Plants Restoration Drives the Gobi Soil Microbial Diversity for Improving Soil Quality.

Desertification and salt stress are major causes of terrestrial ecosystem loss worldwide, and the Gobi, representing a salt-stressed area in inland China, has a major impact on the ecosystems and biodiversity of its surrounding environment. The restoration of the Gobi Desert is an important way to control its expansion, but there are few studies on the evaluation of restoration. In this study, soils under different restoration scenarios, namely, soils in restored areas (R1, R2), semi-restored areas (SR1, SR2), and unrestored control areas (C1, C2), were used to investigate differences in microbial diversity and physicochemical properties.

Impact of perioperative SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection on postoperative complications in liver cancer hepatectomy: A single-center matched study.

Objectives: To explore the effects of perioperative SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection on postoperative complications in patients with liver cancer.

Methods: A propensity-matched study was conducted, which included patients with primary liver cancer who underwent hepatectomy from September 01, 2022 to January 20, 2023. Patients who infected SARS-CoV-2 Omicron during the perioperative period (7 days before to 30 days after surgery) were matched 1:1 with noninfected patients.

Circulating tumor cells participate in the formation of microvascular invasion and impact on clinical outcomes in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignant tumor worldwide. Although the treatment strategies have been improved in recent years, the long-term prognosis of HCC is far from satisfactory mainly due to high postoperative recurrence and metastasis rate. Vascular tumor thrombus, including microvascular invasion (MVI) and portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT), affects the outcome of hepatectomy and liver transplantation.

Outcomes of Liver Cancer Patients Undergoing Elective Surgery after Recovering from Mild SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Infection: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

With the emergence of new virus variants, limited data are available on the impact of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection on surgery outcomes in cancer patients who have been widely vaccinated. This study aimed to determine whether undergoing hepatectomy poses a higher risk of postoperative complications for liver cancer patients who have had mild Omicron infection before surgery. A propensity-matched cohort study was conducted at a tertiary liver center from 8 October 2022 to 13 January 2023.

JAAL-Net: a joint attention and adversarial learning network for skin lesion segmentation.

Skin lesion segmentation plays an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma. Existing skin lesion segmentation methods have trouble distinguishing hairs, air bubbles, and blood vessels around lesions, which affects the segmentation performance.To clarify the lesion boundary and raise the accuracy of skin lesion segmentation, a joint attention and adversarial learning network (JAAL-Net) is proposed that consists of a generator and a discriminator.

Thymosin β4, a potential marker of malignancy and prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: The lack of effective early diagnostic markers is an obstacle in clinical diagnosis and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is an increasing popular approach for identification of clinically relevant parameters including biomarkers.

Patients And Methods: 540 subjects, including 274 HCC, 119 liver cirrhosis, 89 hepatitis, and 58 healthy volunteers were enrolled.

Soil mineralized carbon drives more carbon stock in coniferous-broadleaf mixed plantations compared to pure plantations.

Forest soil carbon (C) sequestration has an important effect on global C dynamics and is regulated by various environmental factors. Mixed and pure plantations are common afforestation choices in north China, but how forest type and environmental factors interact to affect soil C stock remains unclear. We hypothesize that forest type changes soil physicochemical properties and surface biological factors, and further contributes to soil active C components, which together affect soil C sequestration capacity and C dynamic processes.

[Effects of saline-water furrow irrigation on the stability of soil water-stable aggregates in cotton field].

It is of great importance to explore the effects of saline-water furrow irrigation on soil water-stable aggregates for safe and efficient utilization of saline water resources. We conducted a long-term cotton experiment with six levels of saline-water furrow irrigation (1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 g·L) since 2006 and analyzed the variations of soil salinity and water-stable aggregates in the 10th and 15th years under saline irrigation. The results showed that soil salinity in the 0-30 cm layer at the ditch increased with increasing salinity level of irrigation water.

Mobile Robot Path Planning Based on Time Taboo Ant Colony Optimization in Dynamic Environment.

This article aims to improve the problem of slow convergence speed, poor global search ability, and unknown time-varying dynamic obstacles in the path planning of ant colony optimization in dynamic environment. An improved ant colony optimization algorithm using time taboo strategy is proposed, namely, time taboo ant colony optimization (TTACO), which uses adaptive initial pheromone distribution, rollback strategy, and pheromone preferential limited update to improve the algorithm's convergence speed and global search ability. For the poor global search ability of the algorithm and the unknown time-varying problem of dynamic obstacles in a dynamic environment, a time taboo strategy is first proposed, based on which a three-step arbitration method is put forward to improve its weakness in global search.

A UAV-Based Eddy Covariance System for Measurement of Mass and Energy Exchange of the Ecosystem: Preliminary Results.

Airborne eddy covariance (EC) measurement is one of the most effective methods to directly measure the surface mass and energy fluxes at the regional scale. It offers the possibility to bridge the scale gap between local- and global-scale measurements by ground-based sites and remote-sensing instrumentations, and to validate the surface fluxes estimated by satellite products or process-based models. In this study, we developed an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based EC system that can be operated to measure the turbulent fluxes in carbon dioxides, momentum, latent and sensible heat, as well as net radiation and photosynthetically active radiation.

Excess sulfur and Fe elements drive changes in soil and vegetation at abandoned coal gangues, Guizhou China.

Coal gangue piles accumulate outside mines and can persist for years, negatively impacting the regional environment. To determine the main cause of soil pollution at coal gangues, several coal gangues in Guizhou Province, China that had undergone natural recovery via native plants for 8 years were investigated in summer 2019. Three plots (2 m × 2 m) from the coal gangue area were selected for the treatment (GP).

SNHG7 Facilitates Hepatocellular Carcinoma Occurrence by Sequestering miR-9-5p to Upregulate CNNM1 Expression.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, has increased public concern. Data from previous work have validated that long noncoding RNAs are active participators in the malignant processes of a host of cancers. Small nucleolar RNA host gene 7 (SNHG7) has been revealed to act as a tumor promoter in several cancers and SNHG7 inhibition was revealed to suppress cell invasion in HCC.

Soil temperatures and active carbon components as key drivers of C stock dynamics between two different stand ages of plantation.

Forest soils sequester a large amount of carbon (C) and have a significant effect on the global C balance. Forests are commonly managed to maintain certain age structures but the effects of this management on soil C pools (kg C m) is still uncertain. We compared 40-year-old (1GF) and 24-year-old (2GF) plantations of in North China.

Anti-tumor activity and mechanism of oligoclonal hepatocellular carcinoma tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and .

: To explore a method for culturing hepatocellular carcinoma and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (HCC-TIL) and investigate the mechanism of TIL in killing tumors. : The distribution of regulatory T cells (Treg) in HCC was detected by immunohistochemistry. Conventional TIL and oligoclonal TIL were isolated by the traditional method of enzyme digestion combined with mechanical treatment for whole HCC and micro HCC tissue block culturing method.

Dynamics of nitrogen and active nitrogen components across seasons under varying stand densities in a () plantation.

Changes in the concentration of soil nitrogen (N) or its components may directly affect ecosystem functioning in forestry. Thinning of forest stands, a widely used forestry management practice, may transform soil nutrients directly by altering the soil environment, or indirectly by changing above- or belowground plant biomass. The study objectives were to determine how tree stem density affects the soil N pool and what mechanisms drive any potential changes.

Response of soil organic carbon and nitrogen to nitrogen deposition in a Larix principis-rupprechtii plantation.

Plant growth and ecosystem production are limited by nitrogen (N), however, the mechanisms of N limitation in terrestrial carbon (C) sequestration in soil remains unclear. To examine these mechanisms N was deposited at rates of 0, 50, 100, and 150 kg N ha yr for two years in a subalpine Larix principis-rupprechtii plantation. Soil C and N components were measured three times encompassing the entire growing season (spring, summer, and autumn) in the second year of the experiment.

Intrahepatic splenosis mimics hepatocellular carcinoma in a patient with chronic hepatitis B: A case report and literature review.

Background: Splenosis is a benign and relatively uncommon condition caused by trauma or splenectomy or other procedures involving splenic tissue. It is usually asymptomatic, and often diagnosed accidentally, especially misdiagnosed as malignant tumor.

Methods: A 54-year-old man with prior history of chronic hepatitis B virus infection and underwent splenectomy for traumatic splenic rupture following a traffic accident 23 years previously was admitted to our hospital and found a hepatic mass in the right upper quadrant during an imaging examination.

Lovastatin induces apoptosis of HepG-2 cells by activating ROS-dependent mitochondrial and ER stress pathways.

Background: Statins can reduce the malignancies through stimulating apoptosis. We aimed to elucidate the role of lovastatin in HepG-2 cells.

Methods: HepG-2 and non-tumor L-O2 cells were used as the cell models.

Midkine promotes hepatocellular carcinoma metastasis by elevating anoikis resistance of circulating tumor cells.

Midkine is overexpressed in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and plays a role in tumor progression, but less is known about its role in resistance of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to anoikis which leading to recurrence and metastasis. The aim of the present study was to analyze whether midkine was associated with HCC progression with anoikis resistance. We found that cultured HCC cells were more resistant to anoikis, which paralleled midkine expression, and midkine treatment significantly inhibited anoikis in a dose-dependent manner.

Randomized Controlled Trial of Hepatic Portal Reocclusion as a New Option for Detecting Bile Leakage during Hepatic Resection.

Background/aims: To explore the possibility and feasibility of hepatic portal reocclusion for detecting bile leakage during hepatectomy.

Methods: Data were prospectively collected from 200 patients who underwent hepatectomy alone for removal of various benign or malignant tumors between March 2014 and November 2014. The surgical procedure used a conventional method for all patients, and one additional step (hepatic portal reocclusion) was included in group B.

Three-decade long fertilization-induced soil organic carbon sequestration depends on edaphic characteristics in six typical croplands.

Fertilizations affect soil organic carbon (SOC) content but the relative influences of the edaphic and climate factors on SOC storage are rarely studied across wide spatiotemporal scales. This study synthesized long-term datasets of fertilization experiments in six typical Chinese croplands, and calculated annual C input from crops and manure amendments, changes in SOC storage (ΔSOC) and C sequestration efficiency (i.e.

Improved method increases sensitivity for circulating hepatocellular carcinoma cells.

Aim: To improve an asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR)-based enrichment method for detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: Peripheral blood samples were collected from healthy subjects, patients with HCC or various other cancers, and patients with hepatic lesions or hepatitis. CTCs were enriched from whole blood by extracting CD45-expressing leukocytes with monoclonal antibody coated-beads following density gradient centrifugation.