Advancing Open Science

The Secret of the Golden Flower (Taiyi Jinhua Zongzhi 太乙金華宗旨), a Qing dynasty spirit-writing (fuji扶乩) text, is widely known through the Wilhelm–Jung translation lineage, where jinhua 金華 is rendered as “Golden Flower” and read as mandala-like symbolism. Based on a close reading of the Daozang Jiyao 道藏輯要version, this article argues that in the Chinese text jinhua is not primarily a floral image but a technical and experiential term for luminosity in Daoist inner-alchemical cultivation. Hua 華 is resemanticized from botanical “flower/flourishing” into “radiance,” and the work explicitly defines the key term as “jinhua is light”. The text further organizes cultivation into a three-stage trajectory—“sudden emergence”, “circulation”, and “great condensation”, through which qi 氣 is refined into light and luminosity stabilizes as spirit (shen 神). Finally, the analysis situates this luminous grammar within the work’s explicit Three Teachings (sanjiao 三教) framing: Confucian “illuminating virtue” (mingde 明德) and Buddhist idioms of luminous mind-nature (xin-xing guangming 心性光明) and dharma-body language function as a shared vocabulary for describing non-grasping awareness and embodied realization. On this basis, jinhua is best understood not as a decorative metaphor or a purely psychological symbol but as a practice-oriented mechanism of ontological luminosity, clarifying both the inner-alchemical logic of The Secret and the stakes of its modern reception.

(1) Background: The dun coat color, a wild-type phenotype in horses characterized by pigment dilution and primitive markings, is regulated by TBX3. This study explored the expression and localization of TBX3 in the Bider marking (a primitive mark unique to the shoulder of horses); (2) Methods: We compared skin tissues from Bider-marked and non-Bider dun Mongolian horses. Samples were collected from the Bider area (dark-colored/light-colored shoulder), dorsal midline, and croup. Histological staining, qRT-PCR, and Western blotting were used to analyze pigment distribution and TBX3 expression at mRNA and protein levels; (3) Results: Histology revealed asymmetric pigment deposition in hair shafts from light-colored areas of both Bider and non-Bider horses, whereas dark areas showed symmetric distribution. qRT-PCR and Western blotting showed TBX3 expression was significantly higher in the shoulder of non-Bider horses compared to Bider horses. Conversely, Bider horses exhibited higher TBX3 levels in all other sampled areas. Immunohistochemistry localized TBX3 protein to the epidermis and hair follicle bulbs in both groups; (4) Conclusions: In dun Mongolian horses, TBX3 expression differences between dark and light skin areas correlate with Bider markings. TBX3 is implicated in this specific pigment marking, though its upstream regulation requires further study. These findings provide key insights into the mechanism behind Bider marking formation.

People with intellectual disabilities are disproportionately affected by diet-related health inequalities. This Perspective outlines a dual challenge: (1) intrinsic vulnerabilities—cognitive limitations, health-literacy constraints, and comorbidities—that impair individuals’ ability to make healthy dietary choices, and (2) extrinsic neglect—insufficient support in care environments, inadequate nutrition-related training among informal caregivers and support staff, and structural gaps in policy and services. We argue that this “double jeopardy” undermines nutritional equity and proposes strategies for person-centered nutrition education, caregiver empowerment, supportive food environments, and inclusive policy frameworks. Greater interdisciplinary collaboration and tailored research are urgently needed to ensure nutritional health as a right for people with intellectual disabilities.

Recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (R/M SCCHN) carries a poor prognosis; however, immune checkpoint inhibitors have emerged as critical therapeutic options. Although the KEYNOTE-048 trial established the efficacy of pembrolizumab, the population was restricted to major sites (e.g., oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, and larynx), excluding subsites such as the paranasal sinuses and nasopharynx. To evaluate outcomes in these populations, we conducted a multicenter retrospective study of 167 patients with R/M SCCHN treated with pembrolizumab between December 2019 and February 2022. The cohort comprised 127 patients with tumors in included sites and 27 in excluded subsites. Primary endpoints included overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), overall response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and immune-related adverse events (irAEs). In the excluded subsite group, median OS was 15.2 months (1-year rate: 70.6%), and median PFS was 4.9 months (1-year rate: 21.2%). The ORR was 22.2% and the DCR was 59.3%. The incidence of irAEs was 25.9%, with Grade ≥ 3 events in 3.7%. Survival outcomes did not differ significantly from those in included sites. These findings suggest the potential efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab in subsites excluded from KEYNOTE-048, warranting validation in prospective trials.

Generalized aquifers are widely used in various fields, such as groundwater use, mine water prevention and control, and geothermal energy. This paper presents a transformer-model-based automatic aquifer generalization method using borehole logs in scenarios with scarce experimental parameters. Relying only on basic borehole data, the method used an agent-assisted approach to extract and clean key lithological and coordinate information, which was then fused using a dual embedding mechanism. The model leveraged multi-head self-attention to calculate attention weights between the target stratum and its adjacent strata, capturing the potential contextual correlations in aquifer potential across strata. The resulting deep feature vectors from the transformer’s encoder were fed into a classification head to predict aquifer potential labels. Evaluation results demonstrated a model accuracy of 0.86, significantly outperforming the random classification baseline in precision, recall, the F1-score, and the kappa coefficient.

Multicomponent mixed lanthanide oxide (MMLO) nanoparticles possess considerable potential as multimodal imaging agents because they integrate diverse excellent optical and magnetic properties within a single nanoparticle. Herein, we present triply and quadruply mixed lanthanide oxide nanoparticles, namely, gadolinium (Gd)/dysprosium (Dy)/europium (Eu) oxide (GDEO), Gd/Dy/terbium (Tb) oxide (GDTO), and Gd/Dy/Eu/Tb oxide (GDETO) nanoparticles. Gd³⁺ can strongly induce positive (T₁) contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Dy³⁺ and Tb³⁺ can generate negative (T₂) contrast in MRI, and Eu³⁺ and Tb³⁺ emit visible photons that are applicable to fluorescence imaging (FI). All the nanoparticles were grafted with hydrophilic, biocompatible polyacrylic acid (PAA) to enhance colloidal stability and biocompatibility and further grafted with small amounts of an organic photosensitizer, 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid (PDA), to obtain a high absolute fluorescent quantum yield (QY) with an extended fluorescent lifetime (τ). All PAA-MMLO and PAA/PDA-MMLO nanoparticles exhibited nearly monodispersed particle-size distributions with average particle diameters of ~2 nm and displayed considerably higher longitudinal (r₁) and transverse (r₂) water proton spin relaxivities than commercial molecular MRI contrast agents. The PAA/PDA-GDEO, PAA/PDA-GDTO, and PAA/PDA-GDETO nanoparticles exhibited high absolute QYs of 45, 29, and 61%, respectively, and long τ values of 1–2 ms, making them suitable for time-delayed noise-free fluorescence signal detection. These findings confirm the high potential of PAA-MMLO nanoparticles as T₁ and/or T₂ MRI contrast agents and PAA/PDA-MMLO nanoparticles as both T₁ and/or T₂ MRI and FI agents.

Selenium (Se) is an antioxidant essential trace element influencing inflammatory and immune pathways. This systematic review aimed to evaluate the role of maternal Se status during pregnancy in miscarriage risk. A systematic search of PubMed and Embase up to July 2024 was conducted to identify relevant original research studies in English. Available evidence was qualitatively synthesized and predefined sources of bias were assessed. Of 2345 studies identified, 421 full texts were assessed and 14 were included, encompassing 2309 pregnancies. Despite notable methodological limitations across several studies, current evidence indicates that maternal blood Se concentrations are lower among women who experience miscarriage compared to those with uncomplicated pregnancies. Findings regarding placental Se levels were inconsistent, but important methodological issues were noted. Environmental Se exposure was investigated in a single low-powered study, which did not demonstrate a statistically significant association. Potential interactions between Se status, co-exposure to other environmental or lifestyle factors, and effect modification remain insufficiently explored. Adequate maternal Se status during early gestation may reduce miscarriage risk by mitigating oxidative stress and ferroptosis, supporting immune regulation, and modulating thyroid autoimmunity and function. However, causal inference cannot be established due to the absence of randomized interventional evidence.

The increasing global demand for sparkling wines has encouraged the exploration of alternative grape varieties and emerging production regions. This study evaluated the potential of three indigenous Romanian grape varieties (Fetească regală, Tămâioasă românească, and Fetească albă) for sparkling wine production using the méthode champenoise, with grapes sourced from the ullu Mare region. The wines were characterized at two aging intervals (9 and 36 months on lees), with analyses performed on both disgorged and undisgorged samples to assess changes in physicochemical parameters, color attributes, volatile composition, and sensory properties. All varieties exhibited relatively high acidity (6.12–6.53 g/L), particularly Fetească regală (6.37–6.53 g/L), supporting their suitability for sparkling wine production. Extended lees aging enhanced the development of complex tertiary and quaternary aromas while preserving intrinsic floral and fruity attributes. Volatile analysis revealed aging-related increases in higher alcohols and medium-chain fatty acids, with 1-pentanol reaching 106.8 mg L⁻¹ and octanoic acid increasing from approximately 4.2 to 7.9 mg L⁻¹ after 36 months. Principal component analysis explained over 70% of the total variance, discriminating wines according to grape variety and maturation time. This study aimed to provide a detailed characterization of these sparkling wines, integrating physicochemical, chromatic, volatile, and sensorial analyses to evaluate their quality and enological potential.