Changes in the Yield Effect of the Preceding Crop in the US Corn Belt Under a Warming Climate.

Crop rotation has been widely used to enhance crop yields and mitigate adverse climate impacts. The existing research predominantly focuses on the impacts of crop rotation under growing season (GS) climates, neglecting the influences of non-GS (NGS) climates on agroecosystems. This oversight limits our understanding of the comprehensive climatic impacts on crop rotation and, consequently, our ability to devise effective adaptation strategies in response to climate warming.

Method for Extracting Optical Element Information Using Optical Coherence Tomography.

This study examines the measurement of film thickness, curvature, and defects on the surface or inside of an optical element using a highly accurate and efficient method. This is essential to ensure their quality and performance. Existing methods are unable to simultaneously extract the three types of information: thickness, curvature, and defects.

The reverse-reduction effect of dissolved organic matter on the degradation of micropollutants induced by halogen radicals (Cl and Br).

Reactive halogen radicals (e.g., Cl and Br) greatly impact the degradation of micropollutants in natural waters and engineered water treatment systems.

Microcavity-assisted multi-resonant metasurfaces enabling versatile wavefront engineering.

Metasurfaces have exhibited exceptional proficiency in precisely modulating light properties within narrow wavelength spectra. However, there is a growing demand for multi-resonant metasurfaces capable of wavefront engineering across broad spectral ranges. In this study, we introduce a microcavity-assisted multi-resonant metasurface platform that integrates subwavelength meta-atoms with a specially designed distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) substrate.

Engineered PsCas9 enables therapeutic genome editing in mouse liver with lipid nanoparticles.

Clinical implementation of therapeutic genome editing relies on efficient in vivo delivery and the safety of CRISPR-Cas tools. Previously, we identified PsCas9 as a Type II-B family enzyme capable of editing mouse liver genome upon adenoviral delivery without detectable off-targets and reduced chromosomal translocations. Yet, its efficacy remains insufficient with non-viral delivery, a common challenge for many Cas9 orthologues.

DNAH3 deficiency causes flagellar inner dynein arm loss and male infertility in humans and mice.

Axonemal protein complexes, including the outer and inner dynein arms (ODA/IDA), are highly ordered structures of the sperm flagella that drive sperm motility. Deficiencies in several axonemal proteins have been associated with male infertility, which is characterized by asthenozoospermia or asthenoteratozoospermia. Dynein axonemal heavy chain 3 (DNAH3) resides in the IDA and is highly expressed in the testis.

RSNA 2023 Abdominal Trauma AI Challenge: Review and Outcomes.

Purpose To evaluate the performance of the winning machine learning models from the 2023 RSNA Abdominal Trauma Detection AI Challenge. Materials and Methods The competition was hosted on Kaggle and took place between July 26 and October 15, 2023. The multicenter competition dataset consisted of 4274 abdominal trauma CT scans, in which solid organs (liver, spleen, and kidneys) were annotated as healthy, low-grade, or high-grade injury.

Borosilicate bioactive glass synergizing low-dose antibiotic loaded implants to combat bacteria through ATP disruption and oxidative stress to sequentially achieve osseointegration.

Bone infection is a catastrophe in clinical orthopedics. Despite being the standard therapy for osteomyelitis, antibiotic-loaded polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) cement has low efficiency against bacteria in biofilms. Furthermore, high-dose antibiotic-loaded implants carry risks of bacterial resistance, tissue toxicity, and impairment of local tissue healing.

Optimized irrigation practices with fertilizer utilization strategies to improve photo-fluorescence efficiency, vascular bundles and maize production in semi-arid regions.

The mechanism of irrigation models combined with fertilizer utilization strategies under the biodegradable film mulching could greatly promote crop photosynthesis, vascular bundles structure; resource utilization and maize production are unclear in semi-arid areas. Unfortunately, this mechanism provides a scientific basis for improving irrigation and fertilizer utilization. A field study was carried out during 2021-2022 years.

Engineering Halomonas bluephagenesis for synthesis of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) in the presence of high nitrogen containing media.

The trade-offs exist between microbial growth and bioproduct synthesis including intracellular polyester polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). Under nitrogen limitation, more carbon flux is directed to PHB synthesis while growth is inhibited with diminishing overall carbon utilization, similar to the suboptimal carbon utilization during glycolysis-derived pyruvate decarboxylation. This study reconfigured the central carbon network of Halomonas bluephagenesis to improve PHB yield theoretically and practically.

Manipulating the EphB4-ephrinB2 axis to reduce metastasis in HNSCC.

The EphB4-ephrinB2 signaling axis has been heavily implicated in metastasis across numerous cancer types. Our emerging understanding of the dichotomous roles that EphB4 and ephrinB2 play in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) poses a significant challenge to rational drug design. We find that EphB4 knockdown in cancer cells enhances metastasis in preclinical HNSCC models by augmenting immunosuppressive cells like T regulatory cells (Tregs) within the tumor microenvironment.

Improved nitrogen fertilizer management reduces nitrous oxide emissions in a northern Prairie cropland.

Arable croplands are a significant source of nitrous oxide (NO) emissions, largely due to nitrogen (N) fertilizer applications to support crop production. Nevertheless, there is limited research on the NO dynamics from canola-wheat rotations in the semi-arid northern Prairies, an important agricultural region. Here, we present micrometeorological NO fluxes measured from January 2021 to April 2024 in Saskatchewan, Canada, to evaluate the impact of N fertilizer management on the year-round NO emissions from a canola-wheat rotation.

Detection of optic disc in human retinal images utilizing the Bitterling Fish Optimization (BFO) algorithm.

Early detection and correct identification of the optic disc (OD) on scanned retinal images are significant for diagnosing and treating several ophthalmic conditions, including glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. Conventional methods for detecting the OD often struggle with processing retinal images due to noise, changes in illumination, and complex overlapping images. This study presents the development of effective and accurate fixation of the optic disc using the Bitterling Fish Optimization (BFO) algorithm, which enhances the processes of OD imaging in speed and precision.

Dirichlet latent modelling enables effective learning and sampling of the functional protein design space.

Engineering proteins with desired functions and biochemical properties is pivotal for biotechnology and drug discovery. While computational methods based on evolutionary information are reducing the experimental burden by designing targeted libraries of functional variants, they still have a low success rate when the desired protein has few or very remote homologous sequences. Here we propose an autoregressive model, called Temporal Dirichlet Variational Autoencoder (TDVAE), which exploits the mathematical properties of the Dirichlet distribution and temporal convolution to efficiently learn high-order information from a functionally related, possibly remotely similar, set of sequences.

Longitudinal OCTA vessel density loss in macula and optic nerve head in healthy, glaucoma suspect and established glaucoma eyes.

Background/aims: To examine longitudinal optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) changes in macula and optic nerve head (ONH) in healthy, glaucoma suspect (GS) and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) eyes.

Methods: Healthy, GS and POAG eyes from Diagnostic Innovations in Glaucoma Study with ≥2 years follow-up and four visits of macular/ONH OCTA imaging were included. Rates of macular wiVD (whole-image vessel density) and ONH wiCD (whole-image capillary density) changes were calculated for each diagnosis group using join mixed-effect modelling.

Application of CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing to Improve Recombinant Protein Production in CHO Cells.

Genome editing has become an important aspect of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line engineering for improving the production of recombinant protein therapeutics. Currently, the engineering focus is directed toward expanding product diversity while controlling and improving product quality and yields. In this chapter, we present our protocol for using the genome editing tool Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9) to knock out engineering target genes in CHO cells.

Nitrogen Level Impacts the Dynamic Changes in Nitrogen Metabolism, and Carbohydrate and Anthocyanin Biosynthesis Improves the Kernel Nutritional Quality of Purple Waxy Maize.

Waxy corn is a special type of maize primarily consumed as a fresh vegetable by humans. Nitrogen (N) plays an essential role in regulating the growth progression, maturation, yield, and quality of waxy maize. A reasonable N application rate is vital for boosting the accumulation of both N and carbon (C) in the grains, thereby synergistically enhancing the grain quality.

Synergistic Effect of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Germanium on the Growth, Nutritional Quality, and Health-Promoting Activities of L.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and the antioxidant germanium (Ge) are promising tools for boosting bioactive compound synthesis and producing healthier foods. However, their combined effect remains unexplored. This study demonstrates the synergistic impact of AMF and Ge on the growth, metabolite accumulation, biological activities, and nutritional qualities of L.

No evidence for goal priming or sensory specific satiety effects following exposure to ambient food odours.

Sensory-specific satiety describes a decline in hedonic value of the taste of a food as it is consumed, relative to a non-consumed food - the pudding tummy phenomenon. Incentive motivation towards consumed foods has also been shown to decline. Interestingly, several studies report that brief exposure to food odours can also produce a sensory-specific satiety effect, in the absence of consumption, selectively reducing hedonic ratings and subsequent high calorie food choices.