Patterns and drivers of avian taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity in China vary across geographical backgrounds and dispersal abilities

Geographical background and dispersal ability may strongly influence assemblage dissimilarity;however,these aspects have generally been overlooked in previous large-scale beta diversity studies.Here,we examined whether the patterns and drivers of taxonomic beta diversity(TBD)and phylogenetic beta diversity(PBD)of breeding birds in China vary across(1)regions on both sides of the Hu Line,which demarcates China’s topographical,climatic,economic,and social patterns,and(2)species with different dispersal ability.TBD and PBD were calculated and partitioned into turnover and nestedness components using a moving window approach.Variables representing climate,habitat heterogeneity,and habitat quality were employed to evaluate the effects of environmental filtering.Spatial distance was considered to assess the impact of dispersal limitation.Variance partitioning analysis was applied to assess the relative roles of these variables.In general,the values of TBD and PBD were high in mountainous areas and were largely determined by environmental filtering.However,different dominant environmental filters on either side of the Hu Line led to divergent beta diversity patterns.Specifically,climate-driven species turnover and habitat heterogeneity-related species nestedness dominated the regions east and west of the line,respectively.Additionally,bird species with stronger dispersal ability were more susceptible to environmental filtering,resulting in more homogeneous assemblages.Our results indicated that regions with distinctive geographical backgrounds may present different ecological factors that lead to divergent assemblage dissimilarity patterns,and dispersal ability determines the response of assemblages to these ecological factors.Identifying a single universal explanation for the observed pattern without considering these aspects may lead to simplistic or incomplete conclusions.Consequently,a comprehensive understanding of large-scale beta diversity patterns and effective planning of conservation strategies necessitate the consideration of both geographical background and species dispersal ability.

Cholesterol paradox in the community-living old adults:is higher better?

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the associations of lipid indicators and mortality in Beijing Elderly Comprehensive Health Cohort Study.METHODS A prospective cohort was conducted based on Beijing Elderly Comprehensive Health Cohort Study with 4499 com-munity older adults.After the baseline survey,the last follow-up was March 31,2021 with an average 8.13 years of follow-up.Cox proportional hazard model was used to estimate the hazard ratios(HR)with 95%CI for cardiovascular disease(CVD)death and all-cause death in associations with baseline lipid indicators.RESULTS A total of 4499 participants were recruited,and the mean levels of uric acid,body mass index,systolic blood pres-sure,diastolic blood pressure,fasting plasma glucose,total cholesterol(TC),triglyceride,and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol(LDL-C)showed an upward trend with the increasing remnant cholesterol(RC)quarters(Ptrend<0.05),while the downward tr-end was found in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol(HDL-C).During the total 36,596 person-years follow-up,the CVD mortal-ity and all-cause mortality during an average 8.13 years of follow-up was 3.87%(95%CI:3.30%-4.43%)and 14.83%(95%CI:13.79%-15.86%)with 174 CVD death participants and 667 all-cause death participants.After adjusting for confounders,the higher level of TC(HR=0.854,95%CI:0.730-0.997),LDL-C(HR=0.817,95%CI:0.680-0.982)and HDL-C(HR=0.443,95%CI:0.271-0.724)were associated with lower risk of CVD death,and the higher level of HDL-C(HR=0.637,95%CI:0.501-0.810)were associated with lower risk of all-cause death.The higher level of RC(HR=1.276,95%CI:1.010-1.613)increase the risk of CVD death.Com-pared with the normal lipid group,TC≥6.20 mmol/L group and LDL-C≥4.10 mmol/L group were no longer associated with lower risk of CVD death,while RC≥0.80 mmol/L group was still associated with higher risk of CVD death.In normal lipid gr-oup,the higher levels of TC,LDL-C and HDL-C were related with lower CVD death.CONCLUSIONS In community older adults,higher levels of TC and HDL-C were associated with lower CVD mortality in normal lipid reference range.Higher RC was associated with higher CVD mortality,which may be a better lipid indicator for es-timating the CVD death risk in older adults.

The mitochondrial Na^＋/Ca^2＋ exchanger may reduce high glucose-induced oxidative stress and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain receptor 3 inflammasome activation in endothelial cells

Background The mitochondrial Na^＋/Ca^2＋ exchanger, NCLX, plays an important role in the balance between Ca2. influx and efflux across the mitochondrial inner membrane in endothelial ceils. Mitochondrial metabolism is likely to be affected by the activity of NCLX because Ca^2＋ activates several enzymes of the Krebs cycle. It is currently believed that mitochondria are not only centers of energy produc- tion but are also important sites of reactive oxygen species （ROS） generation and nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain receptor 3 （NLRP3） inflammasome activation. Methods ＆ Results This study focused on NCLX function, in rat aortic endothelial cells （RAECs）, induced by glucose. First, we detected an increase in NCLX expression in the endothelia of rats with diabetes mellitus, which was induced by an injection of streptozotocin. Next, colocalization of NCLX expression and mitochondria was detected using confocal analysis. Suppression of NCLX expression, using an siRNA construct （siNCLX）, enhanced mitochondrial Ca^2＋ influx and blocked efflux induced by glucose. Unexpectedly, silencing of NCLX expression induced increased ROS generation and NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Conclusions These findings suggest that NCLX affects glucose-dependent mitochondrial Ca^2＋ signaling, thereby regulating ROS generation and NLRP3 in- flammasome activation in high glucose conditions. In the early stages of high glucose stimulation, NCLX expression increases to compensate in order to self-protect mitochondrial maintenance, stability, and function in endothelial cells.

Natural products that target macrophages in treating non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis(NASH)is the progressive subtype of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and potentiates risks for both hepatic and metabolic diseases.Although the pathophysiology of NASH is not completely understood,recent studies have revealed that macrophage activation is a major contributing factor for the disease progression.Macrophages integrate the immune response and metabolic process and have become promising targets for NASH therapy.Natural products are potential candidates for NASH treatment and have multifactorial underlying mechanisms.Macrophage involvement in the development of steatosis and inflammation in NASH has been widely investigated.In this review,we assess the evidence for natural products or their active ingredients in the modulation of macrophage activation,recruitment,and polarization,as well as the metabolic status of macrophages.Our work may highlight the possible natural products that target macrophages as potential treatment options for NASH.

Description of a new species of the genus Uropsilus(Eulipotyphla:Talpidae:Uropsilinae)from the Dabie Mountains,Anhui,Eastern China

During a terrestrial vertebrate survey of the Dabie Mountains in Anhui Province,eastern China,we collected four Asian shrew mole specimens(hereafter,shrew moles).Based on published literature and comparison with previously collected materials,the four specimens were similar to shrew moles from the mountains of Southwest China;however,no species in this group has been previously recorded from the Dabie Mountains.The genetic and morphological characteristics of the specimens were analyzed,based upon which a new species of shrew mole is described,named Uropsilus dabieshanensis sp.nov.

Emergency laparoscopic partial splenectomy for ruptured spleen:A case report

Splenic rupture is a common consequence of blunt abdominal trauma. Emergency splenectomy is indicated when conservative management is not effective. With better understanding of the immunologic function of the spleen, surgeons have begun to perform the splenic-preserving surgery. However, it is technical challenge to perform emergency laparoscopic partial splenectomy for patient with spleen rupture. A 15-year-old male patient suffered from grade. spleen injury basing on the American association for the surgery of trauma splenic injury scale. Conservative treatment failed to success basing on the dramatically decreased hemoglobin level. During the laparoscopic exploration, we found that two individual ruptures were associated with the upper pole of spleen. An emergency laparoscopic partial splenectomy was successfully carried out. The operative time was approximate 150 min and the estimated blood loss was 200 mL. The post-operative course was uneventful and the patient was discharged on the 7th post-operative day. (C) 2014 Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.

Molecular and morphological evidence for a new species of the genus Typhlomys(Rodentia:Platacanthomyidae)

DEAR EDITOR,In this study,we reassessed the taxonomic position of Typhlomys(Rodentia:Platacanthomyidae)from Huangshan,Anhui,China,based on morphological and molecular evidence.Results suggested that Typhlomys is comprised of up to six species,including four currently recognized species(Typhlomys cinereus,T.chapensis,T.daloushanensis,and T.nanus),one unconfirmed candidate species,and one new species(Typhlomys huangshanensis sp.nov.).Morphological analyses further supported the designation of the Huangshan specimens found at mid-elevations in the southern Huangshan Mountains(600 m to 1200 m a.s.l.)as a new species.

The role of donor hepatocytes and/or splenocytes pre-injection in reducing islet xenotransplantation rejection

OBJECTIVE: To observe the effect of tail vein injection with donor hepatocyte and/or splenocyte on islets xenotransplantation rejection. METHODS: New-born male pigs and BALB/C mice were selected as donors and recipients respectively. Islets xenotransplantation was performed in recipients just after the third time of tail vein injection with donor hepatocytes and/or splenocytes. Macrophage phagocytosis, NK killing activity, T lymphocyte transforming function of spleen cells, antibody forming function of B lymphocytes, and T lymphocyte subsets were taken to monitor transplantation rejection. The effects of this kind of transplantation were indicated as variation of blood glucose and survival days of recipients. RESULTS: Streptozotocin (STZ) succeeded in inducing diabetes mellitus models of mice. Pre-injection of donor hepatocytes, and splenocytes or their mixture via tail vein was effective in preventing donor islets transplantation from rejection, which was demonstrated by the mentioned immunological marks. And each group of transplantation could decrease the blood glucose of recipients and prolong the survival days. Pre-injection of mixture of donor hepatocytes and splenocytes was more effective in preventing rejection than pre-injection of donor hepatocytes or splenocytes separately. CONCLUSION: We propose that pre-injection of donor hepatocytes, splenocytes separately or their mixture before donor islets transplantation is a good way to prevent rejection.

Research progress on the role of intestinal flora in obesity and diabetes intervention

Objective:In recent years, obesity has become an important threat to human health, which can produce many health problems, obesity is an important environmental factor of diabetes, obesity and diabetes at present, has been a popular trend. The relationship between intestinal microflora and obesity are closely, intestinal flora may lead to increased body weight, insulin is low, chronic inflammation, metabolic toxicity blood, intestinal flora imbalance, may be caused by chronic inflammation, obesity and other ways to participate in the development of diabetes, therefore, study on the intestinal microflora contribute to obesity and diabetes treatment.

Prediction of contact resistance of electrical contact wear using different machine learning algorithms

H62 brass material is one of the important materials in the process of electrical energy transmission and signal transmission,and has excellent performance in all aspects.Since the wear behavior of electrical contact pairs is particularly complex when they are in service,we evaluated the effects of load,sliding velocity,displacement amplitude,current intensity,and surface roughness on the changes in contact resistance.Machine learning(ML)algorithms were used to predict the electrical contact performance of different factors after wear to determine the correlation between different factors and contact resistance.Random forest(RF),support vector regression(SVR)and BP neural network(BPNN)algorithms were used to establish RF,SVR and BPNN models,respectively,and the experimental data were trained and tested.It was proved that BP neural network model could better predict the stable mean resistance of H62 brass alloy after wear.Characteristic analysis shows that the load and current have great influence on the predicted electrical contact properties.The wear behavior of electrical contacts is influenced by factors such as load,sliding speed,displacement amplitude,current intensity,and surface roughness during operation.Machine learning algorithms can predict the electrical contact performance after wear caused by these factors.Experimental results indicate that an increase in load,current,and surface roughness leads to a decrease in stable mean resistance,while an increase in displacement amplitude and frequency results in an increase in stable mean resistance,leading to a decline in electrical contact performance.To reduce testing time and costs and quickly obtain the electrical contact performance of H62 brass alloy after wear caused by different factors,three algorithms(random forest(RF),support vector regression(SVR),and BP neural network(BPNN))were used to train and test experimental results,resulting in a machine learning model suitable for predicting the stable mean resistance of H62 brass alloy after wear.The prediction results showed that the BPNN model performed better in predicting the electrical contact performance compared to the RF and SVR models.

Preparation of Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr alloys for load-bearing biomedical applications

Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr alloys for biomedical applications were successfully fabricated by arc melting(AM) and diffusion bonding.The microstructure, mechanical properties and electrochemistry behavior in a simulated body fluid(SBF) were studied.It shows that melted Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr alloy mainly contains β phase although there are a few Ti-rich phases and micropores, the number of which is lower than that in sintered sample with a few Ti-rich and Ta-rich phases.The melted alloys present higher strength(1224 MPa), Young’s modulus(15.3 GPa) and corrosion potential(-0.34 V) in SBF, while total recovery strain ratio(67.5%) and pseudoelastic strain ratio(8.4%) of sintered Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr alloy keep higher value than 35.7%and 5.0% for melted Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr.The reasons were discussed based on the microstructure of the Ti–Nb–Ta–Zr alloys.

Selective inhibition effects on cancer cells and bacteria of Ni–Ti–O nanoporous layers grown on biomedical NiTi alloy by anodization

Stents made of nearly equiatomic NiTi alloy are used to treat malignant obstruction caused by cancer,but prevention of re-obstruction after surgery is still a challenge because the bare stents possess poor anticancer and antibacterial properties to inhibit cancer/bacteria invasion.The present work aims at endowing the NiTi alloy with anticancer and antibacterial abilities by surface modification.Ni–Ti–O nanoporous layers with different thicknesses were prepared on NiTi by anodization,and biological experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects on gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus,human lung epithelial cancer cells(A549),as well as human endothelial cells(EA.hy926).The nanoporous layer with a thickness of 10.1 lm inhibits growth of cancer cells and kill bacteria but shows little adverse effects on normal cells.Such selectivity is related to the larger amount of Ni ions leached from the sample in the acidic microenvironment of cancer cells in comparison with normal cells.The Ni–Ti–O nanoporous layers are promising as coatings on NiTi stents to prevent re-obstruction after surgery.

Home-based Early Intervention on Auditory and Speech Development in Mandarin-speaking Deaf Infants and Toddlers with Chronological Aged 7-24 Months

Background：Early auditory and speech development in home-based early intervention of infants and toddlers with hearing loss younger than 2 years are still spare in China.This study aimed to observe the development of auditory and speech in deaf infants and toddlers who were fitted with hearing aids and/or received cochlear implantation between the chronological ages of 7-24 months,and analyze the effect of chronological age and recovery time on auditory and speech development in the course of home-based early intervention.Methods：This longitudinal study included 55 hearing impaired children with severe and profound binaural deafness,who were divided into Group A （7-12 months）,Group B （13-18 months） and Group C （19-24 months） based on the chronological age.Categories auditory performance （CAP） and speech intelligibility rating scale （SIR） were used to evaluate auditory and speech development at baseline and 3,6,9,12,18,and 24 months of habilitation.Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic features and were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance.Results：With 24 months of hearing intervention,78% of the patients were able to understand common phrases and conversation without lip-reading,96% of the patients were intelligible to a listener.In three groups,children showed the rapid growth of trend features in each period of habilitation.CAP and SIR scores have developed rapidly within 24 months after fitted auxiliary device in Group A,which performed much better auditory and speech abilities than Group B （P 〈 0.05） and Group C （P 〈 0.05）.Group B achieved better results than Group C,whereas no significant differences were observed between Group B and Group C （P 〉 0.05）.Conclusions：The data suggested the early hearing intervention and home-based habilitation benefit auditory and speech development.Chronological age and recovery time may be major factors for aural verbal outcomes in hearing impaired children.The development of auditory and speech in hearing impaired children may be relatively crucial in the first year＆#39;s habilitation after fitted with the auxiliary device.

Microarray analysis of New Green Cocoon associated genes in silkworm, Bombyx mori

Green cocoons in silkworm, Bombyx mori, are caused by flavonoids accumulation in the silk proteins, fibroin and sericin. Despite the economic value of natural green cocoon and medical value of flavonoids, there is limited understanding of the molecular mechanism regulating flavonoids uptake in silkworm, which is tightly associated with the trait of green cocoon. The purpose of this study is to perform a comprehensive analysis to understand the molecular mechanisms of flavonoids uptake in silkworm based on microarray analyses. The study subject was the New Green Cocoon from the silkworm strains, G200 and N100, a new spontaneous dominant green cocoon trait identified in the 2000s. The genes regulating this trait are independent of other green cocoon genes previously reported. Genome-wide gene expression was compared between the New Green Cocoon producing silkworm strains, G200 and NI00, and the control sample, which is the white cocoon producing strain 872B. Among these strains, N100 and 872B are near-isogenic lines. The results showed that 130 genes have consistently changing expression patterns in the green cocoon strains when compared with the white cocoon strain. Among these, we focused on the genes related to flavonoids metabolism and absorption, such as sugar trans- porter genes and UDP-glucosyltransferase genes. Based on our findings, we propose the potential mechanisms for flavonoids absorption and metabolism in silkworm. Our results imply that silkworm might be used as an underlying model for flavonoids in pharmaceutical research.

Molecular basis of the silkworm mutant re^(l) causing red egg color and embryonic death

The coloration and hatchability of insect eggs can affect individual and population survival.However,few genetic loci have been documented to affect both traits,and the genes involved in regulating these two traits are unclear.The silkworm recessive mutant re^(l)shows both red egg color and embryo mortality.We studied the molecular basis of the re^(l)phenotype formation.Through genetic analysis,gene screening and sequencing,we found that two closely linked genes,BGIBMGA003497(Bmre)and BGIBMG4003697(Bm-Semala),control egg color and embryo mortality,respectively.Six base pairs of the Bm-re gene are deleted in its open reading frame,and BmSemala is expressed at abnormally low levels in mutant re^(l).BmSemala gene function verification was performed using RNA interference and clustered randomly interspersed palindromic repeats(CRISPR)/CRISPR-associate protein 9.Deficiency of the BmSemala gene can cause the death of silkworm embryos.This study revealed the molecular basis of silkworm re^(l)mutant formation and indicated that the Semala gene is essential for insect embryo development.