Regulation of insect cuticular hydrocarbon biosynthesis.

Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) play pleiotropic roles in insect survival and reproduction. They prevent desiccation and function as pheromones influencing different behaviors. While the genes in the CHC biosynthesis pathway have been extensively studied, the regulatory mechanisms that lead to different CHC compositions received far less attention.

Strain-Temperature Dual Sensor Based on Deep Learning Strategy for Human-Computer Interaction Systems.

Thermoelectric (TE) hydrogels, mimicking human skin, possessing temperature and strain sensing capabilities, are well-suited for human-machine interaction interfaces and wearable devices. In this study, a TE hydrogel with high toughness and temperature responsiveness was created using the Hofmeister effect and TE current effect, achieved through the cross-linking of PVA/PAA/carboxymethyl cellulose triple networks. The Hofmeister effect, facilitated by Na and SO ions coordination, notably increased the hydrogel's tensile strength (800 kPa).

Ecotoxicity of thallium to two soil animal species with different niches and modification by organic materials.

Soil thallium (Tl) contamination is of major public concern but little is known about soil Tl ecological toxicity or potential ecological remediation strategies. Here, two soil animal species with different ecological niches, Folsomia candida and Enchytraeus crypticus, were used to test Tl toxicity and modification by exogenous organic materials (i.e.

Replica symmetry breaking in 1D Rayleigh scattering system: theory and validations.

Spin glass theory, as a paradigm for describing disordered magnetic systems, constitutes a prominent subject of study within statistical physics. Replica symmetry breaking (RSB), as one of the pivotal concepts for the understanding of spin glass theory, means that under identical conditions, disordered systems can yield distinct states with nontrivial correlations. Random fiber laser (RFL) based on Rayleigh scattering (RS) is a complex disordered system, owing to the disorder and stochasticity of RS.

Targeting Nuclear Receptor Coactivator SRC-1 Prevents Colorectal Cancer Immune Escape by Reducing Transcription and Protein Stability of PD-L1.

Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) is overexpressed in multiple cancers and critical for their immune escape. It has previously shown that the nuclear coactivator SRC-1 promoted colorectal cancer (CRC) progression by enhancing CRC cell viability, yet its role in CRC immune escape is unclear. Here, we demonstrate that SRC-1 is positively correlated with PD-L1 in human CRC specimens.

Mid-infrared computational temporal ghost imaging.

Ghost imaging in the time domain allows for reconstructing fast temporal objects using a slow photodetector. The technique involves correlating random or pre-programmed probing temporal intensity patterns with the integrated signal measured after modulation by the temporal object. However, the implementation of temporal ghost imaging necessitates ultrafast detectors or modulators for measuring or pre-programming the probing intensity patterns, which are not available in all spectral regions especially in the mid-infrared range.

Impact of birth order on risk-taking: Evidence from China.

Evidence about impact of birth order on risk-taking is mostly from the Western cultural contexts, and the findings are contradictory. Scant attention has been devoted to the impact of birth order on risk-taking in East Asian societies influenced by Confucian culture. In this study, we investigated how birth order impacts adult risk-taking using a representative Chinese sample (N = 12,756).

Discovery of potential anti- natural products and their mechanistic studies using machine learning and molecular dynamic simulations.

The structure-activity analysis (SAR) and machine learning were used to investigate potential anti- agents in a faster method. In this study, 24 oxygenated benzene ring components with inhibition capacity were confirmed by literature exploring and in-house experiments, and the SAR analysis suggested that the hydroxyl group position may affect the anti- activity. The 2D-MLR-QSAR model with 9 descriptors was further evaluated as the best model among the 21 models.

SSFLNet: A Novel Fault Diagnosis Method for Double Shield TBM Tool System.

In tunnel boring projects, wear and tear in the tooling system can have significant consequences, such as decreased boring efficiency, heightened maintenance costs, and potential safety hazards. In this paper, a fault diagnosis method for TBM tooling systems based on SAV-SVDD failure location (SSFL) is proposed. The aim of this method is to detect faults caused by disk cutter wear during the boring process, which diminishes the boring efficiency and is challenging to detect during construction.

Capacitive-Controlled Prussian White with a Nickel Iron Hexacyanoferrate Composite Cathode for Rapid Sodium Diffusion.

Prussian blue analogues receive tremendous attention owing to their spacious three-dimensional skeleton, high theoretical specific capacity, facile synthesis procedure, and high cost-effectiveness as among the most promising candidates for cathode materials in sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). Nonetheless, the practical specific capacity, especially under high current, is particularly frail due to the sluggish ion diffusion. In this study, the strategy of Ni substitution and formation of water-coordinated Fe is applied to lower the crystal field energy and elevate the active low-spin (LS) Fe content, which leads to a capacitive sodium storage mechanism, resulting in a substantial specific capacity under high current density.

Glycogen synthesis is required for adaptive thermogenesis in beige adipose tissue and affects diet-induced obesity.

Glycogen is a form of energy storage for glucose in different tissues such as liver and skeletal muscle. It remains incompletely understood how glycogen impacts on adipose tissue functionality. Cold exposure elevated the expression of that encodes glycogen synthase 1 in brown adipose tissue (BAT) and inguinal white adipose tissue (iWAT).

Enhanced antioxidant and antibacterial activities of chitosan/zein nanoparticle Pickering emulsion-incorporated chitosan coatings in the presence of cinnamaldehyde and tea polyphenol.

Pickering emulsions were prepared by using zein/chitosan nanoparticles as stabilizer and then incorporated into chitosan coatings. To improve the stability and performances, tea polyphenol and cinnamaldehyde (CA) were used to modulate the formation and functionalities of Pickering emulsions. The oil phase in Pickering emulsions were set at 5 % and 20 % to alter the hydrophobicity of chitosan coatings.

Coherently parallel fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing using dual Kerr soliton microcombs.

Fiber-optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) has proven to be a revolutionary technology for the detection of seismic and acoustic waves with ultralarge scale and ultrahigh sensitivity, and is widely used in oil/gas industry and intrusion monitoring. Nowadays, the single-frequency laser source in DAS becomes one of the bottlenecks limiting its advance. Here, we report a dual-comb-based coherently parallel DAS concept, enabling linear superposition of sensing signals scaling with the comb-line number to result in unprecedented sensitivity enhancement, straightforward fading suppression, and high-power Brillouin-free transmission that can extend the detection distance considerably.

A multi-band centroid contrastive reconstruction fusion network for motor imagery electroencephalogram signal decoding.

Motor imagery (MI) brain-computer interface (BCI) assist users in establishing direct communication between their brain and external devices by decoding the movement intention of human electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. However, cerebral cortical potentials are highly rhythmic and sub-band features, different experimental situations and subjects have different categories of semantic information in specific sample target spaces. Feature fusion can lead to more discriminative features, but simple fusion of features from different embedding spaces leading to the model global loss is not easily convergent and ignores the complementarity of features.

Swimming exercise ameliorates insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver by negatively regulating PPARγ transcriptional network in mice fed high fat diet.

Background: Recent findings elucidated hepatic PPARγ functions as a steatogenic-inducer gene that activates de novo lipogenesis, and is involved in regulation of glucose homeostasis, lipid accumulation, and inflammation response. This study delved into a comprehensive analysis of how PPARγ signaling affects the exercise-induced improvement of insulin resistance (IR) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), along with its underlying mechanism.

Methods: Chronic and acute swimming exercise intervention were conducted in each group mice.

Evolution of a fatty acyl-CoA elongase underlies desert adaptation in .

Traits that allow species to survive in extreme environments such as hot-arid deserts have independently evolved in multiple taxa. However, the genetic and evolutionary mechanisms underlying these traits have thus far not been elucidated. Here, we show that , a desert-adapted fruit fly species, has evolved high desiccation resistance by producing long-chain methyl-branched cuticular hydrocarbons (mbCHCs) that contribute to a cuticular lipid layer reducing water loss.

Monocarboxylate transporter 1 in the liver modulates high-fat diet-induced obesity and hepatic steatosis in mice.

Background: The monocarboxylate transporter 1 (MCT1) is a member of the MCT family and is implicated in the transport of lactate and a few other monocarboxylates across the cell membrane. How hepatic MCT1 regulates the metabolic functions of the body is currently unknown.

Methods: The functions of hepatic MCT1 on metabolism were analyzed using a mouse model with liver-specific deletion of Slc16a1 that encodes MCT1.

Nutritional strategies for intervention of diabetes and improvement of β-cell function.

Diabetes mellitus, especially Type 2 diabetes (T2D), is caused by multiple factors including genetics, diets, and lifestyles. Diabetes is a chronic condition and is among the top 10 causes of death globally. Nutritional intervention is one of the most important and effective strategies for T2D management.

Intermittent protein restriction improves glucose homeostasis in Zucker diabetic fatty rats and single-cell sequencing reveals distinct changes in β cells.

Diabetes is caused by the interplay between genetic and environmental factors, therefore changes of lifestyle and dietary patterns are the most common practices for diabetes intervention. Protein restriction and caloric restriction have been shown to improve diabetic hyperglycemia in both animal models and humans. We report here the effectiveness of intermittent protein restriction (IPR) for the intervention of diabetes in Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF) rats.

Time-restricted feeding ameliorates dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis reducing intestinal inflammation.

Time-restricted feeding (TRF) is an emerging dietary intervention that improves metabolic disorders such as obesity, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammatory disorder affecting the gastrointestinal tract, where nutrition plays an important role in its pathogenesis. Although numerous strategies of nutritional intervention have been reported, whether TRF can improve IBD has been elusive.

Digest: Specialization of an insect virus to its host is contingent upon polygenic traits.

What affects the ability of a virus to adapt and specialize to its hosts? To answer this question, Visher et al. (2022) performed experimental evolution on a virus-insect system and showed that the virus specializes in its hosts through the evolution of its ability to infect or replicate. Genomic analysis of adapted lines of viruses in different host genotypes suggests that viral specialization is influenced by a complicated and polygenic mechanism.

Desiccation resistance differences in species can be largely explained by variations in cuticular hydrocarbons.

Maintaining water balance is a universal challenge for organisms living in terrestrial environments, especially for insects, which have essential roles in our ecosystem. Although the high surface area to volume ratio in insects makes them vulnerable to water loss, insects have evolved different levels of desiccation resistance to adapt to diverse environments. To withstand desiccation, insects use a lipid layer called cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) to reduce water evaporation from the body surface.

Impact of feedback bandwidth on Raman random fiber laser remote-sensing.

In the ultra-long distance sensing domain, recently Raman random fiber laser (RRFL) demonstrated advantages of ultrawide sensing-bandwidth in dynamic sensing, compared with pulse-probing cases. However, such a scheme is still in the preliminary stage, and the key parameters such as sensitivity have not been characterized. In this work, a time-dependent spectrum-balanced model is proposed, which can accurately and quickly describe the spectral shape of RRFL and the evolution of the power and the spectrum.

Expressions with Aspectual Verbs Elicit Slower Reading Times than Those with Psychological Verbs: An Eye-Tracking Study in Mandarin Chinese.

Research over the last 20 years has investigated the processing costs for sentences such as John began the book. Much of this work has conflated sentences with aspectual verbs, like start or finish, with psychological verbs, like enjoy or tolerate. However, recent studies have reported greater costs for aspectual verbs compared to psychological verbs (e.

Channel-multiplexing for quasi-distributed acoustic sensing with orthogonal codes.

With the increasing demands for large-scale acoustic sensing in many important fields such as hydrophone, vehicle tracking and pipeline monitoring, optical fiber-based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) has experienced a rapid development. In recent years, quasi-distributed acoustic sensing (QDAS) based on single mode fiber with enhanced point array has emerged, which is a good approach to improve signal-to-noise ratio and deal with the interference-fading problem in DAS. However, similar to DAS, the performance of QDAS is also limited by the finite frequency domain resources.