Disruptive and complementary effects of depression symptoms on spontaneous brain activity in the subcortical vascular mild cognitive impairment.

Background: Although depression symptoms are commonly reported in patients with subcortical vascular mild cognitive impairment (svMCI), their impact on brain functions remains largely unknown, with diagnoses mainly dependent on behavioral assessments.

Methods: In this study, we analyzed resting-state fMRI data from a cohort of 34 svMCI patients, comprising 18 patients with depression symptoms (svMCI+D) and 16 patients without (svMCI-D), along with 34 normal controls (NC). The study used the fraction of the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF), resting-state functional connectivity, correlation analyses, and support vector machine (SVM) techniques.

Broadening oncological boundaries: the intratumoral microbiota.

The microbiota of solid tumors was identified >100 years ago; however, heterogeneous composition and diversity have been revealed only recently. Growing evidence has suggested that several functional mechanisms of the intratumoral microbiota affect tumorigenesis and progression, suggesting that the intratumoral microbiota is a promising biomarker for multiple cancers. The low biomass of the intratumoral microbiota poses a major challenge to related research, thus necessitating the use of a multiple-modality integrated framework to resolve this dilemma.

Multicriteria Group Decision Making Based on Intuitionistic Normal Cloud and Cloud Distance Entropy.

The uncertainty of information is an important issue that must be faced when dealing with decision-making problems. Randomness and fuzziness are the two most common types of uncertainty. In this paper, we propose a multicriteria group decision-making method based on intuitionistic normal cloud and cloud distance entropy.

A New Model of Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Weighted Operators and Their Application in Dynamic Fusion Target Threat Assessment.

Existing missile defense target threat assessment methods ignore the target timing and battlefield changes, leading to low assessment accuracy. In order to overcome this problem, a dynamic multi-time fusion target threat assessment method is proposed. In this method, a new interval valued intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging operator is proposed to effectively aggregate multi-source uncertain information; an interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy entropy based on a cosine function (IVIFECF) is designed to determine the target attribute weight; an improved interval-valued intuitionistic fuzzy number distance measurement model is constructed to improve the discrimination of assessment results.

Effect of asparagine, corncob biochar and Fe(II) on anaerobic biological treatment under low temperature: Enhanced performance and microbial community dynamic.

To ensure the efficiency of anaerobic biological treatment technology at lower temperature will expand the application of anaerobic reactor in practical industrial wastewater treatment. Through a batch experiment, asparagine, corncob biochar and Fe were selected as strengthening measures to analyze the effects on the anaerobic sludge characteristics, microbial community and functional genes in the low temperature (15 °C). Results showed that after 21 days, asparagine began to promote chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal by the anaerobic treatment, with highest COD removal rate (81.

A novel disassembly process of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries enhanced by online sensing and machine learning techniques.

Unlabelled: An effective lithium-ion battery (LIB) recycling infrastructure is of great importance to alleviate the concerns over the disposal of waste LIBs and the sustainability of critical elements for producing LIB components. The End-of-life (EOL) LIBs are in various sizes and shapes, which create significant challenges to automate a few unit operations (e.g.

Enabling Intelligent Recovery of Critical Materials from Li-Ion Battery through Direct Recycling Process with Internet-of-Things.

The rapid market expansion of Li-ion batteries (LIBs) leads to concerns over the appropriate disposal of hazardous battery waste and the sustainability in the supply of critical materials for LIB production. Technologies and strategies to extend the life of LIBs and reuse the materials have long been sought. Direct recycling is a more effective recycling approach than existing ones with respect to cost, energy consumption, and emissions.

An automatic sorting system for electronic components detached from waste printed circuit boards.

Recycling e-waste makes for eliminating the pollution to environment and recovering critical materials as one of resource. Printed circuit boards (PCBs) serve as the important part in all e-waste, containing valuable but hazardous elements to be recycled when they reach the end of life. For the recycling of waste PCB, the electronic components (ECs) are liberated from base board and to be treated separately for element recovery.

Water-Based Electrode Manufacturing and Direct Recycling of Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes-A Green and Sustainable Manufacturing System.

It is critical to develop a low-cost and environmentally friendly system to manufacture and recycle lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) as the demand on LIBs keeps increasing dramatically. Conventional LIB cathodes are manufactured using N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone as the solvent, which is expensive, highly toxic, flammable, and energy intensive to produce and recover. Ideally, a close-loop industrial supply chain should be built, in which the batteries are manufactured, market harvested, and recycled with minimal external toxic solvent through the whole system.

Easy Applied Gelatin-Based Hydrogel System for Long-Term Functional Cardiomyocyte Culture and Myocardium Formation.

Harnessing biomaterials for in vitro tissue construction has long been a research focus because of its powerful potentials in tissue engineering and pharmaceutical industry. Myocardium is a critical cardiac tissue with complex multiple muscular layers. Considering the specific characters of native cardiac tissues, it is necessary to design a biocompatible and biomimetic platform for cardiomyocyte culture and myocardium formation with sustained physiological function.

Comparisons of Effects on Intestinal Short-Chain Fatty Acid Concentration after Exposure of Two Glycosidase Inhibitors in Mice.

Acarbose and voglibose are the most widely used diabetes drugs as glycosidase inhibitors. In this study, the use of these two inhibitors significantly increased the content of starch in large intestine, and altered the concentration of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) by affecting the intestinal microbiota. However, there are some differences in the intestinal microbiome of the two groups of mice, mainly in bacteria such as Bacteroidaceae bacteroides and Desulfovibrionaceae desulfovibrio.

MicroRNA-34a modulates the Notch signaling pathway in mice with congenital heart disease and its role in heart development.

The objective of the study was to elucidate the mechanism by which microRNA-34a (miR-34a) influences heart development and participates in the pathogenesis of congenital heart disease (CHD) by targeting NOTCH-1 through the Notch signaling pathway. Forty D7 pregnant mice were recruited for the purposes of the study and served as the CHD (n=20, successfully established as CHD model) and normal (n=20) groups. The positive expression of the NOTCH-1 protein was evaluated by means of immunohistochemistry.