A novel fusion framework embedded with zero-shot super-resolution and multivariate autoregression for precipitable water vapor across the continental Europe

Precipitable water vapor (PWV), as the most abundant greenhouse gas, significantly impacts the evapotranspiration process and thus the global climate. However, the applicability of mainstream satellite PWV products is limited by the tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolutions, as well as some external factors such as cloud contamination. In this study, we proposed a novel PWV spatio-temporal fusion framework based on the zero-shot super-resolution and the multivariate autoregression models (ZSSR-ARF) to improve the accuracy and continuity of PWV. The framework is implemented in a way that the satellite-derived observations (MOD05) are fused with the reanalysis data (ERA5) to generate accurate and seamless PWV of high spatio-temporal resolution (0.01°, daily) across the European continent from 2001 to 2021. Firstly, the ZSSR approach is used to enhance the spatial resolution of ERA5 PWV based on the internal recurrence of image information. Secondly, the optimal ERA5-MOD05 image pairs are selected based on the image similarity as inputs to improve the fusion accuracy. Thirdly, the framework develops a multivariate autoregressive fusion approach to allocate weights adaptively for the high-resolution image prediction, which primely addresses the non-stationarity and autocorrelation of PWV. The results reveal that the accuracies of fused PWV are consistent with those of the GPS retrievals (r = 0.82–0.95 and RMSE = 2.21–4.01 mm), showing an enhancement in the accuracy and continuity compared to the original MODIS PWV. The ZSSR-ARF fusion framework outperforms the other methods with R$^2$ improved by over 24% and RMSE reduced by over 0.61 mm. Furthermore, the fused PWV exhibits similar temporal consistency (mean difference of 0.40 mm and DSTD of 3.22 mm) to the reliable ERA5 products, and substantial increasing trends (mean of 0.057 mm/year and over 0.1 mm/year near the southern and western coasts) are observed over the European continent. As the accuracy and continuity of PWV are improved, the outcome of this paper has potential for climatic analyses during the land-atmosphere cycle process

Epoch-Wise Estimation and Analysis of GNSS Receiver DCB under High and Low Solar Activity Conditions

Differential code bias (DCB) is one of the main errors involved in ionospheric total electron content (TEC) retrieval using a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). It is typically assumed to be constant over time. However, this assumption is not always valid because receiver DCBs have long been known to exhibit apparent intraday variations. In this paper, a combined method is introduced to estimate the epoch-wise receiver DCB, which is divided into two parts: the receiver DCB at the initial epoch and its change with respect to the initial value. In the study, this method was proved feasible by subsequent experiments and was applied to analyze the possible reason for the intraday receiver DCB characteristics of 200 International GNSS Service (IGS) stations in 2014 (high solar activity) and 2017 (low solar activity). The results show that the proportion of intraday receiver DCB stability less than 1 ns increased from 72.5% in 2014 to 87% in 2017, mainly owing to the replacement of the receiver hardware in stations. Meanwhile, the intraday receiver DCB estimates in summer generally exhibited more instability than those in other seasons. Although more than 90% of the stations maintained an intraday receiver DCB stability within 2 ns, substantial variations with a peak-to-peak range of 5.78 ns were detected for certain stations, yielding an impact of almost 13.84 TECU on the TEC estimates. Moreover, the intraday variability of the receiver DCBs is related to the receiver environment temperature. Their correlation coefficient (greater than 0.5 in our analyzed case) increases with the temperature. By contrast, the receiver firmware version does not exert a great impact on the intraday variation characteristics of the receiver DCB in this case

Facile Synthesis of Microporous Ferrocenyl Polymers Photocatalyst for Degradation of Cationic Dye

Microporous organic polymers (MOPs) were prepared by condensation reactions from substituent-group-free carbazole and pyrrole with 1,1′-ferrocenedicarboxaldehyde without adding any catalysts. The resultant MOPs were insoluble in common solvent and characterized by FTIR, XPS, TGA and SEM. An N2 adsorption test showed that the obtained polymers PFcMOP and CFcMOP exhibited Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface areas of 48 and 105 m2 g−1, respectively, and both polymers possessed abundant micropores. The MOPs with a nitrogen and ferrocene unit could be potentially applied in degrading dye with high efficiency

Study on Multi-GNSS Precise Point Positioning Performance with Adverse Effects of Satellite Signals on Android Smartphone

The emergence of dual frequency global navigation satellite system (GNSS) chip actively promotes the progress of precise point positioning (PPP) technology in Android smartphones. However, some characteristics of GNSS signals on current smartphones still adversely affect the positioning accuracy of multi-GNSS PPP. In order to reduce the adverse effects on positioning, this paper takes Huawei Mate30 as the experimental object and presents the analysis of multi-GNSS observations from the aspects of carrier-to-noise ratio, cycle slip, gradual accumulation of phase error, and pseudorange residual. Accordingly, we establish a multi-GNSS PPP mathematical model that is more suitable for GNSS observations from a smartphone. The stochastic model is composed of GNSS step function variances depending on carrier-to-noise ratio, and the robust Kalman filter is applied to parameter estimation. The multi-GNSS experimental results show that the proposed PPP method can significantly reduce the effect of poor satellite signal quality on positioning accuracy. Compared with the conventional PPP model, the root mean square (RMS) of GPS/BeiDou (BDS)/GLONASS static PPP horizontal and vertical errors in the initial 10 min decreased by 23.71% and 62.06%, respectively, and the horizontal positioning accuracy reached 10 cm within 100 min. Meanwhile, the kinematic PPP maximum three-dimensional positioning error of GPS/BDS/GLONASS decreased from 16.543 to 10.317 m

IMU-Aided Precise Point Positioning Performance Assessment with Smartphones in GNSS-Degraded Urban Environments

The tracking of satellite signals with the passive linearly polarized embedded global navigation satellite system (GNSS) antenna of smartphones in dynamic scenarios is susceptible to the changing multipath and obstructions in urban environments, which lead to a significant decrease in the availability and reliability of GNSS solutions. Accordingly, based on the characteristics of smartphone GNSS and inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors data in GNSS-degraded environments, we established an IMU-aided uncombined precise point positioning (PPP) mathematical model that is suitable for smartphones. To enhance the reliability of initial alignment in dynamic mode, the step function variances depending on carrier-to-noise density ratio were established with the variances of GNSS measurements, and the inertial navigation system (INS) parameters were initialized while both the velocity of smartphones and the position dilution of precision (PDOP) reached corresponding thresholds. Considering the measurement noise and observations gaps of smartphones, the robust Kalman filter (RKF) with equivalent variance matrix was used for parameter estimation to improve the convergence efficiency of the coupled PPP/INS model. Experimental results indicated that the proposed PPP/INS method can effectively improve the positioning performance of smartphones in GNSS-degraded environments. Compared with the conventional smartphone PPP scheme, the PPP/INS horizontal errors in the eastern and western areas of the long trajectory experiment decreased by 49.37% and 48.29%, respectively. Meanwhile, the trajectory deviation of smartphones can remain stable in the tunnel where GNSS signals are blocked

Irinotecan-platinum combination therapy for previously untreated extensive-stage small cell lung cancer patients: a meta-analysis

Abstract Background There is still a debate regarding whether regimens combining irinotecan with platinum could replace regimens combining etoposide with platinum, as first-line chemotherapy for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). We performed a meta-analysis to compare these regimens as first-line chemotherapy for ES-SCLC. Methods A literature search for randomized controlled trials was performed using the Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Embase. The inverse variance method was used to estimate summary hazard ratios and their 95% confidence intervals for overall survival and progression free survival. Relative risk was used to estimate the overall response rate, disease control rate, 1-year survival, 2-year survival, and adverse event data. Result Nine randomized controlled trials (2451 patients) were included. Regimens combining irinotecan and platinum improved overall survival, progression-free survival and overall response rate compared to combination etoposide and platinum regimens. Meanwhile, superior progression-free survival and overall response rate outcomes were observed in the Asian subgroup of patients. These patients receiving a combination irinotecan and platinum regimen experienced grade 3–4 diarrhea more frequently and experienced less hematologic toxic events than the non-Asian groups. Conclusions Our data suggest that a combination irinotecan and platinum regimen can prolong overall survival, progression-free survival and overall response rate for patients with ES-SCLC as compared to a combination etoposide and platinum regimen. And the Asian patients could benefit from irinotecan combined with platinum easier

Synthesizing a novel Zr/Fe/Al‑incorporated cross‑linked chitosan as absorbent for effective removal of fluoride from aqueous solution

Zr/Fe/Al-modified chitosan beads were synthesized as a potential absorbent to remove fluoride on wastewater. In this study, the effects of solution pH, absorbent dosage, initial concentration, adsorption time, and coexisting ions were evaluated through a series of experiments. It was found that an adsorption capacity of 37.49 mg/g was achieved in the conditions with pH at 6.0, 1.6 g/L of the dose of CS-ZFA, 60 mg/L of fluoride concentration, and 120 min adsorption time. The adsorption results indicated that fluoride adsorption by CS-ZFA can be explained by Langmuir isotherm. Moreover, the kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption process was in good compliance with the pseudo-second-order kinetics and intra-particle diffusion model. The newly synthesized absorbents were characterized by SEM, EDS, FTIR, and TG analysis. Based on the characterization, the high adsorption capacity of the newly synthesized absorbent is due to the electrostatic attraction between amino and metal ions and the formation of CS-ZFA complex for fluoride. These excellent adsorption properties revealed that CS-ZFA is an effective absorbent for removing fluoride in aqueous solutions of environmental remediation.</p

Phosphorylated-Akt overexpression is associated with a higher risk of brain metastasis in patients with non-small cell lung cancer

Brain metastasis (BM) of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is relatively common and has a poor prognosis. Moreover, identifying which patients are more likely to develop BM is challenging. Akt, a serine/threonine-specific protein kinase, can be activated in various tumors, including lung cancer, and may be associated with poor prognosis. Here, we used immunohistochemistry to evaluate phosphorylated-Akt (p-Akt) expression in tumor tissues of 99 NSCLC patients. We also analyzed the genotype of the patients for two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the AKT1 gene, rs2498804 and rs2494732. We found that p-Akt expression differs between NSCLC patients and correlates with the risk of BM. Indeed, patients exhibiting medium to high p-Akt expression had a higher incidence of BM than those exhibiting low to no p-Akt expression (39% vs 16%). Our data also show that patients with the rs2498804 GT/GG and rs2494732 CT/TT variant genotypes were more likely to exhibit higher levels of p-Akt expression than those with the rs2498804 TT and rs2494732 CC variant genotypes (35% vs. 24% and 37% vs. 25%, respectively). Our results suggest that the level of expression of p-Akt, which may be affected by the AKT1 genotype, is correlated with the risk of BM. However, further studies are needed to establish p-Akt as a predictive marker for BM in NSCLC patients. Keywords: Akt, Non-small cell lung cancer, Brain metastasis, Single nucleotide polymorphism, Predict biomarke

Peptides from Harpadon nehereus protect against hyperglycemia-induced HepG2 via oxidative stress and glycolipid metabolism regulation

Three oligopeptides of KLHDEEVA (KA-8), LALFVPR (LR-7), and PSRILYG (PG-7) were selected from the hydrolysate of Harpadon nehereus. They significantly improved cell morphology and decreased aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels in high glucose-induced HepG2 cells. LR-7 showed good performance in regulating both antioxidant and glucose metabolism in high glucose-induced HepG2 cells, evidenced by improved expression levels of glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase), phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase 1 (PEPCK1), heme-oxygenase (HO-1), NAD(P)H: quinone oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1), and nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2). PG-7 had better performance in reducing triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) levels and enhancing superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity levels. KA-8 showed stronger effects on improving low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein (HDL-C), phosphorylation protein kinase B (p-AKT), and phosphorylation glycogen synthase kinase-3 (p-GSK-3β) levels. The results showed that all three peptides could protect against high glucose-induced HepG2 damage through different molecular mechanisms. The protective effects of LR-7 may be attributed mainly to its excellent glycolipid metabolism regulation and oxidative stress attenuation via Nrf2 pathway activation. KA-8 may exert its protective role through AKT/GSK-3β signaling pathway activation