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A continuous risk from microbial infections poses a major environmental and public health challenge. As an emerging strategy for inhibiting bacterial infections, plasma‐activated water (PAW) has proved to be highly effective, environmental‐friendly, and non‐drug resistant to a broad range of microorganisms. However, the relatively short lifetime of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) and the high spreadability of liquid PAW inevitably limit its real‐life applications. In this study, plasma‐activated hydrogel (PAH) is developed to act as reactive species carrier that allow good storage and controlled slow‐release of RONS to achieve long‐term antibacterial effects. Three hydrogel materials, including hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC), carbomer 940 (Carbomer), and acryloyldimethylammonium taurate/VP copolymer (AVC) are selected, and their antibacterial performances under different plasma activation conditions are investigated. It is shown that the composition of the gels plays the key role in determining their biochemical functions after the plasma activation. The antimicrobial performance of AVC is much better than that of PAW and the other two hydrogels, along with the excellent stability to maintain the antimicrobial activity for more than 14 days. The revealed mechanism of the antibacterial ability of the PAH identifies the unique combination of short‐lived species (1O2, ∙OH, ONOO− and O2−) stored in hydrogels. Overall, this study demonstrates the efficacy and reveals the mechanisms of the PAH as an effective and long‐term disinfectant capable of delivering and preserving antibacterial chemistries for biomedical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epilepsy is a multifactorial neurological disorder with recurrent epileptic seizures. Current research stresses both inflammatory and autoimmune conditions as enablers in the pathophysiological process of epilepsy. In view of the growing concern about the role of adipocytokines in antiepileptic and modulating immune responses, we aimed to investigate the relevance of the adipocytokine signaling pathway in the pathological process of epilepsy and its impacts on peripheral immune characteristics. In this study, expression profiles of 142 peripheral blood samples were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Adipocytokine pathway-related genes were screened out by feature selection using machine-learning algorithms. A nomogram was then constructed and estimated for the efficacy of diagnosis. Cluster analysis was employed for the recognization of two distinct epilepsy subtypes, followed by an estimation of the immune cell infiltration levels using single-sample gene-set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA). The biological characteristics were analyzed by functional enrichment analysis. The aberrant regulation of adipocytokine signaling pathway was found in the peripheral blood of patients with epilepsy. Twenty-one differently expressed adipocytokine pathway-related genes were identified and five (RELA, PRKAB1, TNFRSF1A, CAMKK2, and CPT1B) were selected to construct a nomogram. Subsequent validations of its forecasting ability revealed that this model has satisfactory predictive value. The immune cell infiltration degrees, such as those of innate immune cells and lymphocytes, were found to significantly correlate to the levels of adipocytokine pathway-related genes. Additionally, 239 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified and their biological functions were mainly enriched in the regulation of the immune response. In conclusion, our results confirmed the predictive value of adipocytokine pathway-related genes for epilepsy and explored their effects on immune infiltration, thereby improving our understanding of the pathogenesis of epilepsy and providing assistance in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a progressive disease characterized by chronic inflammation and airway remodeling. Human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) plays a critical role in various inflammatory or fibrotic diseases. However, the role of HE4 in COPD remains unidentified.Methods: HE4 expression was determined in the lung tissues from COPD patients and cigarette smoke (CS)-exposed mice using immunohistochemical staining, qPCR, or western blot. The plasma level of HE4 was detected by ELISA. The regulations of HE4 in the expressions of CS extract (CSE)-induced inflammatory cytokines in human bronchial epithelial cells (HBE) were investigated through knockdown or overexpression of HE4. The role of secretory HE4 (sHE4) in the differentiation and proliferation in human pulmonary fibroblast cells (HPF) was explored via qPCR, western blot, CCK8 assay or 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) staining. The probe of related mechanism in CSE-induced HE4 increase in HBE was conducted by administrating N-acetylcysteine (NAC).Results: HE4 was up-regulated in both the lung tissue and plasma of COPD patients relative to controls, and the plasma HE4 was negatively associated with lung function in COPD patients. The same enhanced HE4 expression was verified in CS-exposed mice and CSE-induced HBE, but CSE failed to increase HE4 expression in HPF. In vitro experiments showed that reducing HE4 expression in HBE alleviated CSE-induced IL-6 release while overexpressing HE4 facilitated IL-6 expression, mechanistically through affecting phosphorylation of NFκB-p65, whereas intervening HE4 expression had no distinctive influence on IL-8 secretion. Furthermore, we confirmed that sHE4 promoted fibroblast-myofibroblast transition, as indicated by promoting the expression of fibronectin, collagen I and α-SMA via phosphorylation of Smad2. EdU staining and CCK-8 assay demonstrated the pro-proliferative role of sHE4 in HPF, which was further confirmed by enhanced expression of survivin and PCNA. Pretreatment of NAC in CSE or H2O2-induced HBE mitigated HE4 expression.Conclusions: Our study indicates that HE4 may participate in airway inflammation and remodeling of COPD. Cigarette smoke enhances HE4 expression and secretion in bronchial epithelium mediated by oxidative stress. Increased HE4 promotes IL-6 release in HBE via phosphorylation of NFκB-p65, and sHE4 promotes fibroblastic differentiation and proliferation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) therapy has been proven to effectively inhibit the growth of subcutaneous tumors. However, there is no research to explain how plasma‐induced anticancer effects can be transmitted to cancer cells through normal cells. Here, we monitored the effects of plasma‐irradiated HaCaT cells on nonirradiated A375 and HaCaT cells in terms of cell viability and intracellular reactive oxygen species levels in vitro. The experimental results indicated that plasma irradiation may induce plasma‐irradiated HaCaT cells to release soluble factors into the cell culture medium, thereby selectively killing nonirradiated A375 cells. The plasma‐generated short‐lived species play a crucial role in the release of soluble factors. Our research showed that plasma‐induced anticancer effects can be transmitted to deep nonirradiated cancer cells through plasma‐irradiated normal cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rough sets, especially fuzzy-rough sets, have proven to be a powerful tool for dealing with vagueness and uncertainty in data analysis. Fuzzy-rough feature selection has been shown to be highly useful in data dimensionality reduction. However, many fuzzy-rough feature selection algorithms are still time-consuming when dealing with the large-scale data sets. In this paper, the problem of feature selection in fuzzy-rough sets is studied in the framework of graph theory. We propose a new mechanism for fuzzy-rough feature selection. It is shown that finding the attribute reduction of a fuzzy decision system can be translated into finding the transversal of a derivative hypergraph. Based on the graph-representation model, a novel graph-theoretic algorithm for fuzzy-rough feature selection is proposed. The performance of the proposed method is compared with those of the state-of-the-art methods on various classification tasks. Experimental results show that the proposed technique outperforms all other known feature selection methods in terms of the computation time. Especially for the large-scale data sets, it demonstrates promising performance. Moreover, our proposed method can achieve better classification accuracies with the usage of small number of features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge reduction in formal concept analysis (FCA) is an important procedure for knowledge processing and data analysis. Currently, the knowledge reduction in FCA based on granular computing (GrC) provides another way to analyze and represent the structure of concept lattices. However, the granular reduction method is based on Boolean reasoning and thus is an NP-hard problem. It is therefore natural to develop some heuristic methods to deal with this problem especially for the large data. In this paper, a new framework based on graph theory is used to study the granular reduction in FCA. A graph representation for the granular reduction is first investigated. The results in this paper show that the granular reduction computation in FCA can be translated into a graph optimization problem. Two new heuristic graph-based algorithms for the granular reduction in formal contexts and formal decision contexts are then respectively presented. Furthermore, numerical experiments are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attribute reduction (also called feature subset selection) plays an important role in rough set theory. Different from the classical attribute reduction algorithms, the methods of attribute reduction based on covering rough sets appear to be suitable for numerical data. However, it is time-consuming in dealing with the large-scale data. In this paper, we study the problem of attribute reduction of covering decision systems based on graph theory. First, we translate this problem into a graph model and show that finding the attribute reduction of a covering decision system is equivalent to finding the minimal vertex cover of a derivative hypergraph. Then, based on the proposed model, a thm for covering decision systems is presented. Experiments show that the new proposed method is more effective to handle the large-scale data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper studies the problem of computing connected components of a simple undirected graph based on generalized rough sets. Definable sets of generalized rough sets are used to characterize the connection of graphs. Based on the concept of k-step-upper approximations, an algorithm is designed for computing the connected components of a simple undirected graph. Experiments show that the new proposed algorithm gets a better performance compared to the classical algorithm. Also, this algorithm can be easily to realize in parallel and requires less processors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Gliding arc is a promising plasma technology for water activation due to its high energy efficiency for producing reactive nitrogen species (RNS), which is believed as the key agent for the sustained bactericidal effect of plasma-activated water (PAW). Nitric oxide (NO) is the major product of gliding arc and also widely exists in PAW, but the production mechanism of aqueous NO and its role in sterilization have been little investigated before. In this paper, NO-rich plasma effluent gas is produced by gliding arc discharge and introduced into water to produce PAW. The concentrations of gaseous and aqueous reactive species are detected, which decrease with the increasing air flowrate of the gliding arc. To clarify the contribution of plasma-induced RNS on water activation, the NO + air mixed gas is used to simulate the plasma effluent gas, and the results show that the two gases have similar gaseous composition and aqueous NO yield. Compared with the NO + Ar mixed gas with the same NO proportion, the NO + air mixed gas produces much more aqueous NO, implying that the presence of O2 significantly enhances the production of aqueous NO. The sterilization experiments demonstrate the key role of aqueous NO in sterilization, but an acidic environment is necessary for aqueous NO to achieve a potent bactericidal effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gliding arc is a promising plasma technology for water activation due to its high energy efficiency for producing reactive nitrogen species (RNS), which is believed as the key agent for the sustained bactericidal effect of plasma-activated water (PAW). Nitric oxide (NO) is the major product of gliding arc and also widely exists in PAW, but the production mechanism of aqueous NO and its role in sterilization have been little investigated before. In this paper, NO-rich plasma effluent gas is produced by gliding arc discharge and introduced into water to produce PAW. The concentrations of gaseous and aqueous reactive species are detected, which decrease with the increasing air flowrate of the gliding arc. To clarify the contribution of plasma-induced RNS on water activation, the NO + air mixed gas is used to simulate the plasma effluent gas, and the results show that the two gases have similar gaseous composition and aqueous NO yield. Compared with the NO + Ar mixed gas with the same NO proportion, the NO + air mixed gas produces much more aqueous NO, implying that the presence of O2 significantly enhances the production of aqueous NO. The sterilization experiments demonstrate the key role of aqueous NO in sterilization, but an acidic environment is necessary for aqueous NO to achieve a potent bactericidal effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bone sialoprotein (BSP) is a major non-collagenous extracellular matrix protein in bone and other mineralized connective tissues. BSP is synthesized and secreted by bone-, dentin- and cementum-forming cells. In this study we hypothesized that BSP may be also involved in enamel formation through its postulated role in matrix mineralization. In situ hybridization with cRNA probes for rat and hamster BSP, respectively, showed strong mRNA signals in ameloblasts actively synthesizing enamel matrix in developing incisors. However, no hybridization signals were observed at an earlier developmental stage when bell-shaped molar tooth germs were being formed. Immunohistochemical analysis of tooth tissues from transgenic mice harboring a 2.7 kb rat BSP promoter ligated to a luciferase reporter gene revealed strong staining for luciferase in the enamel epithelium of the developing tooth germ. Interestingly, BSP expression was also observed in epithelial cells of an ameloblastoma. The neoplastic epithelial nests and cords demonstrated strong mRNA signals to the human BSP probe while the connective tissue stroma showed only a background level of silver grains. Immunostaining also showed deposition of BSP by the odontogenic cells of the tumor. These results demonstrate that BSP is expressed by the enamel-forming epithelium of developing teeth, suggesting a possible role for BSP in enamel formation and its subsequent mineralization. Expression of the BSP gene in ameloblastomas is consistent with the expression of BSP by the enamel epithelium and also with the expression of BSP by neoplastic tissues, suggesting a possible role in tumorigenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface air discharge has been extensively reported to have strong antibacterial and anticancer effects, and these biological effects are more or less attributed to the short-lived aqueous reactive species produced by the air plasma. Insight into the generation mechanism for short-lived species is a key bottleneck in elucidating the antimicrobial and anticancer effects. Although the numerical study has predicted that the dissolution of gaseous NO3 plays a crucial role, but so far without experimental validation. In view of this, cavity ring-down spectroscopy is adopted in this paper to measure the NO3 spatial distribution between the surface air discharge and the solutions to be treated, and the concentrations of short-lived species in the solutions after plasma treatment are also measured for different discharge modes. A simplified chemical pathway for the conversion of gaseous NO3 to aqueous ONOOaq−/ONOOHaq and O2aq− is proposed. Moreover, the inactivation effects for Escherichia coli and A549 lung cancer cells treated by the plasma-activated solutions are measured for different concentrations of short-lived species, and the key species for sterilization and anticancer are identified by chemical scavengers. Finally, a positive correlation chain is found among the inactivation effect, the concentrations of aqueous ONOOaq−/ONOOHaq and O2aq−, and the density of gaseous NO3, implying that NO3 might be very important for the production of aqueous short-lived reactive species as well as the biological effects induced by plasma-activated solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern electronic warfare, radar intelligence has become increasingly crucial when dealing with complex interference environments. This paper combines radar agile frequency technology with reinforcement learning to achieve adaptive frequency hopping for radar anti-jamming. Unlike traditional reinforcement learning with Markov decision processes (MDPs), the interaction between radar and jammers occurs within the partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs). In this context, the partial observation information available to the agent does not strictly satisfy the Markov property. This paper uses multiple layers of historical observation information to solve this problem. Historical observations can be viewed as a time series, and time-sensitive networks are employed to extract the temporal information embedded within the observations. In addition, the reward function is optimized to facilitate the faster learning of the agent in the jammer sweep environment. This simulation shows that the optimization of the agent state, network structure, and reward function can effectively help the radar to resist jamming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effectiveness of corticosteroids (GCs) varies greatly in interstitial lung diseases (ILDs). In this study, we aimed to compare the gene expression profiles of patients with cryptogenic organizing pneumonia (COP), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and non-specific interstitial pneumonia (NSIP) and identify the molecules and pathways responsible for GCs sensitivity in ILDs. Three datasets (GSE21411, GSE47460, and GSE32537) were selected. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) among COP, IPF, NSIP, and healthy control (CTRL) groups were identified. Functional enrichment analysis and protein–protein interaction network analysis were performed to examine the potential functions of DEGs. There were 128 DEGs when COP versus CTRL, 257 DEGs when IPF versus CTRL, 205 DEGs when NSIP versus CTRL, and 270 DEGs when COP versus IPF. The DEGs in different ILDs groups were mainly enriched in the inflammatory response. Further pathway analysis showed that "interleukin (IL)-17 signaling pathway" (hsa04657) and "tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling pathway" were associated with different types of ILDs. A total of 10 genes associated with inflammatory response were identified as hub genes and their expression levels in the IPF group were higher than those in the COP group. Finally, we identified two GCs' response-related differently expressed genes (FOSL1 and DDIT4). Our bioinformatics analysis demonstrated that the inflammatory response played a pathogenic role in the progression of ILDs. We also illustrated that the inflammatory reaction was more severe in the IPF group compared to the COP group and identified two GCs' response-related differently expressed genes (FOSL1 and DDIT4) in ILDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute lung injury (ALI) remains a global public health issue without specific and effective treatment options available in the clinic. Alveolar macrophage polarization is involved in the initiation, development and progression of ALI; however, the underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) acts as an antioxidant in pulmonary inflammation and has been demonstrated to be linked with the severity and prognosis of ALI. In this study, the therapeutic effects of HO-1 were examined, along with the mechanisms involved, mainly focusing on alveolar macrophage polarization. HO-1 depletion induced higher iNOS and CD86 (M1 phenotype) expression but was significantly decreased in Arg-1 and CD206 (M2 phenotype) expression in BALF alveolar macrophages after equivalent LPS stimulation. We also found that HO-1 deletion distinctly accelerated the expression of inflammasome-associated components NLRP3, ASC and caspase-1 in vivo and in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, on the basis of LPS for MH-S cells, levels of TXNIP, NLRP3, ASC and caspase-1 were increased and HO-1 depletion exacerbated these changes, whereas double depletion of HO-1 and TXNIP partially mitigated these elevations. Also, HO-1 knockdown induced more M1 phenotype and less M2 phenotype compared with LPS alone, whereas double silence of HO-1 and TXNIP partially changed the polarization state. Taken together, we demonstrated that HO-1 could modulate macrophage polarization via TXNIP/NLRP3 signaling pathway, which could be a potential therapeutic target for ALI treatment. [Display omitted] • HO-1 could ameliorate LPS-induced ALI by regulating macrophage polarization. • HO-1 could inhibit the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome in ALI induced by LPS. • TXNIP/NLRP3 signaling pathway might be involved in the HO-1-induced modulating macrophage polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air plasma is commonly used to treat water for activation or purification, and plasma-activated water (PAW) is a promising green disinfectant that has attracted much attention in recent years. However, either the O3 discharge mode or the NO x discharge mode of air plasma lacks efficiency for water activation, mainly due to the low solubility of O3, NO and NO2. The transition process between those two modes could produce high-valence NO x such as N2O5 which should be more efficient for water activation, but this process is not easily controlled and water activation by N2O5 has rarely been reported before. In this letter, N2O5 is found to be produced effectively and stably by mixing the effluent gases of a NO x mode air plasma, produced by gliding arc discharge, and an O3 mode air plasma, produced by dielectric barrier discharge. The mixed gas rich in N2O5 is found to be very efficient for water activation. A colony-forming unit reduction of nearly 6 logs was achieved for a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus suspension by using PAW treated by the mixed gas, and the high bactericidal effect of the PAW could persist for more than 1 h after the plasma activation. The main reactive species for the bactericidal effect in the PAW are discussed, and the chemical pathways for N2O5 production and its usage for water activation are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma‐activated media (PAM), the product of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) acting on aqueous media, has similarly strong biological activity and some unique advantages compared with CAP for biomedical targets. However, no reliable PAM‐preparing device with high safety for medical uses has yet been developed, limiting the advancement of PAM clinical trials. Herein, an integrated device for PAM preparation with a maximum yield of 4.8 L/hr is reported in detail. A large‐area CAP is generated by the plasma‐generating module based on the surface dielectric barrier discharge. Several sensors and controllers are applied in this device to stabilize the discharge environment and PAM consistency. In the in vitro experiments, PAM prepared in this device exhibits the bactericidal property of up to 6 logs reduction against various clinical pathogens with multi‐drug resistance. The high bactericidal effect of PAM can be preserved for ∼10 min. After constructing the mice model by cecal ligation and puncture, it is found that the abdominal injection of PAM can effectively relieve sepsis‐induced systemic toxicity and maintain homeostasis, which is mainly attributed to the anti‐infective efficacy of PAM. The third‐party testing confirms that the soaking bactericidal rates of PAM to S. aureus and E. coli are respectively higher than 99.99% and 99.999%, while the acute oral toxicity, skin irritation, and oral genotoxicity of PAM are negligible. This study provides a practical approach for preparing PAM with high reliability, which shows an excellent prospect of clinical applications and commercialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cold atmospheric plasma, a promising technology for cancer therapy, can simultaneously induce electrochemistry, which has been widely demonstrated to be effective against cancer. Herein, the anticancer effects of direct current plasma jets and electrochemical circuit are comparatively studied with similar topological structures and average currents. The cell inactivation patterns formed by plasma and electrochemical treatment (EChT) are disparate, and the inactivation is mainly caused by the emission of charged species, helium flow, in situ OH radical production, or local alkalization. The culture medium treated by EChT exerted no sustained anticancer effect, whereas the medium treated by plasma could maintain a strong effect due to the production of more reactive species, suggesting that the electrochemistry does not dominate the plasma inactivation of cancer cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is composed of chronic airway inflammation and emphysema. Recent studies show that Class IA phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases (PI3Ks) play an important role in the regulation of inflammation and emphysema. However, there are few studies on their regulatory subunits. p55PIK is a regulatory subunit of Class IA PI3Ks, and its unique NH2-terminal gives it special functions. p55PIK expression in the lungs of nonsmokers, smokers, and patients with COPD was examined. We established a fusion protein TAT-N15 from the NH2-terminal effector sequence of p55PIK and TAT (the transduction domain of HIV transactivator protein) and investigated the effects of silencing p55PIK or adding TAT-N15 on cigarette smoke exposure at the cellular and animal level. p55PIK expression was increased in patients with COPD. p55PIK deficiency and TAT-N15 significantly inhibited the cigarette smoke extract-induced IL-6, IL-8, and activation of the Akt and the NF-κB pathway in BEAS-2B. p55PIK deficiency and TAT-N15 intranasal administration prevented emphysema and the lung function decline in mice exposed to smoke for 6 mo. p55PIK deficiency and TAT-N15 significantly inhibited lung inflammatory infiltration, reduced levels of IL-6 and KC in mice lung homogenate, and inhibited activation of the Akt and the NF-κB signaling in COPD mice lungs. Our studies indicate that p55PIK is involved in the pathogenesis of COPD, and its NH2-terminal derivative TAT-N15 could be an effective drug in the treatment of COPD by inhibiting the activation of the Akt and the NF-κB pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making is the most important business activity and becomes more complex in the current big-data situation. Most organizational decision-making is made in a group and has the data analytics function to seek specific answers for specific purposes. Multi-attribute group decision-making (MAGDM) methods provide effective support to decision groups by evaluating and integrating individual group members opining. However, current MAGDM methods often suffer from the problem of opining data and decision environment uncertainty, which is particularly severe in a large decision group or a newly decision problem. As a solution, rough sets and fuzzy sets have been applied in MAGDM to deal with data and decision process uncertainties. Although a lot of efforts have been made in applying rough sets and fuzzy sets to deal with data and decision process uncertainties the area, the disadvantage of rough set models in classification accuracy when similar class as basic knowledge granularity has not been well solved yet. This paper aims to solve this problem by introducing a new concept-maximal consistent block (MCB) and multi-granulation decision-theoretic rough set (MCB-MDTRS) models. Firstly, it establishes a binary tolerance relation on the universe of discourse, defines generalized MCBs, and introduces pessimistic DTRS based on MCBs. Secondly, it extends objective set to a fuzzy environment and proposes four MCB-MDTRFS models with consideration of the weight of each attribute. The steps of the proposed fuzzy MAGDM methods are carefully described in detail. Different from existing fuzzy MAGDM methods, the weight of each attribute is considered in the determination of the positive ideal decision objective and negative ideal decision objective in this paper, named by qualified and unqualified (fuzzy) sets. We solve the vague problem of individual preference evaluation and the uncertainty of setting ideal decision objectives by using the advantages of fuzzy set and rough set theory. Finally, it takes emergency plan selection as a case study to analyze the effectiveness of our methods and compare with other fuzzy MAGDM methods. Our methods outperform the selection of basic knowledge granularity, the determination of ideal decision objective sets and the ranking method, so as to increase the reliability and accuracy of ranking evaluation index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a chronic vascular disease characterized by elevated pulmonary arterial resistance and vascular remodeling, and chronic hypoxia plays an important role in PH. Milk fat globule‐EGF factor 8 (MFG‐E8) is a glycoprotein that regulates cell proliferation and apoptosis, but its role in hypoxia‐induced PH is unknown. The current study aimed to determine the function and fundamental mechanisms of MFG‐E8 in hypoxia‐induced PH. Herein, we exposed mice to hypoxia for 5 weeks, and MFG‐E8 was found to be elevated in mouse lung tissues, arteries, and plasma. Compared with wild‐type littermates, mice lacking MFG‐E8 showed a significant increase in the ratio of pulmonary artery acceleration time to ejection time (PAT/PET), while they showed decreases in right ventricular systolic pressure, the Fulton's Index, percent medial wall thickness (%WT), and vascular muscularization in pulmonary arteries. In addition, MFG‐E8 protein levels were also increased in the serum of patients with chronic PH. Similarly, we observed a higher expression of MFG‐E8 in human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) in the presence of hypoxic stimulation than MFG‐E8 in cells in normoxic conditions. Furthermore, MFG‐E8 silencing resulted in partial inhibition of proliferation, migration and cell cycle progression in human PASMCs, and the possible mechanisms might involve the interaction between MFG‐E8 and the p‐Akt/cyclin D1 pathway. Collectively, our study suggests that the absence of MFG‐E8 can attenuate the development of hypoxia‐induced PH and vascular remodeling. MFG‐E8 can be a potential therapeutic target or a biomarker for PH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A multitude of epidemiological studies have shown that ambient fine particulate matter 2.5 (diameter < 2.5um; PM2.5) was associated with increased morbidity and mortality of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the underlying associated mechanisms have not yet been elucidated. We conducted this study to investigate the role of PM2.5 in the development of COPD and associated mechanisms.Methods: We firstly conducted a cross-sectional study in Chinese han population to observe PM2.5 effects on COPD morbidity. Then, in vitro, we incubated human bronchial epithelial cells to different concentrations of PM2.5 for 24 h. The expression levels of IL-6 and IL-8 were detected by ELISA and the levels of MMPs, TGF-β1, fibronectin and collagen was determined by immunoblotting. In vivo, we subjected C57BL/6 mice to chronic prolonged exposure to PM2.5 for 48 weeks to study the influence of PM2.5 exposure on lung function, pulmonary structure and inflammation.Results: We found that the effect of PM2.5 on COPD morbidity was associated with its levels and that PM2.5 and cigarette smoke could have a synergistic impact on COPD development and progression. Both vitro and vivo studies demonstrated that PM2.5 exposure could induce pulmonary inflammation, decrease lung function, and cause emphysematous changes. Furthermore, PM2.5 could markedly aggravated cigarette smoke-induced changes.Conclusions: In short, we found that prolonged chronic exposure to PM2.5 resulted in decreased lung function, emphysematous lesions and airway inflammation. Most importantly, long-term PM2.5 exposure exacerbateed cigarette smoke-induced changes in COPD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In multi-label learning, each sample is related to multiple labels simultaneously, and attribute space of samples is with high-dimensionality. Therefore, the key issue for attribute reduction in multi-label data is to measure the quality of each attribute with respect to a set of labels. Stimulated by fuzzy rough set theory, which allows different fuzzy relations to measure the similarity between samples under different labels. In this paper, we propose a novel fuzzy rough set model for attribute reduction in multi-label learning. Different from single-label attribute reduction, a bottleneck of fuzzy rough set for multi-label attribute reduction is to find the true different classes’ samples for the target sample, which deeply affects the robustness of fuzzy upper and lower approximations. We first define the score vector of each sample to evaluate the probability of being different class’s sample with respect to the target sample. Then, local sampling is leveraged to construct a robust distance between samples. It can implement the robustness against noisy information when calculating the fuzzy lower and upper approximations under the whole label space. Moreover, multi-label fuzzy rough set model is proposed, and some related properties are discussed. Finally, the significance measure of a candidate attribute is defined, and a greedy forward attribute selection algorithm is designed. Extensive experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm by comparing it with some state-of-the-art approaches on eight publicly available data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) are widely prescribed in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, little is known about predictors of ICSs therapeutic response. To investigate whether the variation in glucocorticoid-induced transcript 1 (GLCCI1) rs37973 is associated with ICS efficacy. A total of 204 clinically stable COPD patients were recruited and administered to inhaled fluticasone propionate/salmeterol combination (500/50 ug, twice daily) for 24 weeks. We genotyped the functional rs37973 and mainly assessed its effects on changes in lung function. In vitro, neutrophils isolated from parts of patients were incubated with various concentrations of dexamethasone (0, 10−6 M and 10−4 M) in the presence or absence of cigarette smoke extract, apoptosis was then assessed by flow cytometry. Patients with the homozygous GG genotype (increases of 15.3 ± 33.2 mL) had significantly poorer improvement in FEV1 than those with the AA (92.7 ± 29.6 mL; p < 0.001) or AG (59.4 ± 26.9 mL; p < 0.001) genotypes after 24-week treatment. In vitro, dexamethasone had less inhibitory effect of neutrophil apoptosis on GG genotype, which further validated the presence of mutant allele 'G' might negatively affect glucocorticoid responsiveness irrespective of smoking status. The GG genotype of rs37973 may associated with decreased ICSs efficacy in Chinese COPD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A latex agglutination test (LAT) was developed for the rapid detection of antibodies against the VP1 or VP1 proteins of Enterovirus 71 (EV71). The proteins of interest including prokaryotically expressed VP1 and two strains of anti-VP1 monoclonal antibody (McAb) against EV71 were covalently linked to carboxylated latex using ethyl-dimethyl-amino-propyl carbodiimide (EDC) to prepare sensitized latex beads. LAT was evaluated by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) as a reference test. The VP1-LAT showed a sensitivity of 87.0%, specificity of 88.9%, and an agreement ratio of 90.0% in detecting VP1 in 100 serum samples from experimentally infected mice, whereas these values were 86.8, 96.7, and 93.3%, respectively, for 608 clinical human serum samples. The VP1-LAT has advantages over other assays in terms of low cost, rapidity, chemical stability, high sensitivity, repeatability, and specificity. The LAT established in the present study is a rapid and simple test suitable for field monitoring of antibodies against VP1-EV71. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the developing mammalian tooth, the cranial neural crest derived dental mesenchyme consists of the dental papilla and dental follicle. The dental papilla gives rise to odontoblasts and dental pulp and the dental follicle gives rise to the periodontium, including the osteoblasts that contribute to the alveolar process. The alveolar process is a specialized intramembranous bone that forms the primary support structure for the dentition. The Msx1 gene controls many aspects of craniofacial development, as evidenced by craniofacial abnormalities seen in Msx1−/− mice, including the arrest of tooth development and the absence of the alveolar bone. Previous studies demonstrated that ectopic expression of Bmp4, a downstream target of Msx1, in the Msx1−/− dental mesenchyme rescued alveolar bone formation. Here we confirm an early requirement of BMP activity for alveolar bone formation. We show that the expression of Cbfa1 and Dlx5, two genes encode transcription factors that are critical for bone differentiation, overlaps with that of Msx1 and Bmp4 in the developing tooth and alveolar process. We have demonstrated that Dlx5 and Cbfa1 expression is down-regulated in Msx1−/− dental mesenchyme and that Msx1 and Bmp4 expression are unaltered in Cbfa1−/− mice. These data place Dlx5 and Cbfa1 downstream from the Msx1/Bmp4 in the genetic pathway that regulates tooth development. Ectopic expression of Bmp4 in Msx1 mutants restores the expression of Dlx5, but not Cbfa1, in the dental mesenchyme, and rescues the expression of both Dlx5 and Cbfa1 in the developing alveolar bone. Therefore, the early expression of Cfba1 in the dental mesenchyme appears dispensable for the development of the alveolar bone. Taken together with in vitro gene induction studies, our results demonstrate that BMP4 controls Dlx5 expression in dental mesenchyme, and functions upstream to both Dlx5 and Cbfa1 to regulate alveolar bone formation during tooth development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

B Outside Front Cover b : Electrochemical treatment (EChT), an effective therapy for tumors, is also one of the physicochemical processes coupled in plasma treatment. Further details can be found in the article by Dingxin Liu, Zifeng Wang, Zeyu Chen, Dehui Xu, Min Chen, Jinkun Chen, Mengying Zhu, Hao Zhang, Xiaohua Wang, Michael G. Kong, and Mingzhe Rong (e2100087). It is found that the electrochemical process plays an important role in the immediate anticancer effect during the plasma treatment, but it contributes little on the sustained anticancer effect after the plasma treatment. [Extracted from the article]