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Nick K. Jones1,2*, Lucy Rivett1,2*, Chris Workman3, Mark Ferris3, Ashley Shaw1, Cambridge COVID-19 Collaboration1,4, Paul J. Lehner1,4, Rob Howes5, Giles Wright3, Nicholas J. Matheson1,4,6¶, Michael P. Weekes1,7¶1 Cambridge University NHS Hospitals Foundation Trust, Cambridge, UK2 Clinical Microbiology & Public Health Laboratory, Public Health England, Cambridge, UK3 Occupational Health and Wellbeing, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, UK4 Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK5 Cambridge COVID-19 Testing Centre and AstraZeneca, Anne Mclaren Building, Cambridge, UK6 NHS Blood and Transplant, Cambridge, UK7 Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK*Joint first authorship¶Joint last authorshipCorrespondence: mpw1001@cam.ac.ukThe UK has initiated mass COVID-19 immunisation, with healthcare workers (HCWs) given early priority because of the potential for workplace exposure and risk of onward transmission to patients. The UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has recommended maximising the number of people vaccinated with first doses at the expense of early booster vaccinations, based on single dose efficacy against symptomatic COVID-19 disease.1-3At the time of writing, three COVID-19 vaccines have been granted emergency use authorisation in the UK, including the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (Pfizer-BioNTech). A vital outstanding question is whether this vaccine prevents or promotes asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, rather than symptomatic COVID-19 disease, because sub-clinical infection following vaccination could continue to drive transmission. This is especially important because many UK HCWs have received this vaccine, and nosocomial COVID-19 infection has been a persistent problem.Through the implementation of a 24 h-turnaround PCR-based comprehensive HCW screening programme at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUHNFT), we previously demonstrated the frequent presence of pauci- and asymptomatic infection amongst HCWs during the UK’s first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.4 Here, we evaluate the effect of first-dose BNT162b2 vaccination on test positivity rates and cycle threshold (Ct) values in the asymptomatic arm of our programme, which now offers weekly screening to all staff.Vaccination of HCWs at CUHNFT began on 8th December 2020, with mass vaccination from 8th January 2021. Here, we analyse data from the two weeks spanning 18thto 31st January 2021, during which: (a) the prevalence of COVID-19 amongst HCWs remained approximately constant; and (b) we screened comparable numbers of vaccinated and unvaccinated HCWs. Over this period, 4,408 (week 1) and 4,411 (week 2) PCR tests were performed from individuals reporting well to work. We stratified HCWs <12 days or > 12 days post-vaccination because this was the point at which protection against symptomatic infection began to appear in phase III clinical trial.226/3,252 (0·80%) tests from unvaccinated HCWs were positive (Ct<36), compared to 13/3,535 (0·37%) from HCWs <12 days post-vaccination and 4/1,989 (0·20%) tests from HCWs ≥12 days post-vaccination (p=0·023 and p=0·004, respectively; Fisher’s exact test, Figure). This suggests a four-fold decrease in the risk of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection amongst HCWs ≥12 days post-vaccination, compared to unvaccinated HCWs, with an intermediate effect amongst HCWs <12 days post-vaccination.A marked reduction in infections was also seen when analyses were repeated with: (a) inclusion of HCWs testing positive through both the symptomatic and asymptomatic arms of the programme (56/3,282 (1·71%) unvaccinated vs 8/1,997 (0·40%) ≥12 days post-vaccination, 4·3-fold reduction, p=0·00001); (b) inclusion of PCR tests which were positive at the limit of detection (Ct>36, 42/3,268 (1·29%) vs 15/2,000 (0·75%), 1·7-fold reduction, p=0·075); and (c) extension of the period of analysis to include six weeks from December 28th to February 7th 2021 (113/14,083 (0·80%) vs 5/4,872 (0·10%), 7·8-fold reduction, p=1x10-9). In addition, the median Ct value of positive tests showed a non-significant trend towards increase between unvaccinated HCWs and HCWs > 12 days post-vaccination (23·3 to 30·3, Figure), suggesting that samples from vaccinated individuals had lower viral loads.We therefore provide real-world evidence for a high level of protection against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection after a single dose of BNT162b2 vaccine, at a time of predominant transmission of the UK COVID-19 variant of concern 202012/01 (lineage B.1.1.7), and amongst a population with a relatively low frequency of prior infection (7.2% antibody positive).5This work was funded by a Wellcome Senior Clinical Research Fellowship to MPW (108070/Z/15/Z), a Wellcome Principal Research Fellowship to PJL (210688/Z/18/Z), and an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship (MR/P008801/1) and NHSBT workpackage (WPA15-02) to NJM. Funding was also received from Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust and the Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. We also acknowledge contributions from all staff at CUHNFT Occupational Health and Wellbeing and the Cambridge COVID-19 Testing Centre.

Scene flow tracks the three-dimensional (3D) motion of each point in adjacent point clouds. It provides fundamental 3D motion perception for autonomous driving and server robot. Although the Red Green Blue Depth (RGBD) camera or Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) capture discrete 3D points in space, the objects and motions usually are continuous in the macro world. That is, the objects keep themselves consistent as they flow from the current frame to the next frame. Based on this insight, the Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) is utilized to self-learn 3D scene flow with no need for ground truth. The fake point cloud of the second frame is synthesized from the predicted scene flow and the point cloud of the first frame. The adversarial training of the generator and discriminator is realized through synthesizing indistinguishable fake point cloud and discriminating the real point cloud and the synthesized fake point cloud. The experiments on Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Toyota Technological Institute (KITTI) scene flow dataset show that our method realizes promising results without ground truth. Just as human, the proposed method can identify the similar local structures of two adjacent frames even without knowing the ground truth scene flow. Then, the local correspondence can be correctly estimated, and further the scene flow is correctly estimated.   Corresponding author(s) Email: wanghesheng@sjtu.edu.cn

Leukocyte differential test is a widely performed clinical procedure for screening infectious diseases. Existing hematology analyzers require labor-intensive work and a panel of expensive reagents. Here we report an artificial-intelligence enabled reagent-free imaging hematology analyzer (AIRFIHA) modality that can accurately classify subpopulations of leukocytes with minimal sample preparation. AIRFIHA is realized through training a two-step residual neural network using label-free images of isolated leukocytes acquired from a custom-built quantitative phase microscope. By leveraging the rich information contained in quantitative phase images, we not only achieved high accuracy in differentiating B and T lymphocytes, but also classified CD4 and CD8 cells, therefore outperforming the classification accuracy of most current hematology analyzers. We validated the performance of AIRFIHA in a randomly selected test set and cross-validated it across all blood donors. Owing to its easy operation, low cost, and accurate discerning capability of complex leukocyte subpopulations, we envision AIRFIHA is clinically translatable and can also be deployed in resource-limited settings, e.g., during pandemic situations for the rapid screening of infectious diseases.  Corresponding author(s) Email:    rjzhou@cuhk.edu.hk,  rishikesh.pandey@uconn.edu

Tam Hunt [1], Jonathan SchoolerUniversity of California Santa Barbara Synchronization, harmonization, vibrations, or simply resonance in its most general sense seems to have an integral relationship with consciousness itself. One of the possible “neural correlates of consciousness” in mammalian brains is a combination of gamma, beta and theta synchrony. More broadly, we see similar kinds of resonance patterns in living and non-living structures of many types. What clues can resonance provide about the nature of consciousness more generally? This paper provides an overview of resonating structures in the fields of neuroscience, biology and physics and attempts to coalesce these data into a solution to what we see as the “easy part” of the Hard Problem, which is generally known as the “combination problem” or the “binding problem.” The combination problem asks: how do micro-conscious entities combine into a higher-level macro-consciousness? The proposed solution in the context of mammalian consciousness suggests that a shared resonance is what allows different parts of the brain to achieve a phase transition in the speed and bandwidth of information flows between the constituent parts. This phase transition allows for richer varieties of consciousness to arise, with the character and content of that consciousness in each moment determined by the particular set of constituent neurons. We also offer more general insights into the ontology of consciousness and suggest that consciousness manifests as a relatively smooth continuum of increasing richness in all physical processes, distinguishing our view from emergentist materialism. We refer to this approach as a (general) resonance theory of consciousness and offer some responses to Chalmers’ questions about the different kinds of “combination problem.”  At the heart of the universe is a steady, insistent beat: the sound of cycles in sync…. [T]hese feats of synchrony occur spontaneously, almost as if nature has an eerie yearning for order. Steven Strogatz, Sync: How Order Emerges From Chaos in the Universe, Nature and Daily Life (2003) If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.Nikola Tesla (1942) I.               Introduction Is there an “easy part” and a “hard part” to the Hard Problem of consciousness? In this paper, we suggest that there is. The harder part is arriving at a philosophical position with respect to the relationship of matter and mind. This paper is about the “easy part” of the Hard Problem but we address the “hard part” briefly in this introduction.  We have both arrived, after much deliberation, at the position of panpsychism or panexperientialism (all matter has at least some associated mind/experience and vice versa). This is the view that all things and processes have both mental and physical aspects. Matter and mind are two sides of the same coin.  Panpsychism is one of many possible approaches that addresses the “hard part” of the Hard Problem. We adopt this position for all the reasons various authors have listed (Chalmers 1996, Griffin 1997, Hunt 2011, Goff 2017). This first step is particularly powerful if we adopt the Whiteheadian version of panpsychism (Whitehead 1929).  Reaching a position on this fundamental question of how mind relates to matter must be based on a “weight of plausibility” approach, rather than on definitive evidence, because establishing definitive evidence with respect to the presence of mind/experience is difficult. We must generally rely on examining various “behavioral correlates of consciousness” in judging whether entities other than ourselves are conscious – even with respect to other humans—since the only consciousness we can know with certainty is our own. Positing that matter and mind are two sides of the same coin explains the problem of consciousness insofar as it avoids the problems of emergence because under this approach consciousness doesn’t emerge. Consciousness is, rather, always present, at some level, even in the simplest of processes, but it “complexifies” as matter complexifies, and vice versa. Consciousness starts very simple and becomes more complex and rich under the right conditions, which in our proposed framework rely on resonance mechanisms. Matter and mind are two sides of the coin. Neither is primary; they are coequal.  We acknowledge the challenges of adopting this perspective, but encourage readers to consider the many compelling reasons to consider it that are reviewed elsewhere (Chalmers 1996, Griffin 1998, Hunt 2011, Goff 2017, Schooler, Schooler, & Hunt, 2011; Schooler, 2015).  Taking a position on the overarching ontology is the first step in addressing the Hard Problem. But this leads to the related questions: at what level of organization does consciousness reside in any particular process? Is a rock conscious? A chair? An ant? A bacterium? Or are only the smaller constituents, such as atoms or molecules, of these entities conscious? And if there is some degree of consciousness even in atoms and molecules, as panpsychism suggests (albeit of a very rudimentary nature, an important point to remember), how do these micro-conscious entities combine into the higher-level and obvious consciousness we witness in entities like humans and other mammals?  This set of questions is known as the “combination problem,” another now-classic problem in the philosophy of mind, and is what we describe here as the “easy part” of the Hard Problem. Our characterization of this part of the problem as “easy”[2] is, of course, more than a little tongue in cheek. The authors have discussed frequently with each other what part of the Hard Problem should be labeled the easier part and which the harder part. Regardless of the labels we choose, however, this paper focuses on our suggested solution to the combination problem.  Various solutions to the combination problem have been proposed but none have gained widespread acceptance. This paper further elaborates a proposed solution to the combination problem that we first described in Hunt 2011 and Schooler, Hunt, and Schooler 2011. The proposed solution rests on the idea of resonance, a shared vibratory frequency, which can also be called synchrony or field coherence. We will generally use resonance and “sync,” short for synchrony, interchangeably in this paper. We describe the approach as a general resonance theory of consciousness or just “general resonance theory” (GRT). GRT is a field theory of consciousness wherein the various specific fields associated with matter and energy are the seat of conscious awareness.  A summary of our approach appears in Appendix 1.  All things in our universe are constantly in motion, in process. Even objects that appear to be stationary are in fact vibrating, oscillating, resonating, at specific frequencies. So all things are actually processes. Resonance is a specific type of motion, characterized by synchronized oscillation between two states.  An interesting phenomenon occurs when different vibrating processes come into proximity: they will often start vibrating together at the same frequency. They “sync up,” sometimes in ways that can seem mysterious, and allow for richer and faster information and energy flows (Figure 1 offers a schematic). Examining this phenomenon leads to potentially deep insights about the nature of consciousness in both the human/mammalian context but also at a deeper ontological level.

Cannabis sativa is an extraordinarily versatile species. Hemp and its cousin marijuana, both C. sativa, have been used for millennia as a source of fibre, oil and for medicinal, spiritual and recreational purposes. Because the consumption of Cannabis can have psychoactive effects, the plant has been widely banned throughout the last century. In the past decade, evidence of its medicinal properties did lead to the relaxation of legislation in many countries around the world. Consequently, the genetics and development of Cannabis as well as Cannabis-derived products are the subject of renewed attention.Here, we review the biology of C. sativa, including recent insights from taxonomy, morphology and genomics, with an emphasis on the genetics of cannabinoid synthesis. Because the female Cannabis flower is of special interest as the site of cannabinoid synthesis, we explore flower development, flowering time well as the species’ unique sex determination system in detail. Furthermore, we outline the tremendous medicinal, engineering, and environmental opportunities that Cannabis bears. Together, the picture emerges that our understanding of Cannabis biology currently progresses at an unusual speed. A future challenge will be to preserve the multi-purpose nature of Cannabis, and to harness its medicinal properties and sustainability advantages simultaneously.

Quantum chemistry must evolve if it wants to fully leverage the benefits of the internet age, where the world wide web offers a vast tapestry of tools that enable users to communicate and interact with complex data at the speed and convenience of a button press. The Open Chemistry project has developed an open source framework that offers an end-to-end solution for producing, sharing, and visualizing quantum chemical data interactively on the web using an array of modern tools and approaches. These tools build on some of the best open source community projects such as Jupyter for interactive online notebooks, coupled with 3D accelerated visualization, state-of-the-art computational chemistry codes including NWChem and Psi4 and emerging machine learning and data mining tools such as ChemML and ANI. They offer flexible formats to import and export data, along with approaches to compare computational and experimental data.

This paper responds to one by Graham Martin and colleagues, who offered a critique of my previous publications on masks for the lay public in the Covid-19 pandemic. I address their charges that my co-authors and I had misapplied the precautionary principle; drawn conclusions that were not supported by empirical research; and failed to take account of potential harms. But before that, I remind Martin et al that the evidence on mask wearing goes beyond the contested trials and observational studies they place centre stage. I set out some key findings from basic science, epidemiology, mathematical modelling, case studies and natural experiments, and use this rich and diverse body of evidence as the backdrop for my rebuttal of their narrowly-framed objections. I challenge my critics’ apparent assumption that a particular kind of systematic review should be valorised over narrative and real-world evidence, since stories are crucial to both our scientific understanding and our moral imagination. I conclude by thanking my academic adversaries for the intellectual sparring match, but exhort them to remember our professional accountability to a society in crisis. It is time to lay straw men to rest and engage, scientifically and morally, with the dreadful tragedy that is unfolding across the world.

This Supporting information includes interactive plots, videos, and data captured while performing evaluation and validation experiments for our paper. 

The construct of wellbeing has been criticised as a neoliberal construction of western individualism that ignores wider systemic issues including increasing burden of chronic disease, widening inequality, concerns over environmental degradation and anthropogenic climate change. While these criticisms overlook recent developments, there remains a need for biopsychosocial models that extend theoretical grounding beyond individual wellbeing, incorporating overlapping contextual issues relating to community and environment. Our first GENIAL model \cite{Kemp_2017} provided a more expansive view of pathways to longevity in the context of individual health and wellbeing, emphasising bidirectional links to positive social ties and the impact of sociocultural factors. In this paper, we build on these ideas and propose GENIAL 2.0, focusing on intersecting individual-community-environmental contributions to health and wellbeing, and laying an evidence-based, theoretical framework on which future research and innovative therapeutic innovations could be based. We suggest that our transdisciplinary model of wellbeing - focusing on individual, community and environmental contributions to personal wellbeing - will help to move the research field forward. In reconceptualising wellbeing, GENIAL 2.0 bridges the gap between psychological science and population health health systems, and presents opportunities for enhancing the health and wellbeing of people living with chronic conditions. Implications for future generations including the very survival of our species are discussed.  

Floral plantings are promoted to foster ecological intensification of agriculture through provisioning of ecosystem services. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of different floral plantings, their characteristics and consequences for crop yield across global regions is lacking. Here we quantified the impacts of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control and pollination services in adjacent crops using a global dataset of 529 sites. Flower strips, but not hedgerows, enhanced pest control services in adjacent fields by 16% on average. However, effects on crop pollination and yield were more variable. Our synthesis identifies several important drivers of variability in effectiveness of plantings: pollination services declined exponentially with distance from plantings, and perennial and older flower strips with higher flowering plant diversity enhanced pollination more effectively. These findings provide promising pathways to optimize floral plantings to more effectively contribute to ecosystem service delivery and ecological intensification of agriculture in the future.

Researchers' ability to accurately screen fossil and subfossil specimens for preservation of DNA and protein sequences remains limited. Thermal exposure and geologic age are usable proxies for sequence preservation on a broad scale but are of nominal use for specimens of similar depositional environments. Cell and tissue biomolecular histology is thus proposed as a novel proxy for determining sequence preservation potential of ancient specimens with improved accuracy. Biomolecular histology as a proxy is hypothesized to elucidate why fossils/subfossils of some depositional environments preserve sequences while others do not and to facilitate selection of ancient specimens for use in molecular studies.

IntroductionConsistent with World Health Organization (WHO) advice [1], UK Infection Protection Control guidance recommends that healthcare workers (HCWs) caring for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) should use fluid resistant surgical masks type IIR (FRSMs) as respiratory protective equipment (RPE), unless aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) are being undertaken or are likely, when a filtering face piece 3 (FFP3) respirator should be used [2]. In a recent update, an FFP3 respirator is recommended if “an unacceptable risk of transmission remains following rigorous application of the hierarchy of control” [3]. Conversely, guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that HCWs caring for patients with COVID-19 should use an N95 or higher level respirator [4]. WHO guidance suggests that a respirator, such as FFP3, may be used for HCWs in the absence of AGPs if availability or cost is not an issue [1].A recent systematic review undertaken for PHE concluded that: “patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection who are breathing, talking or coughing generate both respiratory droplets and aerosols, but FRSM (and where required, eye protection) are considered to provide adequate staff protection” [5]. Nevertheless, FFP3 respirators are more effective in preventing aerosol transmission than FRSMs, and observational data suggests that they may improve protection for HCWs [6]. It has therefore been suggested that respirators should be considered as a means of affording the best available protection [7], and some organisations have decided to provide FFP3 (or equivalent) respirators to HCWs caring for COVID-19 patients, despite a lack of mandate from local or national guidelines [8].Data from the HCW testing programme at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUHNFT) during the first wave of the UK severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic indicated a higher incidence of infection amongst HCWs caring for patients with COVID-19, compared with those who did not [9]. Subsequent studies have confirmed this observation [10, 11]. This disparity persisted at CUHNFT in December 2020, despite control measures consistent with PHE guidance and audits indicating good compliance. The CUHNFT infection control committee therefore implemented a change of RPE for staff on “red” (COVID-19) wards from FRSMs to FFP3 respirators. In this study, we analyse the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in HCWs before and after this transition.

To effectively extract various types of fault characteristics of HVDC systems and significantly improve the accuracy of fault diagnosis of HVDC systems, this paper proposes a fault diagnosis method for HVDC systems based on long short-term memory network (LSTM) relying on the knowledge graph platform. The LSTM model is developed using the measured data of four types of faults in an HVDC substation in southwest China. Primarily, the knowledge graph for the HVDC system is constructed. Then the fault waveforms data for the four types of faults are preprocessed and divided into the training set and test set. Furthermore, different optimizers are used to train and test the LSTM. Finally, the accuracy of fault diagnosis for the proposed strategy is calculated and compared with the commonly used fault diagnosis methods, i.e., recurrent neural network (RNN), support vector machine (SVM), and Naive Bayes classifier. The results show that the proposed method can achieve an accuracy of more than 87% for fault diagnosis of HVDC systems, which fully proves the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Astroblastoma is a rare brain tumor that has recently emerged as a new entity in the 2021 WHO classification of tumors of the central nervous system (CNS), based on its peculiar histopathologic feature and association with MN1 alteration. We report an unique case of MN1- altered astroblastoma with concomitant ATM germline mutation. A 10-year-old girl presented with nausea and vomiting due to a large temporal parietal tumor. Gross total resection was achieved and the integrated molecular diagnosis of MN1-altered astroblastoma was made based on DNA methylation profiling. Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) confirmed a MN1-BEND2 fusion and germline sequencing revealed an ATM gene heterozygous pathogenic variant. Radiation therapy was deferred given the possible association of heterozygous ATM mutation with increased risk of breast cancer and radiosensitivity. This case highlights the therapeutic implications of germline molecular findings in the treatment of astroblastoma and the need for further investigations to define a more standardized approach for treating this rare pediatric tumor.

Benign penile nodules in infants can cause distress to mothers and diagnostic challenges for physicians. Smegma pearls, characterized by desquamated epithelial cells, are a common type of benign nodule that can be managed with reassurance. We present similar case which presented to the rural primary care centre in Nepal.

The “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2” (SARS-CoV-2) causes potentially fatal disease.The Covid-19 vaccine is the most effective weapon to reduce the virus spread. We describe a rare post-vaccine effect like Guillian Barré Syndrome. We reported a 66-years-old female patient with acute manifestations four weeks after vaccine administration.

In this paper, we carry out the equivalence problem for fifth-order differential operators on the line under general fiber-preserving transformation using the Cartan method of equivalence. Two versions of equivalence problems have been solved. We consider the direct equivalence problem and an equivalence problem to determine the sufficient and necessary conditions on fifth-order differential operators such that there exists a fiber--preserving transformation mapping one to the other according to gauge equivalence.

INTRODUCTIONScheuermann’s kyphosis is a structural deformity of the spine that affects roughly 2.2% of the global population ranging from 0.4 to 10% [1, 2]. Scheuermann’s kyphosis results in progressive thoracic and/or thoracolumbar hyperkyphosis in the spinal structure; consequently, ends in severe back pain in the afflicted population [3]. The structural deformity root in osteonecrosis of vertebral apophyses resulting in wedging of at least three adjacent vertebrae [1]. Another theory for the pathophysiology of this disease is alterations in endochondral ossification [4].Patients with Scheuermann’s kyphosis are classified into typical and atypical. Typical cases have thoracic spine involvement, while atypical Scheuermann’s kyphosis cases have wedging in lumbar or thoracolumbar regions [5, 6]. The management of atypical cases initiate with conservative treatments such as bracing and analgesics, but for thoracolumbar curves greater than 25 to 30 degrees, surgical interventions are indicated, whereas the cutoff value for surgical interventions in thoracic Scheuermann’s kyphosis is curvatures greater than 70 to 75 degrees [7]. However, surgical treatment of atypical Scheuermann’s kyphosis is associated with multiple adverse effects, most importantly, junctional kyphosis [8]. It has been shown that spinal sagittal balance does not change significantly after surgical interventions, and is not correlated with preoperative thoracolumbar kyphosis [9, 10]. In this article, we present a case of atypical Scheuermann’s kyphosis who underwent surgical intervention with anterior release and posterior fusion with a 2-year follow-up and excellent outcome without any complications or adjacent segment disease.

Within the framework of radioactive waste management, the evolution of the gaseous composition inside the underground repository structures must be understood. Indeed, chemical and microbial reactions and exchanges occur between the rock, the structures and the air. These processes are studied in the Andra’s Meuse/Haute-Marne Underground Research Laboratory’s (URL). Recently, a gas monitoring station “Flair soil™” has been designed to monitor the gaseous composition inside this URL. This station is composed by two analyzers: a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) which allows to follow the evolution of several gases and an infrared laser spectroscope (Picarro) providing simultaneous measurements of CH4, CO2 and CO. Thus, a multivariate calibration method for the quantitative detection of interfering and non-interfering gases in a nitrogen matrix has been developed for the QMS. The MS was calibrated from pure gases in a nitrogen matrix, with known concentrations and ion currents obtained from the measurement of each species of gas. This method uses matrix calculations to calculate the relative concentrations of an unknown gas mixture from the ion currents measured directly in the MS. The test gases T1 and T2 were used to assess the accuracy of the method. Daily ion currents are corrected from theoretical ion currents obtained from calibration coefficients and test gas concentrations. Some gases are less well quantified due to their low concentration in the test gases and interferences on the measured masses. One of the motivations of this study lay in developing an advanced measurement tool allowing to be low in sensitivity, and thus to improve the detection and quantification of gases at low concentrations. The objective of this paper is to propose an analytical method to measure the gaseous composition with several molecules. This method was able to detect hydrocarbons, noble gases, sulfides, greenhouse gases, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen in the same mixture.

The basic object of investigation is classical Chazy - a nonlinear third-order autonomous differential equation with movable singular line. In this paper, the first integral of Chazy equation is obtained with the help of Backlund transformation, which is a transcendental dependence on the function and its derivatives . The general solution of equation is represented by Laurent series in the punctured neighborhood of point at infinity, and in the domain is represented by Taylor series. It is proved that the obtained Laurent and Taylor series all converge absolutely in their defined domains. Under the situation that the analytic continuation of solutions of differential equation with movable singular line cannot be realized, a necessary and sufficient condition is presented for obtaining the two-parameter rational solution of Chazy equation from its general solution constructed by Taylor series. And the research results can be applied in the analytic theory of ordinary differential equations.

Pastoralist grazing management practices play a vital role in maintaining rangeland productivity and biodiversity. However, the degradation of rangelands and loss of ecosystem services have raised concerns about the future of pastoralism as a form of land use. Despite their importance, we have limited knowledge about the effect of traditional grazing management practices on vegetation attributes, such as species composition, richness, diversity, herbage biomass, and density, and canopy cover. To address this knowledge gap, we studied the changes in vegetation attributes under three traditional grazing management practices in the Somali pastoral ecosystem of Ethiopia. We found a significant difference in herbaceous and woody vegetation attributes among the grazing management practices (p < 0.001). Enclosures supported higher herbaceous species diversity and abundance of desirable species, such as Chloris gayana, Chrysopogon aucheri, Cynodon dactylon, and Themeda triandera, compared to open grazing and browsing management sites. The herbage biomass was three times higher in enclosures than in open grazing and twice higher than in browsing management practices. However, browsing management practices supported significantly higher levels of wood biomass, density, and canopy cover than the other management practices. Our results suggest that transitioning from open grazing to the enclosure and browsing management practices can lead to higher plant productivity, which supports the local pastoral economy in the Somali rangeland of Ethiopia. Thus, dryland restoration programs should consider traditional indigenous knowledge for ensuring the sustainability of future rangeland productivity and biodiversity conservation.

The role of TLR4 (toll like receptor 4), a key molecule of the classical innate immune pathway, in individual tumors requires further exploration. In this study, numerous databases and tools, such as TCGA, GTEx, cBioportal, GSCALite, and GDSC, were utilized to systematically analyze the prognostic and immunological potential of TLR4 in tumors. The expression levels and mutational dynamics of TLR4 in pan-cancer were investigated. The prognostic potential of TLR4 was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier (KM) analysis. Results showed the levels of TLR4 in tumor tissues were significantly lower as compared to those in normal tissues in most cancers and were strongly correlated with the patient’s outcomes. The mutant genes associated with TLR4 were mainly enriched in the PI3K-AKT pathway. This could be a potential pathway for radiotherapy to activate the tumor immune microenvironment via TLR4/MAP. In tumors, the TLR4 mutations were closely associated with the M1/M2 polarization of macrophages. TLR4 and its ligand CD14 were significantly negatively associated with immunosuppressed MDSCs and TAM M2. The intervention of TLR4-dependent signaling pathways might be a promising strategy to reduce tolerance to ICB treatment in the post-immune era. In conclusion, this study expands the potential of TLR4 as an immune target in tumor therapy.

Mitochondria damage is an important cause of heart dysfunction after severe burn. However, the pathophysiological process remains unclear. This study aims to examine the mitochondrial dynamics in the heart after severe burn, and the role of μ-calpain, a cysteine protease, in this scenario. Rats were subjected to thermal injury treatment, and calpain inhibitor MDL28170 was given intravenously 1 h before burn injury. Compared with the sham group, the rats in the burn group displayed weakened heart performance and decreased mean arterial pressure, which was accompanied by a diminishment of mitochondria function. Furthermore, severe burn increased the level of calpain in mitochondria, reflected by immunofluorescence staining and activity test. In contrast, treatment with MDL28170 diminished these responses to a severe burn. Severe burn induced morphological defects of mitochondria, and decreased the abundance of mitochondria. Of note, severe burn increased the percentage of the mitochondria with bigger size, but decreased the smaller ones. Analysis of dynamic proteins revealed that severe burn caused an increase of fission protein DRP1 in the mitochondria and a decrease of inner membrane fusion protein OPA1. Similarly, these alterations were also blocked by MDL28170. Last but not the least, inhibition of calpain yielded the emergence of more elongated mitochondria along with membrane invagination in the middle of the longitude, an indicator of the fission process. Overall, these results for the first time provide evidence that mitochondria recruitment of calpain confers heart dysfunction after severe burn, which involves mitochondrial dynamics damage.

OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively analyze the clinical characteristics of overweight/obese children with asthma and their influence on the degree of asthma control in outpatient clinics of Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University. METHODS: Outpatient medical records of children with bronchial asthma attending the outpatient clinic of the Children’s Hospital of Chongqing Medical University from January 2021 to October 2022 were collected, and the clinical characteristics of overweight/obese children with asthma and their influence on the degree of asthma control were analyzed by the propensity score method. Results: A total of 496 children with bronchial asthma were included. 130 of the 496 children were overweight/obese, 302 of the total population were male (60.9%), and the ratio of male to female children was approximately 1.5:1. All children were from the southwest region of China. The mean age of the children in the total population was 6.10±0.20 years. The risk of poor asthma control was 1.30 times higher in the overweight/obese population compared to the non-obese/overweight population using traditional logistic regression, with a 95% CI of 0.82-2.05. Logistic regression models were constructed using propensity score methods to balance confounding factors, i.e. propensity score weighting and propensity score matching methods, all of which consistently concluded that overweight/obesity was positively associated with asthma control. Obesity was positively associated with asthma control, with the propensity score weighting method yielding an OR=1.2, 95% CI=0.92-1.57 and the propensity score matching method yielding an OR of 1.09, 95% CI=0.61-1.97. Conclusion: Being overweight/obese has an impact on the degree of control in children with asthma, and overweight/obese children are at higher risk of poor asthma control.