Ecological responses to hydrological connectivity in grassland riparian zones: Insights from vegetation and ground-dwelling arthropods.

Riparian wetlands have suffered from degradation due to global climate change and human activities, which can alter flora and fauna community patterns and disrupt material cycles in the riparian zones. Hydrological connectivity identified by functional and structural connectivity is an important driving force of riparian ecosystems. However, the role of hydrological connectivity in linking riparian hydrology and ecology remains unclear, especially in dryland rivers. By taking the riparian zone of the Xilin River in Eurasian steppe as an example, the functional connectivity was represented by the groundwater depth in the riparian zones. The structural connectivity was quantified by integrating the soil, and vegetation properties of the riparian zone. The structural connectivity decreased from upstream to downstream. Laterally, the highest structural connectivity was found in the riparian zone 25 m away from the river channel. The abundance of three groups of ground-dwelling arthropods (except Araneae) showed a threshold behavior in response to the functional connectivity, with the highest abundance occurring in the medium level of functional connectivity. Both vegetation biomass and ground-dwelling arthropod abundance were significantly and positively correlated to the structural connectivity strength. The results of structural equation models (SEMs) also indicated that structural connectivity was a key factor affecting vegetation and ground-dwelling arthropod abundance. The results underscore the essential function of hydrological connectivity in maintaining the biodiversity in the riparian zones. The study provides a scientific reference of riparian-zone restoration based on hydrological connectivity.

Cry1Δ11 mutation induces ADHD-like symptoms through hyperactive dopamine D1 receptor signaling.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder that affects approximately 5.3% of children and approximately 2.5% of adults. There is an intimate relationship between ADHD and sleep disturbance. Specifically, individuals carry a mutation in the core circadian gene CRY1 (c. 1657 + 3A > C), which results in the deletion of exon 11 expression in the CRY1 protein (CRY1Δ11), causing them to exhibit typical ADHD symptoms. However, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. In this study, we demonstrate that Cry1Δ11 (c. 1717 + 3A > C) mice showed ADHD-like symptoms, including hyperactivity, impulsivity, and deficits in learning and memory. A hyperactive cAMP signaling pathway was found in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) of Cry1Δ11 mice. We further demonstrated that upregulated c-Fos was mainly localized in dopamine D1 receptor-expressing medium spiny neurons (DRD1-MSNs) in the NAc. Neuronal excitability of DRD1-MSNs in the NAc of Cry1Δ11 mice was significantly higher than that of WT controls. Mechanistically, the CRY1Δ11 protein, in contrast to the WT CRY1 protein, failed to interact with the Gαs protein and inhibit DRD1 signaling. Finally, the DRD1 antagonist SCH23390 normalized most ADHD-like symptoms in Cry1Δ11 mice. Thus, our results reveal hyperactive DRD1 signaling as an underlying mechanism and therapeutic target for ADHD induced by the highly prevalent CRY1Δ11 mutation.

Revealing the impact of China's clean air policies on synergetic control of CO2 and air pollutant emissions: Evidence from Chinese cities.

China is presently confronted with the intricate challenge of simultaneously mitigating air pollution and decelerating the pace of climate change. An integrated perspective to investigate the synergetic control of CO2 and air pollutant emissions is in an urgent need. Using data for 284 Chinese cities from 2009 to 2017, we introduced an indicator called coupling and coordination degree of CO2 and air pollutant emissions control (CCD) and found an upward and spatial agglomeration trend of CCD distribution during the research period. Then, this study posed a specific focus on the impact of China's Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (APPCAP). The DID model revealed that implementation of the APPCAP resulted in a 4.0% increase in CCD for cities with special emission limits, attributed to industrial structural adjustments and the promotion of technology innovation. Furthermore, we also identified positive spillover effects of the APPCAP on neighboring control group cities situated within 350 km of the treatment group cities, providing an explanation for the spatial agglomeration trend observed in CCD distribution. These findings hold significant implications for the synergetic control in China and underscored the potential benefits of industrial structural adjustments and technology innovation in mitigating environmental pollution.

Design, optimization, and crosstalk analysis for robot joint torque sensor of shear beam structure.

Crosstalk resistance is an important criterion for evaluating the measurement error of the Joint Torque Sensor (JTS) in actual collaborative robot application, but few research literature studies on the crosstalk resistance of shear beam-type JTS have been found. This paper proposes a mechanical structure of one shear beam sensor and determines its strain gauge working area. Multi-objective optimization equations are established with three major performance indicators of sensitivity, stiffness, and crosstalk resistance. Optimal processing and manufacturing structure parameters are obtained by employing both the response surface method based on the central composite design experimental principle and the multi-objective genetic algorithm. By simulating and experimenting, the optimized sensor is verified and has the following indices: overload resistance 300% F.S., torsional stiffness 503.44 KN m/rad, bending stiffness 142.56 KN m/rad, range 0-±200 N m, sensitivity 25.71 mV/N m, linearity 0.1999%, repeatability error 0.062%, hysteresis error 0.493%, measurement error less than 0.5% F.S. under Fx (392.4 N) or Fz (600 N) crosstalk load, and measurement error less than 1% F.S. under My (25 N m) moment crosstalk. The proposed sensor possesses good crosstalk resistance and especially axial crosstalk resistance and has good overall performance to meet well the engineering requirements.

Face detection for rail transit passengers based on single shot detector and active learning.

COVID-19 spreads rapidly among people, so that more and more people are wearing masks in rail transit stations. However, the current face detection algorithms cannot distinguish between a face wearing a mask and a face not wearing a mask. This paper proposes a face detection algorithm based on single shot detector and active learning in rail transit surveillance, effectively detecting faces and faces wearing masks. Firstly, we propose a real-time face detection algorithm based on single shot detector, which improves the accuracy by optimizing backbone network, feature pyramid network, spatial attention module, and loss function. Subsequently, this paper proposes a semi-supervised active learning method to select valuable samples from video surveillance of rail transit to retrain the face detection algorithm, which improves the generalization of the algorithm in rail transit and reduces the time to label samples. Extensive experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves significant performance over the state-of-the-art algorithms on rail transit dataset. The proposed algorithm has a wide range of applications in rail transit stations, including passenger flow statistics, epidemiological analysis, and reminders of passenger who do not wear masks. Simultaneously, our algorithm does not collect and store face information of passengers, which effectively protects the privacy of passengers.

CD38 deficiency up-regulated IL-1ß and MCP-1 through TLR4/ERK/NF-κB pathway in sepsis pulmonary injury.

As a disease with high mortality, many cytokines and signaling pathways are associated with sepsis. The pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines are participating in the pathogenesis of sepsis, especially in early stage. Moreover, the releases and expressions of cytokines are regulated by numerous signaling pathways, including TLR4/ERK pathway. But despite many studies have expounded the pathogenesis of sepsis and the regulation of cytokines in sepsis, how CD38 influence the expressions of related molecules in sepsis are still unknown. The aim of this study is illuminating the alteration of cytokines and signaling pathways in CD38-/- mice injected with Escherichia coli. Compared with WT mice, E. coli infection results in more severe pulmonary injuries and higher mRNA expressions of cytokines. Compared with E. coli infected WT mice, CD38 knockout leads to aggravated pulmonary injury, increased phosphorylated ERK1/2, p38 and NF-κB p65, and enhanced levels of IL-1ß, iNOS and MCP-1. While compared with E. coli infected CD38-/- mice, TLR4 mutation results in alleviated pulmonary injury, down-regulated phosphorylated ERK1/2 and NF-κB p65, and decreased expressions of IL-1ß and MCP-1. CD38 deficiency increased the expressions of IL-1ß andMCP-1 and aggravated pulmonary injury through TLR4/ERK/NF-κB pathway in sepsis.

TLR4-NLRP3-GSDMD-Mediated Pyroptosis Plays an Important Role in Aggravated Liver Injury of CD38-/- Sepsis Mice.

Clinically, severe bacterial infection can cause septicemia and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, especially liver injury. CD38 is closely related to many inflammatory pathways, but its role in liver injury caused by bacterial infection remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to discuss the specific role of CD38 in bacterial liver injury. Eight-week-old male C57BL/6 mice (WT, CD38-/- and CD38-/-TLR4mut) were used and stimulated with Escherichia coli (ATCC25922) or PBS, intraperitoneally. After 3 hours of bacterial stimulation, serum was collected to detect ALT and AST concentration, and liver tissue was harvested for hematoxylin and eosin staining and bacterial culture. The mRNA expressions of TLR4, NLRP3, IL-1ß, IL-18, and GSDMD were quantitatively determined by RT-qPCR. The expressions of TLR4, MyD88, TRIF, NF-κB p65, NLRP3, GSDMD, and cytokines were detected by Western blot. The expression and localization of ERK1/2 were detected by immunohistochemistry and Western blot. The results showed that bacterial stimulation could upregulate the expression of inflammatory cytokines, leading to hepatic dysfunction. Moreover, bacterial stimulation of CD38-deficient mice can aggravate the inflammatory response, the expressions of TLR4, NF-κB, and ERK1/2 were significantly increased, and the biomarkers related to pyroptosis also manifested more obvious pyroptosis. However, TLR4 mutation significantly alleviated inflammation and pyroptosis in the liver caused by bacteria, on the basis of CD38 deficiency. Overall, CD38 knockout exacerbates bacteria-induced liver damage through TLR4-NLRP3-GSDMD-mediated pyroptosis.

An Efficient Residual-Based Method for Railway Image Dehazing.

Trains shuttle in semiopen environments, and the surrounding environment plays an important role in the safety of train operation. The weather is one of the factors that affect the surrounding environment of railways. Under haze conditions, railway monitoring and staff vision could be blurred, threatening railway safety. This paper tackles image dehazing for railways. The contributions of this paper for railway video image dehazing are as follows: (1) this paper proposes an end-to-end residual block-based haze removal method that consists of two subnetworks, namely fine-grained and coarse-grained network can directly generate the clean image from input hazy image, called RID-Net (Railway Image Dehazing Network). (2) The combined loss function (per-pixel loss and perceptual loss functions) is proposed to achieve both low-level features and high-level features so to generate the high-quality restored images. (3) We take the full-reference criterion (PSNR&SSIM), object detection, running time, and sensory vision to evaluate the proposed dehazing method. Experimental results on railway synthesized dataset, benchmark indoor dataset, and real-world dataset demonstrate our method has superior performance compared to the state-of-the-art methods.