The continental shale layers are more complex in matrix pore-microfracture interactions and connectivity characteristics under the influence of tuff devitrification, which limits the explicit understanding of the coupling relationship between wettability and pore structure, as well as hydrocarbon flow behavior. Therefore, the influence of tuffaceous components on the reservoir formation mechanism and oil-rich effect of the continental shale formation system is a critical issue to be solved. The Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation tuffaceous shale in Ordos Basin and the Middle Permian Jingjingzigou Formation tuffaceous shale in the southern margin of Junggar Basin is taken as the research objects, using whole-rock mineral composition analysis, FE-SEM observation and digital image processing and extraction, as well as wettability angle determination and spontaneous imbibition experiments to illustrate the influence of the difference of devitrification extent on reservoir pore connectivity and interfacial wettability in two different environments of freshwater and saline lacustrine basins, and summarize the reservoir formation differential pattern under the influence of devitrification. The results show that the saline lacustrine is significantly modified by devitrification. The pore plane porosity of the devitrified tuffaceous shales in the saline lacustrine is higher than that of the tuffaceous shales in the freshwater; the oleophilic of the saline lacustrine tuffaceous shales is better than that of the tuffaceous shales in the freshwater, moreover, the pore connectivity of the saline lacustrine tuffaceous shales is better than that of the tuffaceous shales in the freshwater. Wettability and connectivity control the storage performance of shale oil in the tuffaceous shales formation system. The more oleophilic the reservoir wettability is, the better the pore connectivity is, and the better the reservoir of tuffaceous shale formation system is. According to the different extents of devitrification, two different reservoir formation models of freshwater and saline lacustrine are established, which are of great theoretical and practical significance to enrich the theory of shale oil enrichment and reservoir formation in the continental shale formation system and to guide the exploration of continental shale oil benefits.

The Mine Internet of Things (MIoT), as a key technology for reconstructing post-disaster communication networks, enables to realize the safety monitoring and controlling of the affected roadway. However, due to the challenging underground mine environment, the MIoT suffers from severe signal attenuation, vulnerable nodes, and limited energy, which result in low network reliability of the post-disaster MIoT. To improve the transmission reliability as well as to reduce energy consumption, a directional-area-forwarding-based energy-efficient opportunistic routing (DEOR) for the post-disaster MIoT is proposed. DEOR defines a forwarding zone (FZ) for each node to route packets toward the sink. The candidate forwarding set (CFS) is constructed by the nodes within the FZ that satisfy the energy constraint and the neighboring node degree constraint. The nodes in CFS are prioritized based on the routing quality evaluation by taking the local attributes of nodes into consideration, such as the directional angle, transmission distance, and residual energy. DEOR adopts a recovery mechanism to address the issue of void nodes. The simulation results validate that the proposed DEOR outperforms ORR, OBRN and ECSOR in terms of energy consumption, average hop count, packet delivery rate, and network lifetime.

As a special class of “green” elastomers, thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) have been widely used in industries due to the combination of the excellent resilience of conventional elastomers and the easy recyclability of thermoplastics. Here, the morphology evolution of TPVs based on polyamide 6/ethylene-propylene-diene rubber (PA6/EPDM) blends was investigated by varying the content of the curing agent, phenolic resin (PF). With the incorporation of 6 wt% PF, the gel content of the EPDM phase reaches a high value of 49.6wt% and a typical sea-island structure is formed with EPDM domain in a micro-nano size. The dynamic rheology behaviors of TPVs showed that with the curing degree of EPDM phase increasing, a denser network of EPDM particles is formed in PA6 matrix. Also, a lower crystal degree and crystal peak temperature are observed, indicating that the presence of a growth restriction of PA6 crystal plate induced by a thinner plastic layer between the adjacent EPDM particles. However, the crystal form of PA6 is not changed with the increasing curing degree of the EPDM phase. This study provides an effective strategy to realize a new kind of TPVs, which can be easily introduced into industrial applications.

Poor medication adherence among older adults is a widespread problem worldwide. As the population ages, the design of smartphone medication management apps is critical to improving medication adherence among older adults. Taking the design of an elderly medication reminder APP as an example, this study proposes a sustainable design research method that integrates the KANO model, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and PUGH decision matrix. The method collects user demands through in-depth interviews, and applies the KANO model to classify these demands. The hierarchical structure of user needs is established by using AHP, and the priority is sorted according to the weight and importance determined by the judgment matrix. QFD is used to translate user needs into design requirements, and the house of quality matrix identifies key design requirements. Finally, design alternatives are evaluated using Pugh's concept selection method. The results of this study demonstrate that the integration of KANO-AHP-QFD-PUGH can be effective as a sustainable optimal design approach for the user experience of a medication reminder application for the elderly. This integrated method not only facilitates innovative optimization and sustainability of application design methods but also provides valuable theoretical and practical insights for future drug-assisted design for elderly users.

The perturbations of DNA methyltransferase 3 alpha (DNMT3A) may cause uncontrolled gene expression, resulting in cancers and tumors. The DNMT inhibitors Azacytidine (AZA) and Zebu-larine (ZEB) inhibit the DNMT family with no specificities and consequently would bring side effects during the treatment. Therefore, it is vital to understand their inhibitory mechanisms in DNMT3A to inform the new inhibitor design for DNMTs. Herein, we carried out molecular dynamics (MD) and quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) simulations to investigate the inhibitory mechanisms of AZA and ZEB. The results were compared to the methyl transfer of cytosine. We showed AZA might stop the methyl transfer process, whereas the ZEB might be stuck in a me-thyl-transferred intermediate (IM3). Such IM3 state then fails the elimination due to the unique protein dynamics that result in missing the catalytic water chain. Our results brought atomic-level insights into the mechanisms of the two drugs in DNMT3A, which could benefit the new generation of drug design for the DNMTs.

Cell migration is essential for physiological, pathological and biomedical processes such as, in embryogenesis, wound healing, immune response, cancer metastasis, tumour invasion and inflammation. In light of this, quantifying mechanical properties during the process of cell migration is of great interest in experimental sciences, yet few theoretical approaches in this direction have been studied. In this work, we propose a theoretical and computational approach based on the optimal control of geometric partial differential equations to estimate cell membrane forces associated with cell polarisation during migration. Specifically, cell membrane forces are inferred or estimated by fitting a mathematical model to a sequence of images, allowing us to capture dynamics of the cell migration. Our approach offers a robust and potentially accurate framework to compute geometric mechanical membrane forces associated with cell polarisation during migration and also yields geometric information of independent interest, we illustrate one such example that involves quantifying cell proliferation levels which are associated with cell division, cell fusion or cell death.

Autofocus is an essential part of the SAR imaging process. Multi-subaperture autofocus algorithm is a commonly used autofocus algorithm for processing SAR stripmap mode data. The multi-subaperture autofocus algorithm has two main steps, the first is to estimate the phase error gradient within the subaperture, the second is to splice the phase error gradient, that is, to remove the shift amount between the estimated adjacent subapertures’ error gradients. Previous gradient-splicing algorithms assume that the estimation of subaperture error is accurate, but when the estimation of subaperture phase error gradients is not accurate enough, these algorithm performance will be degraded. A new phase error gradient splicing algorithm is proposed in this paper. It roughly estimates the shift amount first, and then finely estimates the shift amount based on the minimum-entropy criterion, which can improve the robustness of splicing especially when the estimation of the phase error gradients of the subaperture is not accurate enough. To speed up the algorithm, a variable-step-size search method is used. Simulation and experimental results show that the algorithm has enough accuracy and still has good performance when other splicing algorithms doesn’t perform well.

The farnesoid X receptor (FXR)/βKlotho/fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) pathway is crucial for maintaining the intestinal barrier and preventing colorectal cancer (CRC). We used an FXR ago-nist, GW4064, and FXR knockout (KO) mice to investigate the role of FXR/Klothos/FGFs pathways in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced intestinal barrier dysfunction and colon carcinogenesis. The results showed that upregulation of FXR in enterocytes effectively ameliorated intestinal tight junction markers (claudin1, Zonula occludens-1), inflammation, and bile acid levels, thereby protecting mice from intestinal barrier dysfunction and colon carcinogenesis. GW4064 treatment increased FXR, αKlotho, βKlotho, FGF19, FGF21, and FGF23 in wild-type mice exposed to LPS, while FXR KO mice had decreased levels. FXR KO mice exhibited elevated colon cancer markers (β-catenin, LGR5, CD44, CD34, Cyclin D1) under LPS, underscoring the pivotal role of FXR in inhibiting the development of colon tumorigenesis. The varying gut microbiota responses in FXR KO mice versus wild-type mice post-LPS exposure emphasize the pivotal role of FXR in pre-serving intestinal microbial health, involving Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, Bacteroides acidifaciens, and Helicobacter hepaticus. Our study validates the effectiveness of GW4064 in alleviating LPS-induced disruptions to the intestinal barrier and colon carcinogenesis, emphasizing the importance of the FXR/αKlotho/βKlotho/FGFs pathway and the interplay between bile acids and gut microbiota.

Graphically-rich applications such as games are ubiquitous with attractive visual effects of Graphical User Interface (GUI) that offers a bridge between software applications and end-users. However, various types of graphical glitches may arise from such GUI complexity and have become one of the main component of software compatibility issues. Our study on bug reports from game development teams in NetEase Inc. indicates that graphical glitches frequently occur during the GUI rendering and severely degrade the quality of graphically-rich applications such as video games. Existing automated testing techniques for such applications focus mainly on generating various GUI test sequences and check whether the test sequences can cause crashes. These techniques require constant human attention to captures non-crashing bugs such as bugs causing graphical glitches. In this paper, we present the first step in automating the test oracle for detecting non-crashing bugs in graphically-rich applications. Specifically, we propose GLIB based on a code-based data augmentation technique to detect game GUI glitches. We perform an evaluation of GLIB on 20 real-world game apps (with bug reports available) and the result shows that GLIB can achieve 100\% precision and 99.5\% recall in detecting non-crashing bugs such as game GUI glitches. Practical application of GLIB on another 14 real-world games (without bug reports) further demonstrates that GLIB can effectively uncover GUI glitches, with 48 of 53 bugs reported by GLIB having been confirmed and fixed so far.

Epoxy asphalt (EA) concrete is widely used in constructing long-span steel bridge pavements (SBDPs). This study aims to derive a fatigue damage evolution law, conducting an experimental investigation of SBDP. First, a general theoretical form of the fatigue damage evolution law of materials is established based on the thermal motion of atoms. Then, fatigue experiments demonstrate that this evolution law well represents the known damage–life relationships of SBDP. Taking into account the experimental relationships between damage and fatigue life under symmetrical cyclic loadings with different overload amplitudes and temperature variations, a detailed damage evolution law is deduced. Finally, the role of damage accumulation is discussed on the basis of the proposed damage evolution law for the extreme situation of heavy overload and severe environments. The results show that both heavy loading and falling temperatures increase the fatigue damage of SBDP considerably; therefore, SBDP should avoid heavy loading combined with winter temperatures. EA shows a fatigue life two to three times longer than that of modified matrix asphalt (SMA) or guss asphalt (GA). For the same thickness, EA pavement is demonstrated to be more suitable for an anti-fatigue design of large-span SBDP under high traffic flows and low temperatures.

Recently, the difficulties in recycling and environmental pollution caused by metal-based electrode materials have limited the further development of batteries. Therefore, biomass carbon materials, with their environmental friendliness and stable performance, are the key to solving this problem. Many advances have been achieved by researchers for the application of biomass porous carbon materials in batteries. Nevertheless, the same biomass carbon materials in batteries face problems such as low utilization, low yield, and a cumbersome preparation process. This paper thus aims to summarize the recent progress of biomass carbon materials in the field of batteries and provide a detailed description of the battery performance of biomass carbon materials from three perspectives: synthesis, structure and application of carbon materials. We believe that biomass carbon composites are in line with future development and have a broad application prospect. Finally, we will give our in-depth prospect on developing biomass carbon materials.

The main objective of this work is to study the effects of carbon nanotubes (CNT) on the strength and electrical properties of cement mortar. Molecular dynamic simulations (MDS) were carried out for the mechanical and electrical properties of the cementitious composite and the associated mechanisms. To model the atomic structure of the Calcium-Silicate-Hydrates (C-S-H) gel, tobermorite 11Å was chosen. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) embedded in tobermorite structure were tested numerically. In particular, the effect of the concentration of CNT in cement paste was studied. An innovative experiment of electrical characterization of a cementitious composite of carbon nanotubes has been developed.

ALDH+ H1975 lung adenocarcinoma stem cells (LSCs) are a rare cell population identified in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). LSCs can self-renew, drive tumor initiation, growth, metastasis, and recurrence, and are also the predominant cause of poor prognosis due to their intrinsic resistance to drugs and chemotherapy. Consequently, LSCs are a promising target for LUAD therapy. Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), including microRNAs (miRNAs), long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), and circular RNAs (circRNAs), exert many significant regulatory functions in the pathogenesis of human cancers, showing the necessity for a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that underlie lung carcinogenesis. Nonetheless, research on many known transcripts and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) has already generated new information. Unknown biomarkers in ncRNAs and systematic and comprehensive interrelation with unknown ncRNAs and mRNAs may provide further insights into the biology of LUAD. Herein, a set of novel ncRNAs that include miRNAs, lncRNAs, circRNAs, were identified and differentially expressed patterns of ncRNAs and mRNAs in LSCs and ALDH- H1975 LUAD tumor cells (LTCs) were obtained using stringent bioinformatics pipelines. Through a meta-analysis of the identified landscapes, novel competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks were constructed to reveal the potential molecular mechanisms that regulate the hallmarks of LSCs and LTCs. This study presents a summary of novel ncRNAs and the fundamental roles of differentially expressed ncRNAs implicated in the activity of LSCs and LTCs. In addition, the study also provides a comprehensive resource for the future identification of diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic biomarkers in LUAD.

The reduction of biodiversity loss is one of the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The protection of endangered species is critical for conserving global biodiversity. Asian elephants，as one of the last few mega-herbivores on Earth, are currently threatened by climate changes and anthropogenic modifications. The modelling of their living habitats is of top priority to the conservation of Asian elephant. In this study, we used the maximum entropy model (MaxEnt) to identify the current and potential future habitats of Asian elephants in South and Southeast Asia. We performed analyses for future projections with 17 scenarios by using the present results as baseline. To optimise the modelling results, we delineated the core habitats by using the Core Mapper Tool and compared them with existing protected areas (PAs) through gap analysis. The results showed that the current total area of core habitats is 491,455 km2 in size and will be reduced to 332,544 km2 by 2090 under SSP585 (the shared socioeconomic pathway). The projection analysis under differential scenarios suggested that most of the core habitats in the current protected areas would remain stable and suitable for elephants in the future. However, the remaining 75.17% of the core habitats lay outside the current PAs, and finally we mapped approximately 219,545 km2 of suitable habitats as priority protected areas in the future. Although our model did not perform well in some regions, our analyses and findings still could provide useful references to the planning of protected areas and conservation of Asian elephant.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) ethanol fermentation has left an indelible trace in human history. It is regarded as the original beverage synthesis, and has developed into an essential energy supply for mankind today. However, the history of ethanol synthesis using S. cerevisiae, including the mechanism analysis process, has not been carefully and succinctly reported. In this paper, we review the history of ethanol synthesis using S. cerevisiae. In addition, we also review the substrates that drive S. cerevisiae ethanol synthesis, including the utilization of glucose, sucrose, starch and molasses, in order to summarize the current development status and to contribute to the further improvement of this field.

To explore the expression characteristics and biological functions of related genes of medicago terrestris under long day conditions, and to lay a foundation for revealing the molecular mechanism of medicago terrestris under long day conditions. The leaves of 'R108' tribulus Medicago sativa at branch stage (A), bud stage (B), initial flowering stage (C) and full flowering stage (D) were sequenced by RNA-Seq technology. The genome of Medicago sativa, a related species of Tribulus tribulus, was used as a reference genome for sequence comparison. The transcriptomes of three adjacent periods (A vs B, B vs C, C vs D) were analyzed for differentially expressed genes and photoperiod related differentially expressed genes were screened. A total of 6875 differentially expressed genes were detected. GO functional analysis showed that differentially expressed genes were mainly involved in biological processes, cell components and molecular functions, among which the most differentially expressed genes were involved in cell components. KEGG enrichment analysis showed that differentially expressed genes were mainly involved in circadian rhythm, photosynthesis - antenna protein, ribosome metabolism and other pathways. The number of single nucleotide variants detected by cSNP analysis was 312875, and the frequency of A/G and C/T were the highest. The function of eggNOG was divided into 23 categories, with a total of 26745 genes having similarities, 9008 genes were classified as function unknown, 2669 genes were classified as signal transduction mechanism, 2194 genes were classified as transcription, etc. In different developmental stages (A vs B, B vs C, C vs D), 3463 up-regulated and 3412 down-regulated differentially expressed genes were found. The difference between up-regulated and down-regulated genes was the most obvious between bud stage and initial flowering stage. In addition, a total of 79 flowering genes were found, of which 51 differential genes were screened out to participate in photoperiodic regulation pathway, 23 differential genes were up-regulated, and 28 differential genes were down-regulated. The ratio of gene-LOC11410562(GI), gene-LOC11435974(CO), gene-LOC11422615(TOC1) and gene-LOC11432385(LHY) was higher than that of gene-LOC25500742(PHYA) and gene-LOC11 431402(ELF3), gene-LOC11434778(Col13), gene-LOC25498015(Col6), and gene-LOC11415514(Col9) were preexpressed. The above differentially expressed genes were significantly expressed in different development stages of Terrestris alfalfa, which laid a foundation for further study of the molecular mechanism of Terrestris alfalfa.

While pioglitazone reduces insulin resistance and hepatic gluconeogenesis effectively in patients with T2DM, these benefits remained controversial in patients with ESRD. We compared MACCEs and mortality (overall, infection-related, and MACCE-related) of pioglitazone to that of DPP4-inhibitors in patients with T2DM and ESRD. From Taiwan’s national health insurance database, 647 pioglitazone users and 6080 DPP4-inhibitors users between April 1st, 2006 and December 31th, 2016 were followed from the 91th date after the ESRD certification till study outcomes, independently; withdraw from the NHI program, death, or Dec. 31th, 2017. After weighting, risks of MACCEs (10.48% vs 12.62% per person-years, [HR]: 0.85, 95% [CI]: 0.729–0.985) and all-cause mortality (12.86% vs 13.22% per person-years, [HR]: 0.88, 95% [CI]: 0.771–0.995) are significantly lower in pioglitazone group. Subgroup analysis found lower MACCEs risk in the pioglitazone users without insulin therapy (6.44% vs 10.04% [HR]: 0.59, 95% [CI]: 0.42–0.82) and lower MACCEs related death (2.76% vs 3.84% [HR]: 0.61, 95% [CI]: 0.40–0.95) in the pioglitazone group with dyslipidemia, when comparing with DPP4-inhibitors users. Pioglitazone is associated with lower all-cause mortality and MACCEs in diabetic patients with ESRD, compared to DPP4-inhibitors. These benefits were further significant in the non-insulin users and patients with dyslipidemia.

High-performance poly(1,4-butylene terephthalate (PBT) nanocomposites have been developed via the consideration of phosphorus-containing agents and amino-carbon nanotube (A-CNT). One-pot functionalization method has been adopted to prepare functionalized CNTs via the reaction between A-CNT and different oxidation state phosphorus-containing agents, including chlorodiphenylphosphine (DPP-Cl), diphenylphosphinic chloride (DPP(O)-Cl), and diphenyl phosphoryl chloride (DPP(O3)-Cl). These functionalized CNTs, DPP(Ox)-A-CNTs (x = 0, 1, 3), were respectively mixed with PBT to obtain the CNTs-based polymer nanocomposites through a melt blending method. SEM observations demonstrated that DPP(Ox)-A-CNT nano-additives were homogeneously distributed within PBT matrix compared to A-CNT. The incorporation of DPP(Ox)-A-CNT improved the thermal stability of PBT. Moreover, PBT/DPP(O3)-A-CNT showed the highest crystallization temperature and tensile strength, due to the superior dispersion and interfacial interactions between DPP(O3)-A-CNT and PBT. PBT/DPP(O)-A-CNT exhibited the best flame retardancy resulting from the excellent carbonization effect. The radicals generated from decomposed polymer were effectively trapped by DPP(O)-A-CNT, leading to the reduction of heat release rate, smoke production rate, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide release during cone calorimeter tests.