VCSAP: Online reinforcement learning exploration method based on visitation count of state-action pairs.

In the domain of online reinforcement learning, strategies that leverage inherent rewards for exploration tend to achieve commendable outcomes within contexts characterized by deceptive or sparse rewards. Counting through the visitation of states is an efficient count-based exploration method to get the proper intrinsic reward. However, only the novelty of the states encountered by the agent is considered in this exploration method, resulting in the over-exploration of a certain state-action pair and falling into a locally optimal solution.

Mechanisms of Aluminum Toxicity Impacting Root Growth in Shatian Pomelo.

Aluminum (Al) toxicity in acidic soils poses significant challenges to crop growth and development. However, the response mechanism of Shatian pomelo ( 'Shatian Yu') roots to Al toxicity remains poorly understood. This study employed root phenotype analysis, physiological response index measurement, root transcriptome analysis, and quantitative PCR (qPCR) validation to investigate the effects of Al toxicity on Shatian pomelo roots.

Recognition of Sheep Feeding Behavior in Sheepfolds Using Fusion Spectrogram Depth Features and Acoustic Features.

In precision feeding, non-contact and pressure-free monitoring of sheep feeding behavior is crucial for health monitoring and optimizing production management. The experimental conditions and real-world environments differ when using acoustic sensors to identify sheep feeding behaviors, leading to discrepancies and consequently posing challenges for achieving high-accuracy classification in complex production environments. This study enhances the classification performance by integrating the deep spectrogram features and acoustic characteristics associated with feeding behavior.

Arming oncolytic M1 virus with gasdermin E enhances antitumor efficacy in breast cancer.

Pyroptosis, driven by the N-terminal domain of gasdermin proteins (GSDM), promotes antitumor immunity by attracting lymphocytes to the tumor microenvironment (TME). However, current pyroptosis-inducing therapies like drug injections and phototherapy are limited to localized treatments, making them unsuitable for widespread or microscopic metastatic lesions. This study engineered oncolytic M1 viruses (rM1-mGSDME_FL and rM1-mGSDME_NT) to selectively deliver GSDME to tumor cells.

NRF3 suppresses the malignant progression of TNBC by promoting M1 polarization of macrophages via ROS/HMGB1 axis.

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive form of breast cancer. Due to its lack of targeted therapy options, TNBC remains a significant clinical challenge. In this study, we investigated the role of nuclear respiratory factor 3 (NRF3) and high-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) in the progression of TNBC.

Effects of simulated precipitation changes on soil respiration:Progress and prospects.

Soil respiration, the main pathway for transferring terrestrial carbon pool to atmospheric carbon pool, is profoundly affected by the intensification in global precipitation variability in the context of climate change. Nowadays, variable controlling methods and field manipulation experiments are two main methods widely used to investigate the effects of simulated precipitation changes on soil respiration. Yet, due to the heterogeneity of soil properties, vegetation types, and the magnitude of precipitation change, there is substantial inconsistency in the conclusions of simulated precipitation change effects on soil respiration.

Forecasting carbon dioxide emissions in Chongming: a novel hybrid forecasting model coupling gray correlation analysis and deep learning method.

Predicting regional carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is essential for advancing toward global carbon neutrality. This study introduces a novel CO2 emissions prediction model tailored to the unique environmental, economic, and energy consumption of Shanghai Chongming. Utilizing an innovative hybrid approach, the study first applies grey relational analysis to evaluate the influence of economic activity, natural conditions, and energy consumption on CO2 emissions.

The potential of flavonoids in hepatic fibrosis: A comprehensive review.

Background: Hepatic fibrosis is a pathophysiological process of extracellular matrix abnormal deposition induced by multiple pathogenic factors. Currently, there is still a lack of effective and non-toxic drugs for treating fibrosis in clinic. Flavonoids are polyphenolic compounds synthesized in plants and modern pharmacological studies confirmed flavonoids exhibit potent hepatoprotective effect.

Immune effect and prognosis of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization and tyrosine kinase inhibitors therapy in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: The combination of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) has shown broad prospects in prolonging the survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). TACE and TKIs can affect the immune microenvironment in patients with HCC.

Aim: To determine the overall effects and differences between TACE and different TKIs combinations on the immune microenvironment.

Clinical outcomes of second-line chemotherapy in patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma: a real-world study.

Objective: Little progress has been made in recent years using first-line chemotherapy, including gemcitabine combined with nab-paclitaxel, FOLFIRINOX, and NALIRIFOX, for advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma (APC). In addition, the optimal second-line chemotherapy regimen has not been determined. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of different types of second-line chemotherapy for APC.

Optimized rAAV8 targeting acinar KLF4 ameliorates fibrosis in chronic pancreatitis via exosomes-enriched let-7s suppressing pancreatic stellate cells activation.

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is marked by progressive fibrosis and the activation of pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs), accompanied by the destruction of pancreatic parenchyma, leading to the loss of acinar cells (ACs). Few research studies have explored the mechanism by which damaged ACs (DACs) contribute to PSCs activation and pancreatic fibrosis. Currently, there are no effective drugs for curing CP or limiting the progression of pancreatic fibrosis.

Internal flow field analysis of a dendritic pore scaffold for bone tissue engineering.

The effective reconstruction of osteochondral biomimetic structures is a key factor in guiding the regeneration of full-thickness osteochondral defects. Due to the avascular nature of hyaline cartilage, the greatest challenge in constructing this scaffold lies in both utilizing the biomimetic structure to promote vascular differentiation for nutrient delivery to hyaline cartilage, thereby enhancing the efficiency of osteochondral reconstruction, and effectively blocking vascular ingrowth into the cartilage layer to prevent cartilage mineralization. However, the intrinsic relationship between the planning of the microporous pipe network and the flow resistance in the biomimetic structure, and the mechanism of promoting cell adhesion to achieve vascular differentiation and inhibiting cell adhesion to block the growth of blood vessels are still unclear.

[Coupling Mechanisms of Eco-environmental Quality and Human Activities in China and Their Influencing Factors].

In the context of sustainable development, it is important to thoroughly investigate the coupling mechanism between China's eco-environmental quality and human activities, as well as identify the influencing factors, in order to provide scientific references for achieving sustainable development goals in China. This study applied trend analysis, coupling coordination degree, LMDI, and optimal parameter geographic detector models to explore and evaluate the coupling mechanism between China's eco-environmental quality and human activities. The findings of the study were as follows:① During the research period, there was a growth trend in China's coupling coordination degree, human activities, and eco-environmental quality.

Pharmacokinetic enhancement of oncolytic virus M1 by inhibiting JAK‒STAT pathway.

Oncolytic viruses (OVs), a group of replication-competent viruses that can selectively infect and kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact, are emerging as promising living anticancer agents. Unlike traditional drugs composed of non-replicating compounds or biomolecules, the replicative nature of viruses confer unique pharmacokinetic properties that require further studies. Despite some pharmacokinetics studies of OVs, mechanistic insights into the connection between OV pharmacokinetics and antitumor efficacy remain vague.

Enhancing antitumor efficacy of oncolytic virus M1 via albendazole-sustained CD8 T cell activation.

The immune response plays a crucial role in the functionality of oncolytic viruses. In this study, Albendazole, an antihelminthic drug known to modulate the immune checkpoint PD-L1, was combined with the oncolytic virus M1 (OVM1) to treat mice with either prostate cancer (RM-1) or glioma (GL261) tumors. This combination therapy enhanced anti-tumor effects in immunocompetent mice, but not in immunodeficient ones, without increasing OVM1 replication.

Study of the in situ test setup and analysis methods for self-healing properties of metallized film capacitors.

Metallized film capacitors (MFCs) are widely used in the power electronics industry due to their unique self-healing (SH) capability. SH performance is an essential assessment for MFC reliability verification in industrial production. The SH phenomenon of metallized films usually occurs rapidly in a very short period, and its real-time evolution details are often difficult to capture and analyze.

Structural Toughness of Fluorinated-Nitrided Interphase Passivation Layers for Lithium-Ion Batteries: A Reactive Molecular Dynamics Study.

The performance of lithium-ion batteries largely depends on the stability of the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer formed on the anode surface. Strategies to improve SEI robustness often rely on optimizing its composition through electrolytic additives. Recently, the amalgamation of fluorinated cosolvents with nitride sources as additives has been shown to enable the construction of sustainable fluorinated-nitrided SEI layers (FN-SEI).

Impacts of Habit Formation Effect on Food Consumption and Nutrient Intake in Rural China.

This study employs panel data and a dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) model to investigate the habit formation effect of food consumption among Chinese rural residents and its consequential impact on nutritional intake. The dataset, spanning from 2012 to 2018, encompasses nine provinces in China and involves 5390 rural households. The findings reveal that, excluding beef, mutton, and poultry, there are significant habit formation effect on the consumption of food categories, notably grains, vegetables, and edible oils.

ZIF-derived oxygen vacancy-rich CoO for constructing an efficient Z-scheme heterojunction to boost photocatalytic water splitting.

With ZIF-67 as the precursor, oxygen vacancy-rich CoO nanoparticles were derived and anchored on the surface of 2D polyimide (PI) to construct a Z-scheme hybrid heterojunction (20ZP) through a simultaneous solvothermal crystallization and polymerization strategy. XRD, XPS and EPR confirmed that both Co(III) and oxygen vacancies are formed during the low temperature conversion of ZIF-67 to CoO nanoparticles that in turn accelerate the polymerization of PI. Synchronous crystallization makes the interfacial architecture intermetal and compact, inducing a strong interfacial electronic interaction between CoO nanoparticles and PI.

Correction: Zhu et al. Mineralized Collagen/Polylactic Acid Composite Scaffolds for Load-Bearing Bone Regeneration in a Developmental Model. 2023, , 4194.

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