The roles of pyroptosis in genitourinary diseases.

Pyroptosis, a form of programmed cell death distinct from apoptosis and necrosis, is thought to be closely associated with the pathogenesis of diseases. Recently, the association between pyroptosis and urinary diseases has attracted considerable attention, and a comprehensive review focusing on this issue is not available. In this study, we reviewed the role of pyroptosis in the development and progression of benign urinary diseases and urinary malignancies. Based on this, pyroptosis has been implicated in the development of urinary diseases. In summary, this review sheds light on future research directions and provides novel ideas for using pyroptosis as a powerful tool to fight urinary diseases.

Transmissive Digital Coding Metasurfaces for Polarization-Dependent Dual-Mode Quad Orbital Angular Momentum Beams.

In wireless communication systems, a multibeam can be used to increase the number of spatial channels by space-division multiplexing. Furthermore, the multimode is used to enhance the channel capacity by mode-division multiplexing. However, few of the previously reported methods cannot achieve independent controls of orbital angular momentum (OAM) states by transmissive metasurfaces in both space-division and mode-division multiplexing simultaneously. To expand the wireless communication channel, a multilayer transmissive digital coding metasurface with a single emitting source is demonstrated for quad-OAM beam generation with a dual mode. By changing the geometry of the cross dipole for a unit cell, the polarization-dependent 3-bit phase responses are obtained to flexibly manipulate the multi-OAM beams with different modes in preset directions simultaneously. Two types of metasurfaces are designed and fabricated to realize four OAM beams with two topological charges in different directions by encoding the phase sequence in x- and y-directions, which is validated by both theoretical analyses and experimental results. This scheme of transmissive digital coding metasurface provides a simple way to the multiplexing, multichannel, and multiplatform communication and imaging systems.

Multifunctional Coding-Feeding Metasurface Based on Phase Manipulation.

Multiple functionalities on a shared aperture are crucial for metasurfaces (MSs) in many applications. In this paper, we propose a coding-feeding metasurface (CFMS) with the multiple functions of high-gain radiation, orbital angular momentum (OAM) generation, and radar cross-section (RCS) reduction based on phase manipulation. The unit cell of the CFMS is composed of a rectangular emission patch and two quasi-Minkowski patches for reflective phase manipulation, which are on a shared aperture. The high-gain radiation and multiple modes of ±1, ±2, and ±3 OAM generation were realized by rationally setting the elements and the phase of their excitation. The CFMS presents a broadband RCS reduction of 8 dB from 3.18 GHz to 7.56 GHz for y-polarization and dual-band RCS reduction for x-polarization based on phase interference. To validate the concept of the CFMS, a prototype was fabricated and measured. The results of the measurement agree well with the simulation. A CFMS with the advantages of light weight and low profile has potential application in detection and wireless communication systems for stealth aircraft.

Asymmetric transmission for dual-circularly and linearly polarized waves based on a chiral metasurface.

We propose a chiral metasurface (CMS) that exhibits asymmetric transmission (AT) of double circularly and linearly polarized waves at the same frequency band. In order to realize the manipulation of electromagnetic (EM) waves in the whole space, the unit cell of CMS consists of three layers of dielectric substrate and four layers of metal patches. The Z-shaped chiral micro-structure and a grating-like micro-structure are proposed and designed to achieve AT. The simulated results show that the x-polarized wave that is incident along one direction can be transmitted into the right-hand circularly polarized (RHCP) wave and the left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) wave that is incident along the opposite direction can be reflected as the LHCP wave in the frequency band of 4.69GHz-5.84 GHz. The maximum chirality response can be reflected by AT and circular dichroism (CD) and they can reach up to 0.38 and 0.75, respectively. In addition, we also produced the sample of CMS, and the experimental results are in good agreement with the simulated results.

A novel sunshine duration-based photothermal time model interprets the photosensitivity of flower maturity of pecan cultivars.

Although it is well-known and established that light plays important roles in plant development, up to now, there is no substantial improvements in how to deal with the light factor of spring phenology under natural condition. By monitoring the local meteorologic data and mature dates of two types (male and female) of flower from four pecan cultivars during 9 years, it was found that the complementary pattern of growing degree day and sunshine duration helped to maintain a threshold of driving force related to the maturity of pecan flower during 9 years. A novel photothermal time model based on the linear combination of growing degree day and sunshine duration was then proposed and validated to interpret the variance of mature dates of pecan cultivars. Comparative analysis showed that the new model had made extremely significant improvements to the traditional thermal time model. In addition, this model introduced the conversion coefficient K, which quantified the effect of light on the flowering drive, and revealed the differences of base temperature among cultivars. This was the first time that sunshine duration instead of photoperiod was adopted to develop into a verified model on spring phenological event of tree species. It will help to model the spring phenologies of other tree species more reasonably.

Effect of a fungus, Hypoxylon spp., on endophytes in the roots of Asparagus.

The fungal isolate Hypoxylon spp. (Sj18) was isolated from the root of pecan. It might have effects on the plant's stress tolerance and endophytic community. Inoculation experiments were carried out on the roots of Asparagus with normal and inactivated Sj18, and the diversity and community structure of endophytes in the root of inoculated Asparagus were studied. It was found that Sj18 fungi affected the endophytic community of Asparagus roots. From being a low-abundance genus, the salt-tolerant bacterium Halomonas became the dominant genus. In order to verify that Sj18 can improve salt tolerance, Arabidopsis thaliana was inoculated with Sj18 in a salt tolerance test. The result showed that A. thaliana grew better in a high salt environment after inoculation with Sj18. Sj18 changed the microbe diversity, community composition and structure of endophytes in the roots of Asparagus, which increased the bacterial diversity. A total of 16 phyla and 184 genera of bacteria were detected. However, the diversity of fungi decreased.

Adsorption and biodegradation functions of novel microbial embedding polyvinyl alcohol gel beads modified with cyclodextrin: a case study of benzene.

A novel microorganism embedding material was developed to enhance the benzene removal through adsorption and biodegradation, by introducing ß-cyclodextrin (CD) to traditional polyvinyl alcohol gel beads. Results show that the optimal ratio of sucrose/benzene was 1.25 for co-metabolism biodegradation of benzene, and the maximum exogenous microbial respiration rate was 260.13 mgO2/(gVSS h) for gel beads with CD. The positive effects of CD on benzene removal mainly resulted from the adsorption characteristics of CD as well as the stimulation of CD on microbial activity. Adsorption tests indicate that CD addition increased the adsorption function of gel beads to benzene with its dispersion coefficient of 5.1 × 10-7 cm2/s. Respiration tests show that gel beads with CD possessed the highest maximum specific exogenous respiration rates. Moreover, a high-throughput sequencing analysis confirms that CD addition could obviously enhance microbial diversity with domain microbial of Zoogloea (17.0%). Finally, microbial embedding gel beads could remove certain benzene after lyophilization and storage for one month. Overall, the novel microbial embedding gel beads modified with CD (a favorable additional agent to traditional embedding materials) have been proved as an efficient method for removing benzene under suitable sucrose/benzene ratio.