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Background: Pure red cell aplasia (PRCA) in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) has not been reported before. This study presents a patient with NMOSD who developed PRCA. Case presentation: A 54-year-old female was admitted in January 2023 for dysuria and progressive numbness and weakness of lower limbs. She had difficulty standing and walking in a straight line. Both lower limbs were positive for the Babinski and Chaddock signs. MRI showed abnormal signals in the spinal cord. Aquaporin-4-IgG (AQP-4-IgG) was positive (1:320), and NMOSD was confirmed. Intravenous immunoglobulin and methylprednisolone were given, and the symptoms improved. She received maintenance treatment with methylprednisolone tablets, and the dosage was gradually reduced. She was readmitted for fatigue, palpitations, and shortness of breath in May 2023. Bone marrow aspiration and biopsy showed elevated erythroid precursors and erythroid hypoplasia, with normal megakaryocytes and myeloid precursors. Chest CT showed no mediastinal lymph node enlargement or thymoma. PRCA secondary to NMOSD was diagnosed. Recombinant human erythropoietin was given. Her condition improved after 1.5 months, as indicated by blood cell count and imaging. Conclusions: This case suggests that PRCA can be secondary to NMOSD. A comprehensive immune function and bone marrow evaluation might be necessary if abnormal blood cells are found while managing NMOSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the temperature-dependent production of feebly interacting massive dark matter particle (FIMP DM) within a Z 2 model, incorporating two Z 2 -odd scalar fields. In specific parameter regions, three distinct mechanisms individually dominate the production of the FIMP DM. These mechanisms include the semi-production process, commonly known as the “exponential growth” process, the three-body decay process, and the production from pair annihilations of the bath particles. It is crucial to consider the thermal history during the evolution of FIMPs, as it involves multiple phase transitions occurring prior to the freeze-in of dark matter. Consequently, the scalar masses experience thermal variations, leading to distinctive evolutionary trajectories for FIMPs when compared to scenarios without accounting for the thermal effects. Notably, the unique patterns of FIMP evolution are accompanied by the production of gravitational waves, presenting promising opportunities for detection using forthcoming interferometers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the link between exchange-traded funds and real investment. Cross-sectionally, higher ETF ownership is associated with an increased sensitivity of real investment to Tobin's q and a heightened ability of stock returns to forecast future earnings. Inclusion of stocks in industry ETFs enhances investment- |$q$| sensitivity and implies greater incorporation of earnings information into prices prior to public releases. Greater nonmarket ETF ownership leads to increased (reduced) reliance of real investment on own (peers') stock prices. Overall, the evidence is consistent with ETFs positively affecting real investment efficiency via greater flows of information. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facial expression recognition (FER) suffers from insufficient label information, as human expressions are complex and diverse, with many expressions ambiguous. Using low-quality labels or low-quantity labels will aggravate ambiguity of model predictions and reduce the accuracy of FER. How to improve the robustness of FER to ambiguous data with insufficient information remains challenging. To this end, we propose the Suppressing Ambiguity Self-Training (SAST) framework which is the first attempt to address the problem of insufficient information both label quality and label quantity containing, simultaneously. Specifically, we design an Ambiguous Relative Label Usage (ARLU) strategy that mixes hard labels and soft labels to alleviate the information loss problem caused by hard labels. We also enhance the robustness of the model to ambiguous data by means of Self-Training Resampling (STR). We further use the landmarks and Patch Branch (PB) to enhance the ability of suppressing ambiguity. Experiments on RAF-DB, FERPlus, SFEW, and AffectNet datasets show that our SAST outperforms 6 semi-supervised methods with fewer annotations, and achieves competitive accuracy to State-Of-The-Art (SOTA) FER methods. Our code is available at https://github.com/Liuxww/SAST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facial expression recognition (FER) is one of the popular research topics in the field of computer vision. When most of the deep learning expression recognition methods that achieve satisfactory results with a single dataset are applied to a new dataset, additional costs result from labeling the new data. FER under cross-dataset also suffers from difficulties such as data discrepancy and expression ambiguity. To address these issues, we propose an Unsupervised Self-Training Similarity Transfer (USTST) method for cross-domain FER. The Cross-Swin-Transformer (CST) module is designed to extract features and assign greater attention weight to the similar regions of the source and target domain images. The Self-Training Resampling (STR) and the Knowledge Transfer (KT) modules are then constructed to improve the confidence of the model prediction for the target domain. We also design ambiguity suppression loss and cross-domain loss to improve the ability of the model to discriminate expressions while transferring knowledge across domains. The experimental results with the RAF-DB dataset as the source domain and the CK+, JAFFE, SFEW, FER2013 and ExpW datasets as the target domains, show that our approach achieves much higher performance than the state-of-the-art cross-domain FER methods, while requiring no labels of new datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, mixed antisolvents have been widely used to fabricate perovskite solar cells. In this study, we prepared a mixed antisolvent by mixing tetrahydrofuran (THF), which is a Lewis base, and ethyl acetate (EA). We found that the addition of THF to the antisolvent decreased the amount of residual PbI2 and charge traps in the triple-cation perovskite owing to crystallization control and defect passivation through Lewis base–acid interactions. In the proposed process, an improved power conversion efficiency (PCE) was achieved when another Lewis base, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), was not used in the perovskite precursor preparation, although most other recent studies mixed DMSO in the precursor solvent. The PCE of the optimum device in the inverted structure based on the triple-cation perovskite fabricated using the THF–EA mixed antisolvent was 19.26%, and that of the device with pure EA was 16.14%. The THF–EA antisolvent also yielded better environmental stability than that using the pure EA antisolvent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Let d ≥ 1 be an integer and let 풲 d be the Witt algebra. For any admissible 풲 d -module P and any 픤 ⁢ 픩 d -module V, one can form a 풲 d -module ℱ ⁢ (P , V) , which as a vector space is P ⊗ V . Since 풲 d has a natural subalgebra isomorphic to 픰 ⁢ 픩 d + 1 , we can view ℱ ⁢ (P , V) as an 픰 ⁢ 픩 d + 1 -module. Taking P = Ω ⁢ (흀) , the rank-1 U ⁢ (픥) -free 풲 d -module, and V = V ⁢ (퐚 , b) , the simple cuspidal module over 픤 ⁢ 픩 d , we get the special 픰 ⁢ 픩 d + 1 -modules ℱ ⁢ (흀 ; 퐚 , b) = ℱ ⁢ (Ω ⁢ (흀) , V ⁢ (퐚 , b)) which are U ⁢ (픥) -free modules of infinite rank. We determine the necessary and sufficient condition for the 픰 ⁢ 픩 d + 1 -module ℱ ⁢ (흀 ; 퐚 , b) to be simple, and for the non-simple case we construct their proper submodules explicitly. At last, using the above results, we deduce an explicit simplicity criterion for the generalized Verma modules induced from V ⁢ (퐚 , b) and obtain a family of simple affine modules from ℱ ⁢ (흀 ; 퐚 , b) , which can be viewed as the non-weight version of loop modules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on cross-domain Facial Expression Recognition (FER) mainly focused on metric learning or adversarial learning, which presupposes access to source domain data to find domain invariant information. However, in practical applications, due to the high privacy and sensitivity of face data, it is often impossible to directly obtain source domain data. In this case, these methods cannot be effectively applied. In order to better apply the cross-domain FER method to the real scenarios, this paper proposes a source-free FER method called Label Transfer Virtual Adversarial Learning (LTVAL), which does not need to directly access source domain data. First, we train the target domain model based on the information maximization constraint, and obtain the pseudo-labels of the target domain data through deep clustering to achieve label transfer. Secondly, the perturbation is added to the target domain samples, and the perturbed samples and the original samples are together used for virtual adversarial training with local distributed smoothing constraints. Finally, a joint loss function is constructed to optimize the target domain model. Using the source domain model trained on RAF-DB, experiments on four public datasets FER2013, JAFFE, CK+, and EXPW as target domain datasets show that our approach achieves much higher performance than the state-of-the-art cross-domain FER methods that require access to source domain data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the poor stability and adverse effects of chemotherapy drugs, such as gemcitabine, the current effectiveness of traditional chemotherapy is minimal. Some patients also show a low response rate to immunotherapy. Therefore, a novel material PD‐L1‐GEMs is designed and synthesized with targeted specificity. PD‐L1‐GEMs specifically bind to bladder cancer cells. Free gemcitabine cleaved by a phosphatase enters bladder cancer cells through the macropinocytosis pathway and induces cytotoxicity. PD‐L1‐GEMs show good stability, binding specificity, and significant inhibitory effects in vitro. Two bladder tumor models (subcutaneous model and in situ model) show inhibition of growth and progression in PD‐L1‐GEMs treatment, as well as good biosafety in vivo. The PD‐L1 aptamer blocks the binding of PD‐L1 on the tumor cell surface to PD‐1 on T lymphocytes, restoring their immune function, inducing cytokine production and aggregation, and exerting an immune killing role on bladder cancer cells. PD‐L1‐GEMs represent a successful chemotherapy–immunotherapy strategy for bladder cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

T‐lymphokine‐activated killer cell‐originated protein kinase (TOPK) is a serine–threonine kinase that is overexpressed in gastric cancer (GC) and promotes tumor progression. Polyphyllin VII (PPVII), a pennogenin isolated from the rhizomes of Paris polyphylla, shows anticancer effects. Here, we explored the antitumor activity and mechanism of PPVII in GC. Ferroptosis was detected by transmission electron microscope, malondialdehyde, and iron determination assays. Autophagy and its upstream signaling pathway were detected by Western blot, and gene alterations. The binding of PPVII and TOPK was examined through microscale thermophoresis and drug affinity responsive target stability assays. An in vivo mouse model was performed to evaluate the therapeutic of PPVII. PPVII inhibits GC by inducing autophagy‐mediated ferroptosis. PPVII promotes the degradation of ferritin heavy chain 1, which is responsible for autophagy‐mediated ferroptosis. PPVII activates the Unc‐51‐like autophagy‐activating kinase 1 (ULK1) upstream of autophagy. PPVII inhibits the activity of TOPK, thereby weakening the inhibition of downstream ULK1. PPVII stabilizes the dimer of the inactive form of TOPK by direct binding. PPVII inhibits tumor growth without causing obvious toxicity in vivo. Collectively, this study suggests that PPVII is a potential agent for the treatment of GC by targeting TOPK to activate autophagy‐mediated ferroptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient copper-catalyzed cyanoalkylation/cyclization strategy was developed for the construc-tion of indolo[2,1-a]isoquinoline derivatives from 2-aryl-N-methacryloylindoles. The cyclization involved a cascade of radical reactions promoted by commercially available 2,2′-azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) or its analogs. This strategy provides a convenient access to a variety of cyanoalkylated indolo[2,1-a]isoquinolines in reasonable yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The keV scale sterile neutrino was a qualified candidate for dark matter particles in the Dodelson-Widrow mechanism. But the mixing angle, needed to provide enough amount of dark matter, is in contradiction with the astrophysical observations. To alleviate such tension, we introduce an effective interaction, i.e. g a (ϕ / Λ) ∂ μ a ν α ¯ γ μ γ 5 ν α , among Standard Model neutrino ν α , axion a, and singlet ϕ . The axial-vector interaction form is determined by the axion shift symmetry, and the singlet ϕ with dynamically varied vacuum expectation value is introduced to reinforce the axial-vector coupling strength and evade the stringent neutrino oscillation constraints. The effective potential generated by the new interaction could cancel the SM counterpart, resulting in an enhanced converting probability between SM neutrino and sterile neutrino. Hence, the production rate of sterile neutrinos can be substantially enlarged with smaller mixing compared to the DW mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have received widespread attention due to their flexible deployment characteristics. Automated airports equipped with UAVs are expected to become important equipment for improving quality and reducing costs in many inspection scenarios. This paper focuses on the automated inspection business of UAVs dispatched by automated airports in highway scenarios. On the basis of considering the shape of highway curves, inspection targets, and the energy consumption characteristics of UAVs, planning the flight parameters of UAVs is of great significance for ensuring the effectiveness of the inspection process. This paper first sets the inspection path points for the UAV based on highway curves, and then proposes an efficient heuristic method for the nonlinear non-convex parameter optimization problem, through which the parameters of the UAV's inspection altitude, hovering altitude, and flight speed are planned. Simulation and analysis show that the proposed method possesses good parameter planning efficiency. By combining several existing trajectory planning methods, e.g., the traversal method, the deep Q-network based method, and the genetic method, it can be concluded that the proposed method in this paper has better overall planning performance including planning efficiency and inspection effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heritability of litter size in sheep is low and controlled by multiple genes, but the research on its related genes is not sufficient. Here, to explore the expression pattern of multi-tissue genes in Chinese native sheep, we selected 10 tissues of the three adult ewes with the highest estimated breeding value in the early study of the prolific Xinggao sheep population. The global gene expression analysis showed that the ovary, uterus, and hypothalamus expressed the most genes. Using the Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP) cluster analysis, these samples were clustered into eight clusters. The functional enrichment analysis showed that the genes expressed in the spleen, uterus, and ovary were significantly enriched in the Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated Protein (ATM) signaling pathway, and most genes in the liver, spleen, and ovary were enriched in the immune response pathway. Moreover, we focus on the expression genes of the hypothalamic–pituitary–ovarian axis (HPO) and found that 11,016 genes were co-expressed in the three tissues, and different tissues have different functions, but the oxytocin signaling pathway was widely enriched. To further explore the differences in the expression genes (DEGs) of HPO in different sheep breeds, we downloaded the transcriptome data in the public data, and the analysis of DEGs (Xinggao sheep vs. Sunite sheep in Hypothalamus, Xinggao sheep vs. Sunite sheep in Pituitary, and Xinggao sheep vs. Suffolk sheep in Ovary) revealed the neuroactive ligand–receptor interactions. In addition, the gene subsets of the transcription factors (TFs) of DEGs were identified. The results suggest that 51 TF genes and the homeobox TF may play an important role in transcriptional variation across the HPO. Altogether, our study provided the first fundamental resource to investigate the physiological functions and regulation mechanisms in sheep. This important data contributes to improving our understanding of the reproductive biology of sheep and isolating effecting molecular markers that can be used for genetic selection in sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The significant roles of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in different cancers and diseases have been reported. We now focused on the possible role of a newly recognized circRNA, circ_0004674 in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), and the related downstream mechanism. Methods: The expression of circ_0004674 in TNBC tissues and cells was determined followed by analysis of the correlation between circ_0004674 and TNBC patients' prognosis. The interaction between circ_0004674, miR-377-3p, E2F6, and PNO1 was then identified using bioinformatics analysis combined with FISH, RIP, RNA pull-down, RT-qPCR, and Western blot analysis. Using gain-of-function and loss-of-function methods, we analyzed the effect of circ_0004674, miR-377-3p, E2F6, and PNO1 on TNBC in vivo and in vitro. Results: Increased circ_0004674 and E2F6 but decreased miR-377-3p were observed in TNBC tissues and MDA-MB-231 TNBC cells, all of which findings were associated with poor prognosis in patients with TNBC. Silencing of circ_0004676 remarkably suppressed the proliferation, cell cycle progression, and migration of TNBC cells in vitro, as well as inhibiting tumorigenesis and metastasis in vivo. Additionally, circ_0004676 served as a sponge of miR-377-3p which bound to the transcription factor E2F6. In the presence of overexpression of circ_0004676, E2F6 expression and its target PNO1 expression were elevated, while miR-377-3p expression was decreased. Interestingly, overexpression of E2F6 could reverse the inhibitory effect on tumor growth caused by downregulation of circ_0004676. Conclusion: Our study highlighted the carcinogenic effect of circ_0004676 on TNBC through regulation of the miR-377-3p/E2F6/PNO1 axis. 1. Circ_0004674 is highly expressed in TNBC tissues and cells. 2. Circ_0004674 upregulates the expression of E2F6 by sponging miR-377-3p. 3. E2F6 upregulates PNO1 by binding to the PNO1 promoter. 4. Circ_0004674 favors TNBC progression by regulating the miR-377-3p/E2F6/PNO1 axis. 5. This study provides a new target for the treatment of TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we extend the Shen-Larsson's construction for Witt algebras to simple generalized Witt algebras and construct a class of modules for these algebras. We determine the irreducibility and isomorphism of these modules under certain countability conditions. Thus we obtain a large family of irreducible weight modules other than highest weight modules and many irreducible non-weight modules over the simple generalized Witt algebras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a combined fault diagnosis scheme based on a recurrent neural network (RNN) and an H− observer for satellite attitude control systems (ACSs) in the presence of model uncertainties, external disturbances, and measurement noise. The ACS is decoupled into multiple independent channels, such that the residuals generated by the observers respond to the corresponding faults. A novel multilayer adaptive Gaussian recurrent neural network (MAGRNN) structure is developed as an approximator to estimate the lumped disturbance; a robust term is introduced to improve accuracy. Considering the actuator fault in the finite frequency domain and the fault-sensitive index, a set of H− unknown input observers (UIOs) is designed using the output of the MAGRNN-based approximator as compensation. The existence conditions of the approximator and observer are proposed and proved. The fault diagnosis results for three cases verify that the proposed method can be used for small fault detection and isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realization problems, including the minimum realization of Boolean control networks (BCNs), are investigated by the vertex partition method. A general definition of the realization for BCNs that does not involve any subspaces is proposed. For the new and existing realization definitions, by a common concolorous perfect vertex partition (CCP-VP) of vertex-colored state transition graphs, an equivalence relation and a quotient mapping are defined, which induce a quotient system, i.e., the realization of original BCNs. In addition, if the CCP-VP is an equal partition, a realization induced by a γ-friendly controlled invariant regular subspace is constructed. Finally, an algorithm is designed to construct the minimum realization of BCNs for different realization definitions, and three examples are given to illustrate the obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet of Things (IoT) technology has permeated into all aspects of today's society and is playing an increasingly important role. Identity authentication is crucial for IoT devices to access the network, because the open wireless transmission environment of the IoT may suffer from various forms of network attacks. The asymmetry in the comprehensive capabilities of gateways and terminals in the IoT poses significant challenges to reliability and security. Traditional encryption-based identity authentication methods are difficult to apply to IoT terminals with limited capabilities due to high algorithm complexity and low computational efficiency. This paper explores physical layer identity identification based on channel state information (CSI) and proposes an intelligent identification method based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL). Specifically, by analyzing and extracting the features of the real received CSI information and a setting low-complexity state, as well as action and reward parameters for the deep neural network of deep reinforcement learning oriented to the scenario, we obtained an authentication method that can efficiently identify identities. The validation of the proposed method using collected CSI data demonstrates that it has good convergence properties. Compared with several existing machine-learning-based identity recognition methods, the proposed method has higher recognition accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, perovskite technology has been increasingly applied in solar cells, nanocrystals, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) have attracted significant interest in the field of optoelectronics owing to their exceptional optoelectronic properties. Compared with other common nanocrystal materials, perovskite nanomaterials have many advantages, such as high absorption coefficients and tunable bandgaps. Owing to their rapid development in efficiency and huge potential, perovskite materials are considered the future of photovoltaics. Among different types of PNCs, CsPbBr3 perovskites exhibit several advantages. CsPbBr3 nanocrystals offer a combination of enhanced stability, high photoluminescence quantum yield, narrow emission bandwidth, tunable bandgap, and ease of synthesis, which distinguish them from other PNCs, and make them suitable for various applications in optoelectronics and photonics. However, PNCs also have some shortcomings: they are highly susceptible to degradation caused by environmental factors, such as moisture, oxygen, and light, which limits their long-term performance and hinders their practical applications. Recently, researchers have focused on improving the stability of PNCs, starting with the synthesis of nanocrystals and optimizing (i) the external encapsulation of crystals, (ii) ligands used for the separation and purification of nanocrystals, and (iii) initial synthesis methods or material doping. In this review, we discuss in detail the factors leading to instability in PNCs, introduce stability enhancement methods for mainly inorganic PNCs mentioned above, and provide a summary of these approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a tractable model of systemic bank runs. The market‐based banking system features a two‐layer structure: banks with heterogeneous fundamentals face potential runs by their creditors while they trade short‐term funding in the asset (interbank) market in response to creditor withdrawals. The possibility of a run on a particular bank depends on its assets' interim liquidation value, and this value depends endogenously in turn on the status of other banks in the asset market. The within‐bank coordination problem among creditors and the cross‐bank price externality feed into each other. A small shock can be amplified into a systemic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication is considered a promising technology for fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications systems since it can greatly improve system throughput. Unfortunately, because of extremely high frequency, mmWave transmission suffers from the signal blocking problem, which leads to the deterioration of transmission performance. In this paper, we solve this problem by the combination of ultra-dense network (UDN) and user-centric virtual cell architecture. The deployment of dense small base stations (SBSs) in UDN can reduce transmission distance of signals. The user-centric virtual cell architecture mitigates and exploits interference to improve throughput by using coordinated multipoint (CoMP) transmission technology. Nonetheless, the backhaul burden is heavy and interbeam interference still severe. Therefore, we propose a novel iterative backhaul capacity-limited joint user association and power allocation (JUAPA) scheme in ultra-dense mmWave networks under user-centric virtual cell architecture. To mitigate interference and satisfy quality of service (QoS) requirements of users, a nonconvex system throughput optimization problem is formulated. To solve this intractable optimization problem, we divide it into two alternating optimization subproblems, i.e., user association and power allocation. During each iteration, a many-to-many matching algorithm is designed to solve user association. Subsequently, we perform power allocation optimization using a successive convex approximation (SCA) algorithm. The results confirm that the performance of the proposed scheme is close to that of the exhaustive searching scheme, which greatly reduces complexity, and clearly superior to that of traditional schemes in improving system throughput and satisfying QoS requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xinggao sheep are a breed of Chinese domestic sheep that are adapted to the extremely cold climatic features of the Hinggan League in China. The economically vital reproductive trait of ewes (litter size, LS) and productive traits of lambs (birth weight, BWT; weaning weight, WWT; and average daily gain, ADG) are expressed in females and later in life after most of the selection decisions have been made. This study estimated the genetic parameters for four traits to explore the genetic mechanisms underlying the variation, and we performed genome-wide association study (GWAS) tests on a small sample size to identify novel marker trait associations (MTAs) associated with prolificacy and growth. We detected two suggestive significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with LS and eight significant SNPs for BWT, WWT, and ADG. These candidate loci and genes also provide valuable information for further fine-mapping of QTLs and improvement of reproductive and productive traits in sheep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardiomyopathy is a common disease of cardiac muscle that negatively affects cardiac function. HDAC3 commonly functions as corepressor by removing acetyl moieties from histone tails. However, a deacetylase‐independent role of HDAC3 has also been described. Cardiac deletion of HDAC3 causes reduced cardiac contractility accompanied by lipid accumulation, but the molecular function of HDAC3 in cardiomyopathy remains unknown. We have used powerful genetic tools in Drosophila to investigate the enzymatic and nonenzymatic roles of HDAC3 in cardiomyopathy. Using the Drosophila heart model, we showed that cardiac‐specific HDAC3 knockdown (KD) leads to prolonged systoles and reduced cardiac contractility. Immunohistochemistry revealed structural abnormalities characterized by myofiber disruption in HDAC3 KD hearts. Cardiac‐specific HDAC3 KD showed increased levels of whole‐body triglycerides and increased fibrosis. The introduction of deacetylase‐dead HDAC3 mutant in HDAC3 KD background showed comparable results with wild‐type HDAC3 in aspects of contractility and Pericardin deposition. However, deacetylase‐dead HDAC3 mutants failed to improve triglyceride accumulation. Our data indicate that HDAC3 plays a deacetylase‐independent role in maintaining cardiac contractility and preventing Pericardin deposition as well as a deacetylase‐dependent role to maintain triglyceride homeostasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of urban area function is crucial for urban development. Urban area function features can help to conduct better urban planning and transportation planning. With development of urbanization, urban area function becomes complex. In order to accurately extract function features, researchers have proposed multisource data mining methods that combine urban remote sensing and other data. Therefore, the research of efficient multisource data analysis tools has become a new hot topic. In this paper, a novel urban data analysis method combining spatiotemporal wireless network data and remote sensing data was proposed. First, a Voronoi-diagram-based method was used to divide the urban remote sensing images into zones. Second, we combined period and trend components of wireless network traffic data to mine urban function structure. Third, for multisource supported urban simulation, we designed a novel spatiotemporal city computing method combining graph attention network (GAT) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) to analyze spatiotemporal urban data. The final results prove that our method performs better than other commonly used methods. In addition, we calculated the commuting index of each zone by wireless network data. Combined with the urban simulation conducted in this paper, the dynamic changes of urban area features can be sensed in advance for a better sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph-based dimensionality reduction methods have attracted much attention for they can be applied successfully in many practical problems such as digital images and information retrieval. Two main challenges of these methods are how to choose proper neighbors for graph construction and make use of global and local information when conducting dimensionality reduction. In this paper, we want to tackle these two challenges by presenting an improved graph optimization approach for unsupervised dimensionality reduction. Our method can deal with dimensionality reduction and graph construction at the same time, which doesn't need to construct an affinity graph beforehand. On the other hand, by integrating the advantages of the orthogonal local preserving projections and principal component analysis, both the local and global information of the original data are considered in dimensionality reduction in our approach. Eventually, we learn the sparse affinity graph by considering probabilistic neighbors, which is optimal and suitable for classification. To testify the superiority of our approach, we carry out some experiments on several publicly available UCI and image data sets, and the results have demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical images are rich in spectral information, but difficult to acquire under all-weather conditions, while SAR images can overcome adverse meteorological conditions, but geometric distortion and speckle noise will reduce the quality of SAR images and thus make image interpretation more challenging. Therefore, transforming SAR images to optical images to assist SAR image interpretation will bring opportunities for SAR image application. With the advancement of deep learning technology, the ability of SAR-to-optical transformation has been greatly improved. However, most of the current mainstream transformation methods do not consider the imaging characteristics of SAR images, and there will be failures such as noisy color spots and regional landform deformation in the generated optical images. Moreover, since the SAR image itself does not contain color information, there also exist many color errors in these results. Aiming at the above problems, Sar2color, an end-to-end general SAR-to-optical transformation model, is proposed based on a conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN). The model uses DCT residual block to reduce the effect of coherent speckle noise on the generated optical images, and constructs the Light atrous spatial pyramid pooling (Light-ASPP) module to mitigate the negative effect of geometric distortion on the generation of optical images. These two designs ensure the precision of texture details when the SAR image is transformed into an optical image, and use the correct color memory block (CCMB) to improve the color accuracy of transformation results. Towards the Sar2color model, we have carried out evaluations on the homologous heterogeneous SAR image and optical image pairing dataset SEN1-2. The experimental results show that, compared with other mainstream transformation models, Sar2color achieves the state-of-the-art effect on all three objective and one subjective evaluation metrics. Furthermore, we have carried out various ablation experiments, and the results show the effectiveness of each designed module of Sar2color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore the impacts of AE (aloe-emodin) in gefitinib-resistant NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer) cells and the corresponding mechanism. Methods: PC9 and PC9-GR cells were cultured and treated by gefitinib, AE, or the combination of the two drugs. Then, viability, apoptosis, migration and invasion of cells were investigated using CCK-8, TUNEL, wound healing assay, and transwell assay, respectively. Female BALB/c nude mice were employed for the establishment of xenograft tumor models to examine the role of AE in tumor growth. Results: PC9-GR cells showed reduced apoptosis and enhanced cell viability, migration and invasion upon treatment by gefitinib, compared with PC9 cells. E-cahherin in PC9-GR cells was down-regulated, while Vimentin, Snail2 (or Slug) and Twist1 in PC9-GR cells were up-regulated, compared with PC9 cells. Meanwhile, treatment by a combination of gefitinib and AE significantly strengthened apoptosis of PC9-GR cells, while attenuated their migration and invasion, compared with the control group or treatment by gefitinib or AE alone. WB results showed that AE could reverse EMT and activation of PI3K/AKT signalling pathway in PC9-GR cells. In vivo experiments showed that tumor growth and EMT of PC9-GR cells were dramatically repressed after treatment by a combination of AE and gefitinib. Additionally, the use of SC97 (a PI3K/Akt pathway activator) could counteract the effects of AE in gefitinib-resistant PC9 cells. Conclusions: AE could enhance the gefitinib sensitivity of PC9-GR cells and reverse EMT by blocking PI3K/Akt/TWIS1 signal pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mechanism of strong mine pressure control in the initial mining and caving stages under multiple key strata (MKS) was studied by theoretical analysis, numerical simulation and field measurement in order to avoid the dynamic pressure accidents caused by the MKS breaking in interactions in the initial mining and caving stage. Panel 13103 (P13103) in the Shan Xi Jinshen Shaping Coal Mine was used sas the study site. The overlying structure and the breaking characteristics of the key strata were analyzed and the overlying structure model of longwall top-coal caving (LTC) under MKS was established. Reasonable initial mining heights and initial caving positions were determined and the spatial and temporal characteristics of ground pressure and roof structure of the working face in the mining process were obtained. The results show that, in the scheme of starting top-coal caving after the working face advanced 20 m, the support damage ratios were all greater than 50% with roof weighting, which is prone to induce prop crash accidents. The dynamic load formed by the second weighting was greater than first weighting under the MKS. The duration of mine pressure tended to be stable with fully developed caving zone heights. With the designed mining scheme, the safe and efficient mining of P13103 is guaranteed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an online compensation method of phase delay error based on a Phase-Frequency (P-F) characteristic has been proposed for MEMS Coriolis Vibratory Gyroscopes (CVGs). At first, the influences of phase delay were investigated in the drive and sense mode. The frequency response was acquired in the digital control system by collecting the demodulation value of drive displacement, which verified the existence and influence of the phase delay. In addition, based on the P-F characteristic, that is, when the phase shift of the nonresonant drive force through the resonator is almost 0° or 180°, the phase delay of the gyroscope is measured online by injecting a nonresonant reference signal into the drive-mode dynamics. After that, the phase delay is self-corrected by adjusting the demodulation phase angle without affecting the normal operation of the gyroscopes. The approach was validated with an MEMS dual-mass vibratory gyroscope under double-loop force-to-rebalance (in-phase FTR and quadrature FTR) closed-loop detection mode and implemented with FPGA. The measurement results showed that this scheme can detect and compensate phase delay to effectively eliminate the effect of the quadrature error. This technique reduces the zero rate output (ZRO) from −0.71°/s to −0.21°/s and bias stability (BS) from 23.30°/h to 4.49°/h, respectively. The temperature sensitivity of bias output from −20 °C to 40 °C has reached 0.003 °/s/°C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flavor-specific scalar bosons exist in various Standard Model extensions and couple to a single generation of fermions via a global flavor symmetry breaking mechanism. Given this strategy, we propose a MeV flavor-specific scalar model in dimension-5 operator series, which explains the muon g — 2 anomaly and proton radius puzzle by coupling with the muon and down-quark at the same time. The framework is consistent with the null result of high-intensity searches. Specifically, the supernova constraints for muon couplings become weakened by including the contribution of down-quark interaction. The parameter space for explaining muon g — 2 discrepancy is available when 10% energy deposition is required in the energy explosion process in the supernova, but this is ruled out by the 1% energy deposition requirement. We also investigate the searches for mediator and dark matter and the resulting constraints on viable parameter space such as nuclear physics constraints, direct detection for light boosted dark matter, and possible CMB constraints. When compared with conventional dark matter production, light dark matter production has two additional modifications: bound state formation and early kinetic equilibrium decoupling. We are now looking into the implications of these effects on the relic density of light dark matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G protein pathway suppressor 2 (GPS2) is expressed in most human tissues, including the stomach. However, the biological functions of GPS2 in cancer, as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms, remain poorly understood. Here, we report that GPS2 expression was aberrantly downregulated in gastric cancer (GC) tissues compared with control tissues. Clinicopathologic analysis showed that low GPS2 expression was significantly correlated with pathological grade, lymph node stage, and invasive depth. Kaplan‐Meier analysis indicated that patients with low GPS2 expression showed poorer overall survival rates than those with high GPS2 expression. Moreover, GPS2 overexpression decreased GC cell proliferation, colony formation, tumorigenesis, and invasion. Overexpression of GPS2 reduced the protein expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and inhibited its downstream signaling in GC cells. Interestingly, GPS2 decreased EGFR protein expression, which was reversed by a lysosome inhibitor. Furthermore, GPS2 reduced EGFR protein stability by enhancing the binding of EGFR and an E3 ligase, c‐Cbl, which promoted the ubiquitination of EGFR, ultimately leading to its degradation through the lysosomal pathway. Further analysis indicated that GPS2 activated autophagy and promoted the autophagic flux by destabilizing EGFR. Taken together, these results suggest that low GPS2 expression is associated with GC progression and provide insights into the applicability of the GPS2‐EGFR axis as a potential therapeutic target in GC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a disabling neurodegenerative disease mainly caused by degeneration of mesencephalic dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). The neuroprotective role of Na+/H+ exchangers isoform‐1 (NHE1) inactivation in cerebral ischemic damage has been elucidated. The current study aimed to investigate the impacts of NHE1 in PD. In this study, 6‐hydroxydopamine (6‐OHDA)‐induced PD rat models were established to attempt to illuminate the role and underlying mechanisms of NHE1 in SNpc neurons of PD. Meanwhile, nerve growth factor‐stimulated PC12 cells followed by 6‐OHDA treatment was used to mimic PD in vitro. Results showed that the protein levels of NHE1 were significantly increased in the SNpc neurons of rats and differentiated PC12 cells after 6‐OHDA treatment. Inactivation of NHE1 with chemical inhibitor HOE642 suppressed SNpc neuronal loss and NHE1 expression in PD rats. The overlays of tyrosine hydroxylase and NHE1 displayed that NHE1 expression was not colocalized but closely associated with TH. Besides, treatment with HOE642 relieved the dyskinesia, mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuronal apoptosis. Further in vitro evidence confirmed that inhibition of NHE1 by genetic‐knockdown prevented mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis. Our study represents the first experimental evidence of a potential role for NHE1 in the pathogenesis of PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the superheavy dark matter (DM) scenario in an extended B−L model, where one generation of right-handed neutrino νR is the DM candidate. If there is a new lighter sterile neutrino that co-annihilate with the DM candidate, then the annihilation rate is exponentially enhanced, allowing a DM mass much heavier than the Griest-Kamionkowski bound (∼105 GeV). We demonstrate that a DM mass MνR ≳ 1013 GeV can be achieved. Although beyond the scale of any traditional DM searching strategy, this scenario is testable via gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by the cosmic strings from the U(1)B−L breaking. Quantitative calculations show that the DM mass O (109−1013 GeV) can be probed by future GW detectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The irregular shapes and gravitational fields of asteroids challenge the design of collision-free asteroid surface hopping trajectories. A novel collision-free long-distance transfer trajectory design algorithm based on the convex optimization is presented in this article. A combinatorial keepout zone consisting of three spheres is defined to avoid the spacecraft colliding with the asteroid surface during the transfer. The boundary of the keepout zone is close to the surface of the target asteroid. With the Taylor expansion approximation, the nonconvex keepout zone constraint becomes convex. Two convex glide-slope constraints are employed for avoiding colliding during the ascent and descent. Thereafter, a convex optimization problem for solving a collision-free long-distance transfer trajectory between arbitrary two surface points is formulated. Moreover, an ant colony optimization algorithm combined with the proposed method is used to solve the optimal hopping sequence problem for exploring multiple points on the asteroid surface. Finally, several numerical simulation examples for the asteroid 433 Eros validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: For certain human cancers, sperm associated antigen 5 (SPAG5) exerts important functions for their development and progression. However, whether RNA interference (RNAi) targeting SPAG5 has antitumor effects has not been determined clinically. Results: The results indicated that Fe-doped chrysotile nanotubes (FeSiNTs) with a relatively uniform outer diameter (15–25 nm) and inner diameter (7–8 nm), and a length of several hundred nanometers, which delivered an siRNA against the SPAG5 oncogene (siSPAG5) efficiently. The nanomaterials were designed to prolong the half-life of siSPAG5 in blood, increase tumor cell-specific uptake, and maximize the efficiency of SPAG5 silencing. In vitro, FeSiNTs carrying siSPAG5 inhibited the growth, migration, and invasion of bladder cancer cells. In vivo, the FeSiNTs inhibited growth and metastasis in three models of bladder tumors (a tail vein injection lung metastatic model, an in-situ bladder cancer model, and a subcutaneous model) with no obvious toxicities. Mechanistically, we showed that FeSiNTs/siSPAG5 repressed PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling, which suppressed the growth and progression of tumor cells. Conclusions: The results highlight that FeSiNTs/siSPAG5 caused no activation of the innate immune response nor any systemic toxicity, indicating the possible therapeutic utility of FeSiNTs/siSPAG5 to deliver siSPAG5 to treat bladder cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel marine hydrogen- and sulfur-oxidizing bacterium, designated strain S2-6 T, was isolated from the deep-sea sediment samples at the Longqi hydrothermal system, southwestern Indian Ocean. Cells were Gram-stain-negative, motile, short rods with a single polar flagellum. Growth was observed at 10–45 °C (optimum 33 °C), pH 5.0–8.0 (optimum pH 7.0) and 1.5 to 6.0% (w/v) NaCl with an optimum at 3.0% (w/v). The isolate was an obligate chemolithoautotroph capable of growth using thiosulfate, tetrathionate, elemental sulfur or sodium sulfide as the energy source, and oxygen or nitrate as the sole electron acceptor. When hydrogen was used as the energy source, strain S2-6 T could respire oxygen, nitrate or element sulfur. The major cellular fatty acids of strain S2-6 T were summed feature 3 (C16:1ω7c and/or C16:1ω6c), C16:0 and summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c and/or C18:1ω6c). The total size of its genome was 2,320,257 bp and the genomic DNA G + C content was 37.3 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences and core genes showed that the novel isolate belonged to the genus Sulfurimonas and was most closely related to Sulfurimonas paralvinellae GO25T (96.8% sequence identity) and Sulfurimonas autotrophica OK10T (95.8% sequence identity). The average nucleotide identity and DNA-DNA hybridization values between strain S2-6 T and S. paralvinellae GO25T and S. autotrophica OK10T were 74.6%-81.2% and 19.1%-24.6%, respectively. Based on the polyphase taxonomical data, strain S2-6 T represents a novel species of the genus Sulfurimonas, for which the name Sulfurimonas sediminis sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain S2-6 T (= MCCC 1A14513T = KCTC 15854 T). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methyl orange (MO) is a common anionic azo dye that is harmful to the environment and biology, so it must be treated innocuously before it can be discharged. Adsorption is an effective method to remove anionic dyes. Nanotube mineral is a natural one-dimensional adsorption material, and its unique morphology and structure endow it with good adsorption capacity. Although there are many related studies, there is a lack of in-depth discussions on the influence of nanotube's composition and structure on the adsorption of dyes and other pollutants. In this paper, two kinds of natural one-dimensional silicate minerals [halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) and chrysotile nanotubes (ChNTs)] with similar morphology but slightly different compositions and crystal structures were used as adsorbents, and MO solution was used as simulate pollutants. It is the first time to discuss in depth the influence of the composition and structure of nanotube minerals on their charge properties and the adsorption performance of methyl orange dyes. It is found that HNTs and ChNTs have different adsorption capacity due to the difference of electronegativity between Al3+ and Mg2+ in the crystal, so they possess negative and positive charges respectively in near-neutral solution, which leads to the adsorption capacity of MO by ChNTs with positive charges which is greater than that of HNTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We proposed with excitement a novel molecular co-assembly (MCSA) that can effectively overcome the agglomeration of energetic materials. Through the coordinated self-assembly of polymethyl methacrylate-polyvinyl acetate (PMMA-PVA) with honeycomb-like structure and nanoparticles, a controlled and orderly distribution of nitroamine explosive (cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine, HMX; cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, RDX; and hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane, CL-20) structure was achieved, above all, resolving the agglomeration problem availably. The modification ability of PMMA to RDX, HMX, and CL-20 at different temperatures was simulated by Materials Studio, which provided guidance for the ambient temperature of collaborative self-assembly. In order to compare the priority of the morphology and performance, RDX/PMMA-PVA, HMX/PMMA-PVA, and CL-20/PMMA-PVA composite particles with the same PMMA content were also fabricated by water suspension coating method, respectively. Structural characterizations and thermal stability of the composites were systematically studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra, and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Moreover, the safety performance was analyzed by qualitative testing of impact sensitivity and friction sensitivity. The solid spherical PBX prepared via collaborative self-assembly all exhibited a perfect spherical structure, smooth, and flat coating, without any agglomeration. They had the same crystalline structure as the uncoated explosives, simultaneously demonstrating lower impact sensitivity and higher energy performance. The application of collaborative self-assembly technology has broken through the key technical bottleneck of the shell material being easy to form a separate phase in the desensitization coating of explosives, availably resolved the problems of particle exposure and low coverage during the coating, thus possessing vital significance for reference in the design and fabrication of PBXs with core-shell structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]