Is coffee, tea, and red wine consumption beneficial for individuals with hypertension?

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the associations of tea, coffee, and red wine intakes with health risks among individuals with hypertension. METHODS: This prospective cohort study included participants with hypertension from the UK Biobank cohort. Study exposures included self-reported intakes of coffee, tea, and red wine. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality, and the secondary outcomes were cardiovascular mortality and cardiovascular disease. The associations of beverage intake with outcomes were analyzed using Cox regression models. The hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated. RESULTS: A total of 187 708 participants with hypertension were included. The median follow-up period was 13.8 years. In individuals with hypertension, drinking one to two cups/day of coffee or three to four cups/day of tea was significantly associated with the lowest risk of all-cause mortality compared with less than one cup/day [hazard ratio for coffee, 0.943 (95% confidence interval, 0.908-0.979); hazard ratio for tea, 0.882 (95% confidence interval, 0.841-0.924)]. Red wine intake was inversely associated with all-cause mortality risk. Dose-response analysis revealed that high coffee intake (approximately greater than or equal to six cups/day) was significantly associated with increased risks of cardiovascular mortality and cardiovascular disease, but high tea and red wine intakes were not. Furthermore, replacing plain water with tea, but not coffee, significantly reduced the risks of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease. Replacing other alcoholic beverages with red wine also significantly reduced the risks of all three outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that tea and red wine, but not coffee, can be part of a healthy diet for the hypertensive population.

MSDCNN: A multiscale dilated convolution neural network for fine-grained 3D shape classification.

Multi-view deep neural networks have shown excellent performance on 3D shape classification tasks. However, global features aggregated from multiple views data often lack content information and spatial relationship, which leads to difficult identification the small variance among subcategories in the same category. To solve this problem, in this paper, a novel multiscale dilated convolution neural network termed as MSDCNN is proposed for multi-view fine-grained 3D shape classification. Firstly, a sequence of views are rendered from 12-viewpoints around the input 3D shape by the sequential view capturing module. Then, the first 22 convolution layers of ResNeXt50 is employed to extract the semantic features of each view, and a global mixed feature map is obtained through the element-wise maximum operation of the 12 output feature maps. Furthermore, attention dilated module (ADM), which combines four concatenated attention dilated block (ADB), is designed to extract larger receptive field features from global mixed feature map to enhance context information among the views. Specifically, each ADB is consisted by an attention mechanism module and a dilated convolution with different dilation rates. In addition, prediction module with label smoothing is proposed to classify features, which contains 3 × 3 convolution and adaptive average pooling. The performance of our method is validated experimentally on the ModelNet10, ModelNet40 and FG3D datasets. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed MSDCNN framework for 3D shape fine-grained classification.

The protein phosphatase qGL3/OsPPKL1 self-regulates its degradation to orchestrate brassinosteroid signaling in rice.

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a class of phytohormones that regulate plant growth and development. In previous studies, we cloned and identified PROTEIN PHOSPHATASE WITH KELCH-LIKE1 (OsPPKL1) as the causal gene for the quantitative trait locus GRAIN LENGTH3 (qGL3) in rice (Oryza sativa). We also showed that qGL3/OsPPKL1 is mainly located in the cytoplasm and nucleus and negatively regulates BR signaling and grain length. Because qGL3 is a negative regulator of BR signaling, its turnover is critical for rapid response to changes in BRs. Here, we demonstrate that qGL3 interacts with the WD40-domain-containing protein WD40-REPEAT PROTEIN48 (OsWDR48), which contains a nuclear export signal (NES). The NES signal is crucial for the cytosolic localization of OsWDR48 and also functions in the self-turnover of qGL3. We show that OsWDR48 physically interacts with and genetically acts through qGL3 to modulate BR signaling. Moreover, qGL3 may indirectly promote the phosphorylation of OsWDR48 at the Ser-379 and Ser-386 sites. Substitutions of both phosphorylation sites in OsWDR48 to non-phosphorylatable alanine enhanced the strength of the OsWDR48-qGL3 interaction. Furthermore, we found that brassinolide can promote the accumulation of non-phosphorylated OsWDR48, leading to strong interaction intensity between qGL3 and OsWDR48. Taken together, our results show that OsWDR48 facilitates qGL3 retention and induces degradation of qGL3 in the cytoplasm. These findings suggest that qGL3 self-modulates its turnover by binding to OsWDR48 to regulate its cytoplasmic localization and stability, leading to efficient orchestration of BR signal transduction in rice.

Transcriptional repression of beige fat innervation via a YAP/TAZ-S100B axis.

Sympathetic innervation is essential for the development of functional beige fat that maintains body temperature and metabolic homeostasis, yet the molecular mechanisms controlling this innervation remain largely unknown. Here, we show that adipocyte YAP/TAZ inhibit sympathetic innervation of beige fat by transcriptional repression of neurotropic factor S100B. Adipocyte-specific loss of Yap/Taz induces S100b expression to stimulate sympathetic innervation and biogenesis of functional beige fat both in subcutaneous white adipose tissue (WAT) and browning-resistant visceral WAT. Mechanistically, YAP/TAZ compete with C/EBPß for binding to the zinc finger-2 domain of PRDM16 to suppress S100b transcription, which is released by adrenergic-stimulated YAP/TAZ phosphorylation and inactivation. Importantly, Yap/Taz loss in adipocytes or AAV-S100B overexpression in visceral WAT restricts both age-associated and diet-induced obesity, and improves metabolic homeostasis by enhancing energy expenditure of mice. Together, our data reveal that YAP/TAZ act as a brake on the beige fat innervation by blocking PRDM16-C/EBPß-mediated S100b expression.

Bifunctional MoS2/Al2O3-Zeolite Catalysts in the Hydroprocessing of Methyl Palmitate.

A series of bifunctional catalysts, MoS2/Al2O3 (70 wt.%), zeolite (30 wt.%) (zeolite-ZSM-5, ZSM-12, and ZSM-22), and silica aluminophosphate SAPO-11, were synthesized for hydroconversion of methyl palmitate (10 wt.% in dodecane) in a trickle-bed reactor. Mo loading was about 7 wt.%. Catalysts and supports were characterized by different physical-chemical methods (HRTEM-EDX, SEM-EDX, XRD, N2 physisorption, and FTIR spectroscopy). Hydroprocessing was performed at a temperature of 250-350 °C, hydrogen pressure of 3.0-5.0 MPa, liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) of 36 h-1, and an H2/feed ratio of 600 Nm3/m3. Complete conversion of oxygen-containing compounds was achieved at 310 °C in the presence of MoS2/Al2O3-zeolite catalysts; the selectivity for the conversion of methyl palmitate via the 'direct' hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) route was over 85%. The yield of iso-alkanes gradually increases in order: MoS2/Al2O3 < MoS2/Al2O3-ZSM-12 < MoS2/Al2O3-ZSM-5 < MoS2/Al2O3-SAPO-11 < MoS2/Al2O3-ZSM-22. The sample MoS2/Al2O3-ZSM-22 demonstrated the highest yield of iso-alkanes (40%). The hydroisomerization activity of the catalysts was in good correlation with the concentration of Brønsted acid sites in the synthesized supports.

A Compact RF Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Node with an Energy Intensity Adaptive Management Algorithm.

This paper presents a compact RF energy harvesting wireless sensor node with the antenna, rectifier, energy management circuits, and load integrated on a single printed circuit board and a total size of 53 mm × 59.77 mm × 4.5 mm. By etching rectangular slots in the radiation patch, the antenna area is reduced by 13.9%. The antenna is tested to have an S11 of -24.9 dB at 2.437 GHz and a maximum gain of 4.8 dBi. The rectifier has a maximum RF-to-DC conversion efficiency of 52.53% at 7 dBm input energy. The proposed WSN can achieve self-powered operation at a distance of 13.4 m from the transmitter source. To enhance the conversion efficiency under different input energy densities, this paper establishes an energy model for two operating modes and proposes an energy-intensity adaptive management algorithm. The experiments demonstrated that the proposed WSN can effectively distinguish between the two operating modes based on input energy intensity and realize efficient energy management.

A Compact Stacked RF Energy Harvester with Multi-Condition Adaptive Energy Management Circuits.

This paper presents a compact stacked RF energy harvester operating in the WiFi band with multi-condition adaptive energy management circuits (MCA-EMCs). The harvester is divided into antennas, impedance matching networks, rectifiers, and MCA-EMCs. The antenna is based on a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) substrate using the microstrip antenna structure and a ring slot in the ground plane to reduce the antenna area by 13.7%. The rectifier, impedance matching network, and MCA-EMC are made on a single FR4 substrate. The rectifier has a maximum conversion efficiency of 33.8% at 5 dBm input. The MCA-EMC has two operating modes to adapt to multiple operating conditions, in which Mode 1 outputs 1.5 V and has a higher energy conversion efficiency of up to 93.56%, and Mode 2 supports a minimum starting input voltage of 0.33 V and multiple output voltages of 2.85-2.45 V and 1.5 V. The proposed RF energy harvester is integrated by multiple-layer stacking with a total size of 53 mm × 43.5 mm × 5.9 mm. The test results show that the proposed RF energy harvester can drive a wall clock (30 cm in diameter) at 10 cm distance and a hygrometer at 122 cm distance with a home router as the transmitting source.

Fe-loaded biochar thin-layer capping for the remediation of sediment polluted with nitrate and bisphenol A: Insight into interdomain microbial interactions.

The information on the collaborative removal of nitrate and trace organic contaminants in the thin-layer capping system covered with Fe-loaded biochar (FeBC) is limited. The community changes of bacteria, archaea and fungi, and their co-occurrence patterns during the remediation processes are also unknown. In this study, the optimized biochar (BC) and FeBC were selected as the capping materials in a batch experiment for the remediation of overlying water and sediment polluted with nitrate and bisphenol A (BPA). The community structure and metabolic activities of bacteria, archaea and fungi were investigated. During the incubation (28 d), the nitrate in overlying water decreased from 29.6 to 11.0 mg L-1 in the FeBC group, 2.9 and 1.8 times higher than the removal efficiencies in Control and BC group. The nitrate in the sediment declined from 5.03 to 0.75 mg kg-1 in the FeBC group, 1.3 and 1.1 times higher than those in Control and BC group. The BPA content in the overlying water in BC group and FeBC group maintained below 0.4 mg L-1 during incubation, signally lower than in the Control group. After capping with FeBC, a series of species in bacteria, archaea and fungi could collaboratively contribute to the removal of nitrate and BPA. In the FeBC group, more metabolism pathways related to nitrogen metabolism (KO00910) and Bisphenol degradation (KO00363) were generated. The co-occurrence network analysis manifested a more intense interaction within bacteria communities than archaea and fungi. Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria in bacteria, and Crenarchaeota in archaea are verified keystone species in co-occurrence network construction. The information demonstrated the improved pollutant attenuation by optimizing biochar properties, improving microbial diversity and upgrading microbial metabolic activities. Our results are of significance in providing theoretical guidance on the remediation of sediments polluted with nitrate and trace organic contaminants.

High-precision detection method for an object edge based on a position-sensitive detector.

The paper proposed and verified a method of object edge detection based on the innovative defect spot working mode of the position-sensitive detector (PSD). With the output characteristics of the PSD in the defect spot mode and the size transformation properties of a focused beam, edge-detection sensitivity could be improved. Calibration experiments with the piezoelectric transducer (PZT) and object edge-detection experiments indicate that the object edge-detection sensitivity and accuracy of our method could reach 1 and 20 nm, respectively. Therefore, this method can be widely used in high-precision alignment, geometric parameters measurement, and other fields.

An Improved Sensorless Hybrid Control Method of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor Based on I/F Startup.

To realize permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) in the full speed domain without speed sensor operation, a hybrid control method combining I/F startup and extended Kalman filter (EKF) is proposed in this paper. This method employs I/F startup to transition at low speed, effectively resolving the issue that the position estimation method based on the back electromotive force (EMF) model fails at zero speed and low speed, and converts to EKF for speed closed-loop vector control at medium and high speed. Moreover, a new feedback regulation mechanism as a solution to the problem of smooth switching between the two methods is proposed. First, the power angle is determined based on the relationship between the given I/F frequency and the estimated EKF position angle. Using the information of power angle, the damping torque of the system is increased to reduce velocity fluctuations during I/F startup. In addition, the balance point of current and position error angle is adjusted using the closed-loop information of position error angle to reduce the torque abrupt change before and after switching, thereby making the motor switching process to EKF speed closed-loop control more stable. Finally, simulation results are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

The Hippo pathway links adipocyte plasticity to adipose tissue fibrosis.

Fibrosis disrupts adipose tissue (AT) homeostasis and exacerbates metabolic dysfunction upon chronic caloric excess. The molecular mechanisms linking adipocyte plasticity to AT fibrosis are largely unknown. Here we show that the Hippo pathway is coupled with TGFß signaling to orchestrate a cellular and/or functional shift of adipocytes from energy storage to extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling in AT fibrosis. We found that Lats1/2-knockout adipocytes could dedifferentiate into DPP4+ progenitor cells and convert to DPP4- myofibroblasts upon TGFß stimulation. On the other hand, Hippo pathway inhibition during obesity impaired adipocyte identity while promoted ECM remodeling activity of adipocytes. Macrophages recruited by CCL2 produced TGFß to accelerate AT fibrosis. YAP and TAZ, the Hippo downstream effectors, enhanced SMAD2 stability to promote fibrotic responses. Importantly, inhibition of YAP/TAZ activity in obese mice markedly relieved AT fibrosis and improved metabolic homeostasis. Together, our findings identify the Hippo pathway as a molecular switch in the initiation and development of AT fibrosis, implying it as a therapeutic target.

Extrachromosomal circular DNA: Current status and future prospects.

Extrachromosomal circular DNA (eccDNA) is a double-stranded DNA molecule found in various organisms, including humans. In the past few decades, the research on eccDNA has mainly focused on cancers and their associated diseases. Advancements in modern omics technologies have reinvigorated research on eccDNA and shed light on the role of these molecules in a range of diseases and normal cell phenotypes. In this review, we first summarize the formation of eccDNA and its modes of action in eukaryotic cells. We then outline eccDNA as a disease biomarker and reveal its regulatory mechanism. We finally discuss the future prospects of eccDNA, including basic research and clinical application. Thus, with the deepening of understanding and exploration of eccDNAs, they hold great promise in future biomedical research and clinical translational application.

Deep learning based end-to-end visible light communication with an in-band channel modeling strategy.

Aside from ambient light noise, shot noise, and linear/nonlinear effects, strong low-frequency noise (LFN) severely affects the signal quality in LED-based visible light communication (VLC) systems, which hinders the implementation of data-driven end-to-end (E2E) deep learning approaches in real LED-VLC systems. We present a deep learning-based autoencoder to deal with this challenge. A novel modeling strategy is proposed to bypass the influence of the LFN and other low signal-to-noise ratio data when training the channel model of our E2E framework. The deep learning-based autoencoder then embeds the differentiable channel model and learns to combat the majority of channel impairments. In the E2E LED-VLC experiment, 1.875 Gbps transmission is achieved under the 7% HD-FEC threshold, 0.325 Gbps faster than the baseline. The E2E framework is robust to signal bias and amplitude variations, implying dimming support in the indoor environment.

The mitochondrial calcium uniporter engages UCP1 to form a thermoporter that promotes thermogenesis.

Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1)-mediated adaptive thermogenesis protects mammals against hypothermia and metabolic dysregulation. Whether and how mitochondrial calcium regulates this process remains unclear. Here, we show that mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU) recruits UCP1 through essential MCU regulator (EMRE) to form an MCU-EMRE-UCP1 complex upon adrenergic stimulation. This complex formation increases mitochondrial calcium uptake to accelerate the tricarboxylic acid cycle and supply more protons that promote uncoupled respiration, functioning as a thermogenic uniporter. Mitochondrial calcium uptake 1 (MICU1) negatively regulates thermogenesis probably through inhibiting thermogenic uniporter formation. Accordingly, the deletion of Mcu or Emre in brown adipocytes markedly impairs thermogenesis and exacerbates obesity and metabolic dysfunction. Remarkably, the enhanced assembly of the thermogenic uniporter via Micu1 knockout or expressing linked EMRE-UCP1 results in opposite phenotypes. Thus, we have uncovered a "thermoporter" that provides a driving force for the UCP1 operation in thermogenesis, which could be leveraged to combat obesity and associated metabolic disorders.

Flipped superposed constellation design for MIMO visible-light communication systems.

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) visible-light communication (VLC) systems based on the concept of superposed constellation have attracted increasing attention because multiplexing gains can be achieved even in a highly correlated MIMO channel. In this paper, a novel superposed constellation scheme is proposed for 2×2 MIMO VLC systems, where a 2n-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal is obtained by superposing 4QAM and processed 2n-2-order QAM signals. Based on the original 2n-2-order QAM signal, the processed signal is generated by adding an optimal offset, power normalization, and flipping according to the value of the 4QAM signal. Thus, the required power ratio between the two superposed signals is equal to 1, which not only avoids the power competition in the receiver, but also reduces the risk of the nonlinear distortion of the light-emitting diode at the transmitter. Moreover, benefitting from the flipped superposition method, two additional performance gains are provided. First, thorough Gray coding can be achieved. Second, the received power can be improved because the two transmitted signals are correlated. An algorithm for solving the optimal offset is proposed based on the target of the equal power ratio, and the expression of the received power is derived as well. Then, the performance of the proposed scheme is investigated using detailed simulations in an additive white Gaussian noise channel, where the superposed 64QAM constellation is assumed as an example. Further, we perform an experimental demonstration and examine the performance of the proposed system when a practical optical channel is considered, where nonideal impacts, such as nonlinearity and power competition, may occur. The experimental results confirm that the proposed scheme achieves a lower bit error rate (BER) and a larger dynamic range of driving peak-to-peak voltage compared with the existing superposed constellation schemes. Considering the 7% pre-forward error correction BER threshold of 3.8 × 10-3, the proposed superposed 64QAM constellation system can achieve a maximum transmission rate of 3 Gb/s.

A multi-omics approach to identify molecular alterations in a mouse model of heart failure.

Rationale: The morbidity and mortality of heart failure (HF) have been increasing rapidly in recent years. However, the molecular events that link to the phenotype of HF remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the molecular alterations in the pathogenesis of HF induced by pressure overload. Methods: Transverse aortic constriction was conducted to generate the HF mouse model. A multi-omics study was performed, including integrative analysis of scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq, bulk ATAC-seq and miRNA-seq data. The results of omics analysis were verified by immunofluorescence staining. Results: scRNA-seq analysis identified five major cell types, which exhibits consistency with previous studies. Integrative analysis of ATAC-seq and miRNA-seq showed the alterations of gene expression in HF. Activation of genes involved in immune response at transcriptional level and perturbed expression of their upstream miRNAs confirmed the function of immune cells in the pathogenesis of HF. Analysis of scATAC-seq revealed a NO biosynthetic related gene regulation pattern in endothelial cells of failing hearts. Conclusion: We performed a multi-omics analysis, comparing the transcriptomic, miRNA expression, and chromatin accessibility profile between the HF and control mice, thus providing mechanistic insights into the pathogenesis of pressure overload-induced HF.

Surface oxygen vacancies formation on Zn2SnO4 for bisphenol-A degradation under visible light: The tuning effect by peroxymonosulfate.

Visible light catalysis has been widely coupled with persulfate activation for refractory pollutants removal, while the exact role of persulfate played in such composite system is still questionable. In this work, the relation between peroxymonosulfate (PMS) induced structure change and visible light responsive activity of inverse spinel: i.e., Zn2SnO4, was deciphered. Under the visible light illumination (λ> 420nm) PMS addition would endow the composite system with pollutant removal performance. Batch test revealed that 60% of bisphenol-A (5 mg L-1) was mineralized within 3 h reaction time, by dosing 0.81 mM PMS and 0.1 g L-1 catalyst. The above oxidative system was also effective for other refractory pollutants elimination. Further analysis indicated that PMS could reduce the band gap of spinel from 2.75 to 2.52 eV and thereby enabling its visible light activity. Photogenerated h+ induced •OH and e- mediated •O2- contributed to the pollutant removal while h+ played a leading role. Density functional theory revealed that PMS would capture oxygen atom of spinel and induce surface oxygen vacancy defect structure formation. Also, three-oxygen atom coordinated Zn was identified as the possible catalyze site. This work is valuable for deep understanding the exact role of persulfate in photocatalytic system.

Low spatial complexity adaptive artificial neural network post-equalization algorithms in MIMO visible light communication systems.

In this paper, we experimentally propose a feasible and low spatial complexity adaptive artificial neural network (AANN) post-equalization algorithm in MIMO visible light communication (VLC) systems. By introducing the power ratio and the MIMO least mean square (MIMO-LMS) post-equalization algorithm into the structure design process of the artificial neural network (ANN) post-equalization algorithm, we reduced the spatial complexity of the post-ANN equalization algorithm to less than 10%. At the same time, the bit error rate (BER) performance of AANNs did not decrease. Finally, we achieved a data rate of 2.1Gbps in the AANN equalized 16QAM superposition coding modulation (SCM) and carrier-less amplitude-phase (CAP) single-receiver MIMO (SR-MIMO) VLC system.