Search Results (29)

Aiming at the state estimation problem of nonlinear systems (NLSs), the traditional typical nonlinear filtering methods (e.g., Particle Filter, PF) have large errors in system state, resulting in low accuracy and high computational speed. To perfect the imperfections, a new Bayesian estimation method based on particle flow velocity (PFV-BEM) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a symmetrical projection space based on the state information is selected, the basis function is determined by a set of Fourier series with symmetric properties, the state update is carried out according to the projection principle to calculate the prior information of the state, and select its particle points. Secondly, the particle flow velocity is defined, which describes the evolution process of random samples from the prior distribution to the posterior distribution. The posterior information of the state is calculated by solving the parameters related to the particle flow velocity. Finally, the estimated mean and standard deviation of the state are solved. Simulation experiments are carried out based on two instances of one-dimensional general nonlinear examples and multi-target motion tracking, The newly proposed algorithm is compared with the Particle Filter (PF), and the simulation results clearly indicate the feasibility of this novel Bayesian estimation algorithm. Full article

Cleaning operations in narrow pipelines are often hindered by limited maneuverability and low efficiency, necessitating the development of a high-performance and highly adaptable robotic solution. To address this challenge, this study proposes a pipeline-cleaning robot specifically designed for the heat-exchange tubes of industrial heat exchangers. The robot features a dual-wheel cross-drive configuration to enhance motion stability and integrates a gear–rack-based alignment mechanism with a cam-based propulsion system to enable autonomous deployment and cleaning via a flexible arm. The robot adopts a modular architecture with a separated body and cleaning arm, allowing for rapid assembly and maintenance through bolted connections. A vision-guided control system is implemented to support accurate positioning and task scheduling within the primary pipeline. Experimental results demonstrate that the robot can stably execute automatic navigation and sub-pipe cleaning, achieving pipe-switching times of less than 30 s. The system operates reliably and significantly improves cleaning efficiency. The proposed robotic system exhibits strong adaptability and generalizability, offering an effective solution for automated cleaning in confined pipeline environments. Full article

The intratumoral microbiota, as an important component of the tumor microenvironment, is increasingly recognized as a key factor in regulating responses to cancer immunotherapy. Recent studies have revealed that the intratumoral microbiota is not uniformly distributed but instead exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity, with its distribution patterns influenced by factors such as tumor anatomy, local immune status, and therapeutic interventions. This spatial heterogeneity not only alters the interactions between microbes and the host immune system but may also reshape the immunogenic and immunosuppressive landscapes of tumors. The enrichment or depletion of microbiota in different tumor regions can influence immune cell infiltration patterns, metabolic pathway activities, and immune checkpoint molecule expression, thereby driving the development of resistance to immunotherapy. Moreover, certain bacterial metabolites form concentration gradients between the tumor core and margins, thereby regulating immune cell function. Therefore, understanding and manipulating the spatial distribution of intratumoral microbiota, particularly in resistant patients, holds promise for developing new strategies to overcome immunotherapy resistance. In the future, precise modulation strategies targeting microbial spatial heterogeneity, such as engineered bacterial vectors, probiotic combinations, and phage therapy, may open new avenues for immunotherapy. Full article

Liver health is integral to overall human well-being and the pathogenesis of various diseases. In recent years, kynurenine and its derivatives have gradually been recognized for their involvement in various pathophysiological processes, especially in the regulation of liver diseases, such as acute liver injury, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. Kynurenine and its derivatives are derived from tryptophan, which is broken down by the enzymes indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) and tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO), converting the essential amino acid tryptophan into kynurenine (KYN) and other downstream metabolites, such as kynurenic acid (KYNA), 3-hydroxykynurenine (3-HK), xanthurenic acid (XA), and quinolinic acid (QA). In liver diseases, kynurenine and its derivatives can promote the activity of the transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), suppress T cell activity for immune modulation, inhibit the activation of inflammatory signaling pathways, such as NF-κB for anti-inflammatory effects, and inhibit the activation of hepatic stellate cells to slow down fibrosis progression. Additionally, kynurenine and other downstream metabolites can influence the progression of liver diseases by modulating the gut microbiota. Therefore, in this review, we summarize and explore the mechanisms by which kynurenine and its derivatives regulate liver diseases to help develop new diagnostic or prognostic biomarkers and effective therapies targeting the kynurenine pathway for liver disease treatment. Full article

In this study, ultrafiltration fractions (<3 k Da, LMH; >3 k Da, HMH) and solid-phase extraction fractions (hydrophilic hydrolysate, HIH; hydrophobic hydrolysate, HOH) from trypsin hydrolysate purified from croceine croaker (Pseudosciaena crocea) isolate were obtained to investigate the cryoprotective effects of the different fractions, achieved by means of maceration of turbot fish meat after three freeze-thaw cycles. Alterations in the texture, color, moisture loss, myofibrillar protein oxidation stability and conformation, and microstructure of the fish were analyzed after freezing and thawing. The results demonstrate that HIH maximized the retention of fish texture, reduced moisture loss, minimized the oxidation and aggregation of myofibrillar proteins, and stabilized the secondary and tertiary structures of myofibrillar proteins compared to the control group. In conclusion, the HIH component in the trypsin hydrolysates of croceine croaker significantly contributes to minimizing freeze damage in fish meat and acts as an anti-freezing agent with high industrial application potential. Full article

The construction of urban green spaces is a pivotal aspect of sustainable urban development. As societal preferences evolve, a shift from visually oriented landscapes to multi-sensory landscapes has emerged. However, scant attention has been given to the olfactory dimension of urban green spaces. This study addresses this gap by investigating the relationship between odor perception and park visit experiences, employing a combination of smellwalks and questionnaire surveys conducted in Purple Bamboo Park in Beijing. Natural odors, with most perception frequencies above 60%, are the most dominant odors in Purple Bamboo Park during the summer, including plant, water, and soil smells. The questionnaire survey results revealed a positive correlation between the perception of natural odors and tour experience. Notably, floral fragrances emerged as the predominant olfactory stimulus influencing the park’s olfactory ambiance. Furthermore, a remarkably strong association was observed between the degrees of olfactory, visual, and overall experiential satisfaction, which indicates that multi-sensory experiences in urban parks work as an organic whole. By recognizing the pivotal role of smell in shaping perceptions, urban planners and designers can now integrate olfactory considerations into their work, thereby elevating the overall quality and sustainability of urban green spaces. Full article

During the production of steel, in view of the manufacturing engineering, transportation, and other factors, a steel surface may produce some defects, which will endanger the service life and performance of the steel. Therefore, the detection of defects on a steel surface is one of the indispensable links in production. The traditional defect detection methods have trouble in meeting the requirements of high detection accuracy and detection efficiency. Therefore, we propose the WFRE-YOLOv8s, based on YOLOv8s, for detecting steel surface defects. Firstly, we change the loss function to WIoU to address quality imbalances between data. Secondly, we newly designed the CFN in the backbone to replace C2f to reduce the number of parameters and FLOPs of the network. Thirdly, we utilized RFN to complete a new neck RFN to reduce the computational overhead and, at the same time, to fuse different scale features well. Finally, we incorporate the EMA attention module into the backbone to enhance the extraction of valuable features and improve the detection accuracy of the model. Extensive experiments are carried out on the NEU-DET to prove the validity of the designed module and model. The mAP0.5 of our proposed model reaches 79.4%, which is 4.7% higher than that of YOLOv8s. Full article

Shisa represents a type of single-transmembrane adaptor protein containing an N-terminal cysteine-rich domain and a proline-rich C-terminal region. Nine shisa subfamily genes have been proposed in most vertebrates; however, some might be species-specific. The number of shisa genes present in zebrafish remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the evolutionary relationships among shisa family genes in zebrafish (TU strain) using phylogenetic and syntenic analyses. The function of shisa-2 was preliminarily examined via CRISPR/Cas13d-mediated knockdown. Following identification in zebrafish, 10 shisa family genes, namely shisa-1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9a, and 9b, were classified into three main clades and six subclades. Their encoding proteins contained a cysteine-rich N-terminal domain and a proline-rich C-terminal region containing different motifs. A specific syntenic block containing atp8a2 and shisa-2 was observed to be conserved across all species. Furthermore, all these genes were expressed during embryogenesis. Shisa-2 was expressed in the presomitic mesoderm, somites, and so on. Shisa-2 was identified as a regulator of the expression of the somite formation marker mesp-ab. Overall, our study provides new insights into the evolution of shisa family genes and the control of shisa-2 over the convergent extension cells of somitic precursors in zebrafish. Full article

Human rotavirus (HRV) is the causative agent of severe dehydrating diarrhea in children under the age of five, resulting in up to 215,000 deaths each year. These deaths almost exclusively occur in low- and middle-income countries where vaccine efficacy is the lowest due to chronic malnutrition, gut dysbiosis, and concurrent enteric viral infection. Parenteral vaccines for HRV are particularly attractive as they avoid many of the concerns associated with currently used live oral vaccines. In this study, a two-dose intramuscular (IM) regimen of the trivalent, nanoparticle-based, nonreplicating HRV vaccine (trivalent S₆₀-VP8*), utilizing the shell (S) domain of the capsid of norovirus as an HRV VP8* antigen display platform, was evaluated for immunogenicity and protective efficacy against P[6] and P[8] HRV using gnotobiotic pig models. A prime–boost strategy using one dose of the oral Rotarix^® vaccine, followed by one dose of the IM trivalent nanoparticle vaccine was also evaluated. Both regimens were highly immunogenic in inducing serum virus neutralizing, IgG, and IgA antibodies. The two vaccine regimens failed to confer significant protection against diarrhea; however, the prime–boost regimen significantly shortened the duration of virus shedding in pigs challenged orally with the virulent Wa (G1P[8]) HRV and significantly shortened the mean duration of virus shedding, mean peak titer, and area under the curve of virus shedding after challenge with Arg (G4P[6]) HRV. Prime–boost-vaccinated pigs challenged with P[8] HRV had significantly higher P[8]-specific IgG antibody-secreting cells (ASCs) in the spleen post-challenge. Prime–boost-vaccinated pigs challenged with P[6] HRV had significantly higher numbers of P[6]- and P[8]-specific IgG ASCs in the ileum, as well as significantly higher numbers of P[8]-specific IgA ASCs in the spleen post-challenge. These results suggest the promise of and warrant further investigation into the oral priming and parenteral boosting strategy for future HRV vaccines. Full article

Schisandra chinensis polysaccharide (SCP) is an experimental therapeutic for the treatment of intestinal injury. Selenium nanoparticle modification can improve the bioactivity of polysaccharides. In this study, SCP was firstly extracted and purified by a DEAE-52 column, then SCP-Selenium nanoparticles (SCP-Se NPs) were prepared, and the procedure was optimized. Thereafter, the obtained SCP-Se NPs were characterized by transmission electron microscope, X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The influence of different storage environments on the stability of colloidal SCP-Se NPs was also investigated. Finally, the therapeutic effects of SCP-Se NPs on LPS-induced intestinal inflammatory injuries in mice were evaluated. Results showed that the optimized SCP-Se NPs were amorphous, uniform, spherical particles with a diameter of 121 nm, and the colloidal solution was stable at 4 °C for at least 14 d. Moreover, SCP-Se NPs could more effectively alleviate LPS-induced diarrhea, intestinal tissue injury, and tight junction destruction and decrease the elevated expression levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 compared with SCP. These results demonstrate that SCP-Se NPs may alleviate LPS-induced enteritis through their anti-inflammatory effects, indicating that SCP-Se NPs can serve as a good candidate for preventing and treating enteritis in the livestock and poultry industry. Full article

Mannan oligosaccharides (MOSs) have been implicated in the animal growth rate, health indices, and lipid oxidative stability. MOSs have been indicated to maintain intestinal health and anti-inflammatory effects via modulation of gut microbiota. Furthermore, the role of MOSs in modulating skeletal muscle function is largely unknown. Here, this study aimed to investigate the effects of MOS supplementation on muscle function and muscle mass in mice. Additionally, the possible underlying mechanisms, including the contributions of gut microbiota and microbial metabolites, were explored. In our study, 3-week-old C57BL/6J male mice (body weight of approximately 10.7 ± 1.1 g) were given pure water or pure water with 1% MOS. To study the effect of MOSs on gut-microbiota-derived metabolites, serum metabolic profiles were analyzed through untargeted metabolomic profiling. Moreover, we detected the downstream signals of differential metabolites, and decanoic acid (DA) was selected as our target spot. Then, DA was used to treat C2C12 cells, and we found that DA promotes C2C12 cell differentiation via the GPR84 and PI3K/AKT signaling pathways. In conclusion, these results showed that MOS supplementation improves muscle function and muscle mass. Additionally, gut microbiome and microbial metabolites were regulated by MOSs, and DA may be one of the most important links between the gut microbiome and skeletal muscle function regulation. Full article

Human rotavirus (HRV) is a leading cause of gastroenteritis in children under 5 years of age. Licensed vaccines containing G1P[8] and G1-4P[8] strains are less efficacious against newly emerging P[6] strains, indicating an urgent need for better cross protective vaccines. Here, we report our development of a new gnotobiotic (Gn) pig model of P[6] HRV infection and disease as a tool for evaluating potential vaccine candidates. The Arg HRV (G4P[6]) strain was derived from a diarrheic human infant stool sample and determined to be free of other viruses by metagenomic sequencing. Neonatal Gn pigs were orally inoculated with the stool suspension containing 5.6 × 10⁵ fluorescent focus units (FFU) of the virus. Small and large intestinal contents were collected at post inoculation day 2 or 3. The virus was passaged 6 times in neonatal Gn pigs to generate a large inoculum pool. Next, 33–34 day old Gn pigs were orally inoculated with 10⁻², 10³, 10⁴, and 10⁵ FFU of Arg HRV to determine the optimal challenge dose. All pigs developed clinical signs of infection, regardless of the inoculum dose. The optimal challenge dose was determined to be 10⁵ FFU. This new Gn pig model is ready to be used to assess the protective efficacy of candidate monovalent and multivalent vaccines against P[6] HRV. Full article

Verbal fluency impairment is common in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), but the effect of drugs on verbal fluency in PD patients has not been comprehensively evaluated. We conducted a network meta-analysis based on four online databases to compare the effect of drugs on verbal fluency in PD patients. This study was performed and reported according to PRISMA-NMA guidelines. In total, 6 out of 3707 articles (three RCTS and three cross-sectional studies) covering eight drug regimens were included (five for letter fluency, five for semantic fluency). In terms of letter fluency, the ranking of the overall efficacy of included drug regimens was: levodopa, levodopa combined with pramipexole, rotigotine, cabergoline, pramipexole, pergolide, but no drug regimen presented a significant advantage over the others. In terms of semantic fluency, the ranking of the overall efficacy of included drug regimens was: rotigotine, levodopa, cabergoline, pergolide, pramipexole, among which, levodopa alone (SMD = 0.93, 95%CI: 0.28–1.59) and rotigotine alone (SMD = 1.18, 95%CI: 0.28–2.09) were statistically superior to pramipexole, while no significant difference was identified between all the other drug regimens. Levodopa and rotigotine seem to be more appropriate choices for PD patients with verbal fluency impairment. Further study is needed to illustrate the efficacy of drugs on verbal fluency in PD patients. Full article

Chlorodifluoromethane (HCFC-22) is one of the air pollutants that destroy the ozone layer and warm the earth. In order to degrade HCFC-22, the catalytic hydrolysis method is currently the most effective environmental technology. Herein, we prepare solid acid MoO₃/ZrO₂ and solid base MgO/ZrO₂ catalysts for the degradation of HCFC-22, with a particular focus on revealing the effects of the catalyst preparation methods, calcination temperatures, and hydrolysis temperatures on the hydrolyzation and hydrolysis rates of HCFC-22. The catalysts are characterized by XRD, N₂ isothermal adsorption–desorption, and NH₃-TPD. The results show that the solid acid (base) MoO₃(MgO)/ZrO₂ catalysts have strong catalytic activity for the degradation of HCFC-22, while the catalytic activity of the solid acid MoZr is better than that of the solid base MgZr catalyst and the hydrolysis rate can reach more than 90%. The water vapor generates B-acid centers on the MoO₃(MgO)/ZrO₂ framework and promotes the hydrolysis of HCFC-22 to HF and HCl. Full article

Planting rice in saline–alkali land can effectively improve saline–alkali soil and increase grain yield, but traditional identification methods for saline–alkali-tolerant rice varieties require tedious and time-consuming field investigations based on growth indicators by rice breeders. In this study, the Python machine deep learning method was used to analyze the Raman molecular spectroscopy of rice and assist in feature attribution, in order to study a fast and efficient identification method of saline–alkali-tolerant rice varieties. A total of 156 Raman spectra of four rice varieties (two saline–alkali-tolerant rice varieties and two saline–alkali-sensitive rice varieties) were analyzed, and the wave crests were extracted by an improved signal filtering difference method and the feature information of the wave crest was automatically extracted by scipy.signal.find_peaks. Select K Best (SKB), Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) and Select F Model (SFM) were used to select useful molecular features. Based on these feature selection methods, a Logistic Regression Model (LRM) and Random Forests Model (RFM) were established for discriminant analysis. The experimental results showed that the RFM identification model based on the RFE method reached a higher recognition rate of 89.36%. According to the identification results of RFM and the identification of feature attribution materials, amylum was the most significant substance in the identification of saline–alkali-tolerant rice varieties. Therefore, an intelligent method for the identification of saline–alkali-tolerant rice varieties based on Raman molecular spectroscopy is proposed. Full article