimens were collected from Hainan Island and the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea. Detailed examination indicates that some of these specimens represent new Hippolyte species. Based on morphological, genetic, and ecological data, Hippolyte chacei sp. nov. and H. nanhaiensis sp. nov. are described. H. chacei sp. nov. was collected from the Sargassum sp. biotope in Hainan Island and is distinguished from congeners by its unique mandible and the dactylus of the third to fifth pereiopods; this species has a basal position in the Indo-West Pacific species clade in the phylogenetic tree which is reconstructed based on 16S rRNA gene. H. nanhaiensis sp. nov. was collected from the biotopes of Galaxaura sp. or Halimeda sp. in the Xisha Islands, and it differs from congeners in a series of characters associated with rostrum, scaphocerite, antennular peduncle, and spines on the dactylus of the third to fifth pereiopods. Additionally, it is sister to H. australiensis in the phylogenetic tree. A key to identifying mature female Hippolyte species of the Indo-West Pacific and neighboring seas is provided

Biogeochemistry of dimethylsulfide in the South China Sea

The distribution of dimethylsulfide (DMS) was studied in surface seawater and vertical profiles at nineteen stations in the Nansha Islands sea area of the South China Sea. The concentrations of DMS in surface-layer (0-1 m) seawater vary from 64 to 140 ng S/L with high values found in the productive regions, in agreement with the horizontal distribution of chlorophyll a. The vertical profiles of DMS show a single peak shape with maximum concentrations occurring at depths between 30-75 m. The DMS concentrations are correlated with chlorophyll a levels both in the upper 20 m of seawater as well as in vertical profiles. A clear diel variation in DMS concentration is observed at the 50-m water layer at a fixed station with the highest DMS concentration found in the late afternoon. The DMS concentrations are associated with environmental factors such as seawater temperature, dissolved O2 and nutrient contents. Although DMS is correlated to chlorophyll a, the phytoplankton species is a major factor responsible for the obviously higher DMS concentration than expected from the phytoplankton biomass in this sea area. The sea-to-air flux of DMS from this sea area is calculated to be 7.6 µmol m-2 d-1

Further Results on Frequency-Domain Channel Equalization for Single Carrier Underwater Acoustic Communications

A frequency-domain channel equalization and phase correction method was proposed in a previous work published in Oceans\u2707 conference, in which 10^-4 BER performance was presented for fixed-to-fixed source/receiver channels. The method is improved by using minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation in channel updates rather than least squares estimation. It is applied to moving-to-fixed channels in the AUVFest\u2707 ocean experiment where single-carrier wideband transmission was employed with quadrature phase shift keying modulation. The moving source channels exhibit higher Doppler shift and larger Doppler drift than the fixed-to-fixed channels. Therefore, the number of symbols required for initial phase estimation is increased from 2 to 8 symbols when the group- wise phase correction algorithm is applied to the moving sources. Thirty-six packets with data block length of 512 symbols have been processed and 34 of them achieved an uncoded Bit Error Rate (BER) lower than 10-2. The overall uncoded BER performance of all 36 packets is 1.81 times 10^-3 which is slightly higher than that of the fixed-to-fixed channels

Immune escape mechanisms of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), which is caused by SFTS virus (SFTSV), poses a serious threat to global public health, with high fatalities and an increasing prevalence. As effective therapies and prevention strategies are limited, there is an urgent need to elucidate the pathogenesis of SFTS. SFTSV has evolved several mechanisms to escape from host immunity. In this review, we summarize the mechanisms through which SFTSV escapes host immune responses, including the inhibition of innate immunity and evasion of adaptive immunity. Understanding the pathogenesis of SFTS will aid in the development of new strategies for the treatment of this disease

Hierarchical Integration Diffusion Model for Realistic Image Deblurring

Diffusion models (DMs) have recently been introduced in image deblurring and exhibited promising performance, particularly in terms of details reconstruction. However, the diffusion model requires a large number of inference iterations to recover the clean image from pure Gaussian noise, which consumes massive computational resources. Moreover, the distribution synthesized by the diffusion model is often misaligned with the target results, leading to restrictions in distortion-based metrics. To address the above issues, we propose the Hierarchical Integration Diffusion Model (HI-Diff), for realistic image deblurring. Specifically, we perform the DM in a highly compacted latent space to generate the prior feature for the deblurring process. The deblurring process is implemented by a regression-based method to obtain better distortion accuracy. Meanwhile, the highly compact latent space ensures the efficiency of the DM. Furthermore, we design the hierarchical integration module to fuse the prior into the regression-based model from multiple scales, enabling better generalization in complex blurry scenarios. Comprehensive experiments on synthetic and real-world blur datasets demonstrate that our HI-Diff outperforms state-of-the-art methods. Code and trained models are available at https://github.com/zhengchen1999/HI-Diff.Comment: Code is available at https://github.com/zhengchen1999/HI-Dif

95 GeV excess in a CPCP-violating μ\mu-from-ν\nu SSM

The CMS and ATLAS have recently reported their results searching for light Higgs boson with mass around 95 GeV, based on the full Run 2 data set. In the framework of the CP-violating (CPV) $\mu\nu$SSM, we discuss a $\sim$ 2.9$\sigma$ (local) excess at 95 GeV in the light Higgs boson search in the diphoton decay mode as reported by ATLAS and CMS, together with a $\sim$ 2$\sigma$ excess (local) in the $b\bar{b}$ final state at LEP in the same mass range. By introducing CPV phases as well as by mixing CP-even Higgs and CP-odd Higgs, a lighter Higgs boson in the $\mu\nu$SSM can be produced, which can account for the "di-photon excess".Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Effect of adjunctive ranitidine for antipsychotic-induced weight gain: A systematic review of randomized placebo-controlled trials

This study was a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of ranitidine as an adjunct for antipsychotic-induced weight gain in patients with schizophrenia. RCTs reporting weight gain or metabolic side effects in patients with schizophrenia were included. Case reports/series, nonrandomized or observational studies, reviews, and meta-analyses were excluded. The primary outcome measures were body mass index (BMI) (kg/m2) and body weight (kg). Four RCTs with five study arms were identified and analyzed. Compared with the control group, adjunctive ranitidine was associated with marginally significant reductions in BMI and body weight. After removing an outlier study for BMI, the effect of ranitidine remained significant. Adjunctive ranitidine outperformed the placebo in the negative symptom score of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale. Although ranitidine was associated with less frequent drowsiness, other adverse events were similar between the two groups. Adjunctive ranitidine appears to be an effective an