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The solubility of nicotinohydrazide in two binary solvents were determined by a static weight method from 293.15 to 318.15 K. It found that the solubility of nicotinohydrazide was influenced by temperature, solvent polarity, and solvent composition. Meanwhile, the TG-DSC analysis was used to obtain the weight change and thermal effect of nicotinohydrazide. The XRD analysis indicated that the crystal morphology of nicotinohydrazide was coincident in five different solvents. Furthermore, the models including modified Apelblat equation, Van't Hoff equation, Jouyban-Acree model, and CNIBS/R-K model were used to fit the experimental data. It was concluded that the four models were reliable in fitting the experimental data. Then the dissolution apparent thermodynamic was obtained, which explained well the dissolution of nicotinohydrazide. This study could help optimize and control the industrial crystallization of nicotinohydrazide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unconventional fermions in the immensely studied topological semimetals are the source for rich exotic topological properties. Here, using symmetry analysis and first-principles calculations, we propose the coexistence of multiple topological nodal structure in LaSb2, including topological nodal surfaces, nodal lines and in particular eightfold degenerate nodal points, which have been scarcely observed in a single material. Further, utilizing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we confirm the existence of nodal surfaces and eightfold degenerate nodal points in LaSb2. The intriguing multiple topological nodal structure might play a crucial role in giving rise to the large linear magnetoresistance. Our work renews the insights into the exotic topological phenomena in LaSb2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recent studies have indicated that microRNA (miRNA) expression in tumour tissues has prognostic significance in Tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) patients. This study explored the possible prognostic value of miRNAs for TSCC based on published research. Methods: A comprehensive literature search of multiple databases was conducted according to predefined eligibility criteria. Data were extracted from the included studies by two researchers, and HR results were determined based on Kaplan‒Meier curves according to the Tierney method. The Newcastle‒Ottawa Scale (NOS) and GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) pro-GDT were applied to assess the quality of all studies. Publication bias was estimated by funnel plot, Egger's rank correlation test and sensitivity analysis. Results: Eleven studies (891patients) were included, of which 6 reported up-regulated miRNAs and 7 mentioned down-regulated miRNAs. The pooled hazard ratio (HR) from the prognostic indicator overall survival (OS) was 1.34 (1.25–1.44), p < 0.00001, indicating a significant difference in miRNA expression between TSCC patients with better or worse prognosis. Conclusion: MiRNAs may have high prognostic value and could be used as prognostic biomarkers of TSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Keratin 15 (KRT15) is identified as a useful biomarker in several solid tumors, while its clinical role in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) remains unknown. Herein, this study is intended to explore the correlation of tumor KRT15 with clinical features and survival in PTC patients who received tumor resection. Methods: This study retrospectively screened 350 PTC patients who received tumor resection and 50 thyroid benign lesions (TBL) patients. KRT15 in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded lesion specimens of all subjects was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Results: KRT15 was reduced in PTC patients compared to TBL patients (P < 0.001). Furthermore, KRT15 was negatively associated with tumor size (P = 0.017), extrathyroidal invasion (P = 0.007), pathological tumor (pT) stage (P < 0.001), and postoperative radioiodine application (P = 0.008) in PTC patients. Regarding prognostic value, high KRT15 (cut-off by an IHC value of 3) is linked with prolonged accumulating disease-free survival (DFS) (P = 0.008) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.008) in PTC patients. Also, the multivariate Cox regression model showed that high KRT15 (vs. low) was an independent factor for longer DFS (hazard ratio = 0.433, P = 0.049), but not for OS (P > 0.050) in PTC patients. Subgroup analyses revealed that KRT15 possessed a better prognostic value in PTC patients with age ≥ 55 years, tumor size > 4 cm, pathological node stage 1, or pathological tumor-node-metastasis stage ≤ 2 (all P < 0.050). Conclusion: Increased tumor KRT15 associates with a lower invasive degree, prolonged DFS, and OS, revealing its prognostic utility in PTC patients undergoing tumor resection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realization of intrinsic magnetic topological insulators offers an ideal platform to investigate high-temperature quantum anomalous Hall effect as well as quantum devices. The family of MnBi2Te4(Bi2Te3)n has been confirmed that it belongs to this system. However, whether there is a bandgap in the surface states remains controversial. In this work, the ferromagnetism in Sb-doped MnBi4Te7 is confirmed by magnetic transport. Utilizing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we demonstrate the nontrivial topology in Mn(Bi0.7Sb0.3)4Te7 with an energy gap on the MnBi2Te4 termination. As well, we detect distinct topological surface states on two different terminations. Our results provide spectral evidence of an energy gap in the topological surface states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with bladder cancer (BLCA) still show high recurrence after surgery and chemotherapy. Hesperetin (HE), as a natural compound, has attracted researchers' attention due to its low toxicity and easy access. However, the inhibitory effect of HE on BLCA remains unknown. The hub genes and enrichment pathways regulated by HE in the treatment of BLCA were predicted by network pharmacology. The molecular docking of HE and hub proteins was visualized. Colony and CCK8 assays were used to test cell proliferation, and BLCA migration was confirmed by transwell and wound healing assays. In addition, the occurrence of apoptosis and ferroptosis was demonstrated by Hoechst staining, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and ROS (reactive oxygen species) assay. Western Blotting was performed to validate the hub proteins, target functions and pathways. SRC, PIK3R1 and MAPK1 were identified as hub targets for HE in BLCA, involving the PI3k/AKT pathway. Furthermore, HE inhibited the proliferation and migration of BLCA cells. The MMP2/MMP9 proteins were significantly inhibited by HE. The increased expression of Bax and cleaved caspase-3 indicated that HE could promote BLCA cell apoptosis. In addition, Hoechst staining revealed concentrated and illuminated apoptotic nuclei. The activation of ROS and the decline of GPX4 expression suggested that HE might induce ferroptosis as an anti-BLCA process. Shrunk mitochondria and apoptotic bodies were observed in BLCA cells treated with HE, with reduced or absent mitochondrial cristae. We propose for the first time that HE could inhibit the proliferation and migration of BLCA cells and promote apoptosis and ferroptosis. HE may act by targeting proteins such as SRC, PIK3R1 and MAPK1 and the PI3K/AKT pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A representative class of kagome materials, AV3Sb5 (A = K, Rb, Cs), hosts several unconventional phases such as superconductivity, Z 2 non-trivial topological states, and electronic nematic states. These can often coexist with intertwined charge-density wave states. Recently, the discovery of the isostructural titanium-based single-crystals, ATi3Bi5 (A = K, Rb, Cs), which exhibit similar multiple exotic states but without the concomitant charge-density wave, has opened an opportunity to disentangle these complex states in kagome lattices. Here, we combine high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and first-principles calculations to investigate the low-lying electronic structure of RbTi3Bi5. We demonstrate the coexistence of flat bands and several non-trivial states, including type-II Dirac nodal lines and Z 2 non-trivial topological surface states. Our findings also provide evidence for rotational symmetry breaking in RbTi3Bi5, suggesting a directionality to the electronic structure and the possible emergence of pure electronic nematicity in this family of kagome compounds. Kagome superconductors are a platform for intertwined condensed matter phenomena that may be mediated by band topology. Here, authors use ARPES and DFT to identify type-II Dirac nodal lines, flat bands, topologically non-trivial surface states and signatures of nematicity in the kagome compound RbTi3Bi5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A new two-piece abutment design consisting of an upper prosthetic component and tissue-level base has been introduced; however, the biomechanical behavior of such a design has not been documented. This study aimed to investigate the effect of a two-piece abutment design on the stress in the implant components and surrounding bone, as well as its influence on microgap formation. Methods: To simulate the implant models in the mandibular left first molar area, we established nine experimental groups that included three bone qualities (type II, III, and IV) and three implant–abutment designs (internal bone level, tissue level, and a two-piece design). After the screw was preloaded, the maximum occlusal (600 N) and masticatory (225 N) forces were established. Finite element analysis was performed to analyze the maximum and minimum principal stresses on the peri-implant bone; the von Mises stresses in the implants, abutments, bases, and screws, and the microgaps at the implant–abutment, implant–base, and base–abutment interfaces. Results: For all three loading methods, the two-piece abutment design and bone-level connection exhibited similarities in the maximum and minimum principal stresses in the peri-implant bone. The von Mises stresses in both screws and bases were greater for the two-piece design than for the other connection types. The smallest microgap was detected in the tissue-level connection; the largest was observed at the implant–base interface in the two-piece design. Conclusions: The present study found no evidence that the abutment design exerts a significant effect on peri-implant bone stress. However, the mechanical effects associated with the base and screws should be noted when using a two-piece abutment design. The two-piece abutment design also had no advantage in eliminating the microgap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a chronic degenerative joint disease characterized by cartilage degeneration and intra-articular inflammation. Daurisoline (DAS) is an isoquinoline alkaloid isolated from Rhizoma Menispermi, whose antitumor and anti-inflammatory pharmacological effects have been demonstrated, but the effects of DAS on OA have rarely been researched. In this study, we aimed to explore the potential role of DAS in OA and its partial mechanism. Materials and methods: The cytotoxicity of H2O2 and DAS toward chondrocytes was detected by the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay. Safranin O staining was used to detect chondrocyte phenotype changes. Cell apoptosis was measured by both flow cytometry and quantitative analysis of the protein levels of the apoptosis-related factors Bax, Bcl-2 and cleaved caspase-3 by western blot. Western blotting and immunofluorescence were used to assess the expression of the autophagy-related proteins LC3, Beclin-1 and p62. In addition, key signal pathway targets and matrix-degrading indicators were measured by western blot. Results: Our results indicated that H2O2 induced human chondrocyte apoptosis and activated autophagy in a dose-dependent manner. DAS treatment dose-dependently reversed the expression of apoptosis-related proteins (Bax, Bcl-2 and cleaved caspase3) and the apoptosis rate induced by H2O2. Western blot and immunofluorescence analyses showed that DAS decreased the H2O2-induced upregulation of the autophagy marker Beclin-1 and the LC3 II/LC3 I ratio and upregulated the p62 protein level. Mechanistically, DAS inhibited autophagy through the activation of the classical PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway and protected chondrocytes from apoptosis. In addition, DAS alleviated the H2O2-induced degradation of type II collagen and the high expression of matrix metalloproteinase 3 (MMP3) and MMP13. Conclusion: Our research demonstrated that DAS alleviated chondrocyte autophagy caused by H2O2 through activation of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway and protected chondrocytes from apoptosis and matrix degradation. In conclusion, these findings suggest that DAS may serve as a promising therapeutic strategy for OA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing the low-frequency loss (≤ 1 kHz) of the soft magnetic powder cores (SMPCs) while maintaining high saturation magnetic induction (Bs) is beneficial to the high efficiency and energy saving of motor applications. Herein, the effects of silicone resin content (SI), compaction pressure, and annealing temperature on the magnetic softness, microstructure, and magnetic domains of Fe-6.5 wt.%Si SMPCs were systematically studied. The SMPCs with 1 wt.% SI content and pressed at 1800 MPa not only have good forming ability but also exhibit low total loss and high Bs. According to the loss separation at 1 T and 1 kHz, the hysteresis loss accounts for more than 75% of the total loss. Annealing at 850 °C induces dense and large recrystallized grains with large-angle grain boundaries and easily mobile domain walls, resulting in low hysteresis and total loss. A higher temperature of 950 °C damages the cladding layer and causes direct powder-to-powder contact, which thus slightly increases hysteresis and eddy loss. The correlation between the core loss, microstructure, and magnetic domain provides a reference for the development of high-Bs and low-loss SMPCs for high-efficiency motors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate identification of land use conflicts is an important prerequisite for the rational allocation of land resources and optimizing the production–living–ecological space pattern. Previous studies used suitability assessment and landscape pattern indices to identify land use conflicts. However, research on land use conflict identification from the perspective of ecological security is insufficient and not conducive to regional ecological, environmental protection, and sustainable development. Based on ecological security, this study takes Shandong Province as an example and comprehensively evaluates the importance of ecosystem service function and environmental sensitivity. It identifies the ecological source, and extracts ecological corridors with a minimum cumulative resistance model from which ecological security patterns are constructed. It identifies land use conflicts through spatial overlay analysis of arable land and construction land. The results show that: (1) Shandong Province has formed an ecological security pattern of "two ecological barriers, two belts, and eight cores" with an area of 15,987 km2. (2) The level of arable land–ecological space conflict is low, at 39.76%. The proportions of serious and moderate conflicts are 13.44% and 26.97%, respectively, distributed primarily on the Jiaodong Peninsula and the low hill areas of Ludong. (3) Construction land–ecological space conflict is reasonably stable and controllable, at 76.39%, occurring mainly around urban construction land, with serious and moderate conflict concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, mainly between rural settlements and ecologically safe space in the region. This study has important theoretical and practical reference values for identifying land use conflicts, protecting regional ecological security, and optimizing land use patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous growth of the social economy, the trusted computing and privacy protection methods of IoT nodes are constantly innovating and changing, from the traditional single IoT node protection method to the new interactive IoT nodes supplemented by various network resources. That is, the item information server encrypts the detailed information of the item layer by layer with the session key of the adjacent node according to the node sequence of the response path. By completing the complete interactive design and the protection knot in the unique illusory environment, the application and discussion of privacy protection is achieved in the context of Internet of Things, creating a design concept for trusted computing and privacy protection methods for IoT nodes, and discussing the rationality of interactive design in the process of trusted computing and privacy protection methods for IoT nodes. The simulation results show that the application of fuzzy logic blockchain is very extensive, and the trusted computing and privacy protection methods of IoT nodes have a broader platform and a more open environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: This study evaluated the effects of Lonicera japonica and Radix Puerariae crude extracts as feed additives on finishing pigs. The results indicated diets supplemented with L. japonica and Radix Puerariae crude extracts improved growth performance, abundance of beneficial bacteria in feces, and digestibility of crude protein and total phosphorus in finishing pigs. These results suggest that Lonicera japonica and Radix Puerariae crude extracts could be a good feed additives for finishing pigs feeding. This study aims to investigate the influence of adding Lonicera japonica (L. japonica) and Radix Puerariae crude extracts and their mixture to the diet of finishing pigs on their fecal microbes and nutrient apparent digestibility. A total of 72 healthy Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire crossbred barrows without significant differences in body weight (93 ± 2 kg) were selected and randomly divided into four groups (18 in each group). Three replicate pens per group (six pigs per pen) were used, and two pigs were evaluated for each pen. The groups were fed the following diets: control group (CON), basic diet; chlorogenic acid group (CGA group), basic diet + 1 kg/ton L. japonica crude extract; Pueraria flavonoid group (PF group), basic diet + 1 kg/ton Radix Puerariae crude extract; and mix group (Mix group), basic diet + 0.5 kg/ton L. japonica crude extract + 0.5 kg/ton Radix Puerariae crude extract. The following results were obtained: (1) At the phylum level, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Spirochaetes, Proteobacteria, Fibrobaeteres, and Kiritimatiellaeota were the main components of the fecal microbiota (top 5); the relative abundance of bacteria from phyla Firmicutes significantly increased in the Mix group than in the CON group (p < 0.05). At the genus level, Treponema_2, Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group, uncultured_bacterium_f_Lachnospiraceae, uncultured_bacterium_f_Prevotellaceae, and Prevotellaceae_NK3B31_group were the main components of the fecal microbiota (top 5); the relative abundance of bacteria from genus Lactobacillus significantly increased in the Mix group than in the CON group (p < 0.05). Chao1 and Ace counts were significantly higher in group CGA than in the CON group and group Mix (p < 0.05). The alpha and beta diversities and the relative abundance of fecal microbes were higher in all test groups than in the CON group. (2) The protein digestibility was significantly higher in the CGA and PF groups than in the CON group, and the TP digestibility was significantly higher in the CGA than in the CON and Mix groups (p < 0.05). In conclusion, Lonicera japonica and Radix Puerariae crude extract supplementation in the diet significantly changed fecal microbiota and improved the protein and TP digestibility of finishing pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental understanding and control of the electronic structure evolution in rare‐earth nickelates is a fascinating and meaningful issue, as well as being helpful to understand the mechanism of recently discovered superconductivity. Here the dimensionality effect on the ground electronic state in high‐quality (NdNiO3) m/(SrTiO3)1 superlattices is systematically studied through transport and soft X‐ray absorption spectroscopy. The metal‐to‐insulator transition temperature decreases with the thickness of the NdNiO3 slab decreasing from bulk to 7 unit cells, then increases gradually as m further reduces to 1 unit cell. Spectral evidence demonstrates that the stabilization of insulating phase can be attributed to the increase of the charge‐transfer energy between O 2p and Ni 3d bands. The prominent multiplet feature on the Ni L3 edge develops with the decrease of NdNiO3 slab thickness, suggesting the strengthening of the charge disproportionate state under the dimensional confinement. This work provides convincing evidence that dimensionality is an effective knob to modulate the charge‐transfer energy and thus the collective ground state in nickelates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex molecules play an essential role in immune interactions by presenting peptides on the cell surface to T cells. With significant deep learning progress, a series of neural network-based models have been proposed and demonstrated with their excellent performances for peptide-HLA class I binding prediction. However, there is still a lack of effective binding prediction models for HLA class II protein binding with peptides due to its inherent challenges. We present a novel sequence-based pan-specific neural network structure, DeepSeaPanII, for peptide-HLA class II binding prediction in this work. Our model is an end-to-end neural network model without the need for pre-or post-processing on input samples compared with existing pan-specific models. Besides state-of-the-art performance in binding affinity prediction, DeepSeqPanII can also extract biological insight on the binding mechanism over the peptide by its attention mechanism-based binding core prediction capability. The leave-one-allele-out cross-validation and benchmark evaluation results show that our proposed network model achieved state-of-the-art performance in HLA-II peptide binding. The source code and trained models are freely available at https://github.com/pcpLiu/DeepSeqPanII. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the effect of the annealing process (heating rate (HR) and holding time (HT)) on microstructure and magnetic properties of FeSiBPCNbCu nanocrystalline soft magnetic powder cores (NPCs) are systematically studied. NPCs annealed under the HR of 100 K/min and HT of 30 min exhibit a finely uniform nanocrystalline structure with a concentrated grain size distribution and a small average grain size of 18.71 nm and show a modified magnetic domain structure where the domain walls move easily with the changes in the external magnetic field. The optimized microstructure leads to outstanding soft magnetic properties, including the low coercivity of 10.5 A/m (50 mT, 500 kHz), low core loss of 751 mW/cm3 (50 mT, 500 kHz), and highly effective permeability of 64.7 (100 kHz). We believe that the annealing process regulation can contribute to the industrial production of high-performance NPCs, which can meet the performance requirements of high-end electronic components such as molding chokes used in power supplies, mobile phones, and other terminal equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phosphating treatment method has been extensively applied in the field of insulating soft magnetic powders because of its simplicity and ease of operation; however, the specific nanoscale morphology of phosphate coating layers and the interface/connection/interaction with the outer resin are still unclear. In this study, soft magnetic powder cores (SMPCs) with a nanoporous-structured phosphate coating were fabricated, in which the coating has a beneficial adsorption effect on the outer resin and can enhance the bonding force between the organic/inorganic coating. Optimized soft magnetic properties were obtained for the SMPCs with a phosphoric acid content of 0.6 wt%, including a high effective permeability of 61, low core loss of 134.6 mW/cm3 (measured at 100 mT, 50 kHz), and high DC bias performance of 56% under a superimposed field of 100 Oe due to the favorable interactions between the insulating coating layers. These properties can be used to manufacture micro-magnetic components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to collect information from distributed sensors has become one of the hotspots in the Internet of Things (IoT) research. However, previous studies on the UAV-assisted data acquisition systems focused mainly on shortening the acquisition time, reducing the energy consumption, and increasing the amount of collected data, but it lacked the optimization of data freshness. Moreover, we hope that UAVs can perform long-term data collection tasks in dynamic scenarios within a constantly changing age of information (AoI) and within their own power levels. Therefore, we aim to maximize the quality of service (QoS) based on the freshness of data, while considering the endurance of the UAVs. Since our scenario is not an inertial order decision process with uniform time slots, we first transform the optimization problem into a semi-Markov decision process (SMDP) through modeling, and then we propose a hierarchical deep Q-network (DQN)-based path-planning algorithm to learn the optimal strategy. The simulation results show that the algorithm is better than the benchmark algorithm, and the tradeoff between the system QoS and the safe power state can be achieved by adjusting the parameter β e . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water uptake facilitates the initiation of seed germination. It is presumed that aquaporin (AQP)-mediated water inflow contributes to seed germination, but the genetic evidence is still lacking. This study aimed at genome-wide identification of ZmAQPs and further determined the physiological functions. Following a comprehensive search, a total of 41 ZmAQPs were identified according to the latest genome database. Through bioinformatic approaches, the physicochemical characteristics, phylogenetic relationships, and structural features of ZmAQPs were analyzed. The gene expression analysis of 20 high-resolution and multi-tissues samples showed that ZmAQPs had distinct spatiotemporal and tissue-specific expression profiles during seed germination and early seedling development. We then focused on the aquaporin of maize tonoplast intrinsic protein 3 (ZmTIP3), which is specifically expressed in germinating seed. A mutant zmtip3-1 with disruption of the ZmTIP3-1 gene showed shorter shoot and root length, and decreased seedling dry weight compared with the control (W22). The result revealed that ZmTIP3-1 improved the absolute content of seed protein and promoted storage reserves mobilization, suggesting that ZmTIP3 may be a positive regulator of seed vigor. This work provides valuable clues for understanding the function and possible regulatory mechanism of ZmAQPs in seed germination and seedling growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hypophosphatasia is a rare metabolic inherited dento‐osseous disorder. Although there is some available literature on various dental characteristics of hypophosphatasia patients, few reports focus on the effects of hypophosphatasia on the permanent dentition and prosthodontic rehabilitation, particularly in relation to the use of dental implants. This paper reports a case with hypophosphatasia and prosthodontic rehabilitation using dental implants with 7‐year follow‐up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have attacted much attention in the field of wireless communication due to its agility and altitude. UAVs can be used as low-altitude aerial base stations (UAV-BSs) to provide communication services for ground devices (GDs) in various scenarios, such as emergency communication and traffic offloading in hotspots. However, due to the limited communication ranges and high prices of commercial UAV-BSs, covering a target area all the time with sufficient UAVs is quite challenging, especially under dynamic environment. We need to design the trajectory of the UAV-BSs to optimize system performance. Most existing works focus on the energy-efficient coverage and throughput maximization but ignore the fairness of communication service, especially the fairness at user-level. Besides, reinforcement learning is suitable for solving decision problems in dynamic environments. However, most existing works use centralized deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approaches. Due to the scalability and low time complexity, a distributed DRL approach is more suitable for multiple UAV-BSs communication system in dynamic environment. Unlike previous works, we characterize the fairness at user-level based on proportional fairness scheduling and formulate a weighted-throughput maximization problem via designing UAV-BSs’ trajectory. Then we model the dynamic deploymentproblem of UAV-BSs as a Markov game and propose a multi-agent deep reinforcement learning-based distributed UAV-BSs control approach named MAUC. MAUC approach adopts the framework of centralized training with distributed execution. Simulation results show that the MAUC can improve fairness of communication service by sacrificing a small amount of throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate prediction of peptide binding affinity to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins has the potential to design better therapeutic vaccines. Previous work has shown that pan‐specific prediction algorithms can achieve better prediction performance than other approaches. However, most of the top algorithms are neural networks based black box models. Here, we propose DeepAttentionPan, an improved pan‐specific model, based on convolutional neural networks and attention mechanisms for more flexible, stable and interpretable MHC‐I binding prediction. With the attention mechanism, our ensemble model consisting of 20 trained networks achieves high and more stabilized prediction performance. Extensive tests on IEDB's weekly benchmark dataset show that our method achieves state‐of‐the‐art prediction performance on 21 test allele datasets. Analysis of the peptide positional attention weights learned by our model demonstrates its capability to capture critical binding positions of the peptides, which leads to mechanistic understanding of MHC‐peptide binding with high alignment with experimentally verified results. Furthermore, we show that with transfer learning, our pan model can be fine‐tuned for alleles with few samples to achieve additional performance improvement. DeepAttentionPan is freely available as an open‐source software at https://github.com/jjin49/DeepAttentionPan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kagome-lattices of 3d-transition metals hosting Weyl/Dirac fermions and topological flat bands exhibit non-trivial topological characters and novel quantum phases, such as the anomalous Hall effect and fractional quantum Hall effect. With consideration of spin–orbit coupling and electron correlation, several instabilities could be induced. The typical characters of the electronic structure of a kagome lattice, i.e., the saddle point, Dirac-cone, and flat band, around the Fermi energy (EF) remain elusive in magnetic kagome materials. We present the experimental observation of the complete features in ferromagnetic kagome layers of YMn6Sn6 helically coupled along the c-axis, by using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and band structure calculations. We demonstrate a Dirac dispersion near EF, which is predicted by spin-polarized theoretical calculations, carries an intrinsic Berry curvature and contributes to the anomalous Hall effect in transport measurements. In addition, a flat band and a saddle point with a high density of states near EF are observed. These multi-sets of kagome features are of orbital-selective origin and could cause multi-orbital magnetism. The Dirac fermion, flat band and saddle point in the vicinity of EF open an opportunity in manipulating the topological properties in magnetic materials. The typical characters of the electronic structure of magnetic kagome materials remain elusive. Here, the authors observe a Dirac cone, a flat band and a saddle point near the Fermi energy in ferromagnetic kagome material YMn6Sn6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) combined with the first-principles electronic structure calculations, we report the quantized states at the surface of a single crystal 2H-TaSe2. We have observed sub-bands of quantized states at the three-dimensional Brillouin zone center due to a highly dispersive band with light effective mass along kz direction. The quantized sub-bands shift upward towards EF while the bulk band at Γ shifts downward with the decrease of temperature across charge density wave (CDW) formation. The band shifts could be intimately related to the CDW. While neither the two-dimensional Fermi-surface nesting nor purely strong electron–phonon coupling can explain the mechanism of CDW in 2H-TaSe2, our experiment may ignite the interest in understanding the CDW mechanism in this family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kagome-nets, appearing in electronic, photonic and cold-atom systems, host frustrated fermionic and bosonic excitations. However, it is rare to find a system to study their fermion–boson many-body interplay. Here we use state-of-the-art scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy to discover unusual electronic coupling to flat-band phonons in a layered kagome paramagnet, CoSn. We image the kagome structure with unprecedented atomic resolution and observe the striking bosonic mode interacting with dispersive kagome electrons near the Fermi surface. At this mode energy, the fermionic quasi-particle dispersion exhibits a pronounced renormalization, signaling a giant coupling to bosons. Through the self-energy analysis, first-principles calculation, and a lattice vibration model, we present evidence that this mode arises from the geometrically frustrated phonon flat-band, which is the lattice bosonic analog of the kagome electron flat-band. Our findings provide the first example of kagome bosonic mode (flat-band phonon) in electronic excitations and its strong interaction with fermionic degrees of freedom in kagome-net materials. Frustrated kagome magnets host both fermionic and bosonic excitations, but evidence of their interplay has been elusive. Here, the authors report a pronounced renormalization of electron bands near the Fermi surface due to the coupling with a flat phonon band in a kagome paramagnet, CoSn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Layered kagome-lattice 3d transition metals are emerging as an exciting platform to explore the frustrated lattice geometry and quantum topology. However, the typical kagome electronic bands, characterized by sets of the Dirac-like band capped by a phase-destructive flat band, have not been clearly observed, and their orbital physics are even less well investigated. Here, we present close-to-textbook kagome bands with orbital differentiation physics in CoSn, which can be well described by a minimal tight-binding model with single-orbital hopping in Co kagome lattice. The capping flat bands with bandwidth less than 0.2 eV run through the whole Brillouin zone, especially the bandwidth of the flat band of out-of-plane orbitals is less than 0.02 eV along Γ−M. The energy gap induced by spin-orbit interaction at the Dirac cone of out-of-plane orbitals is much smaller than that of in-plane orbitals, suggesting orbital-selective character of the Dirac fermions. The understanding of kagome bands, which are characterized by Dirac-like bands capped by a flat band, remains largely elusive. Here, Liu et al. report the observation of a flat band and Dirac bands as ideal features of kagome bands in CoSn, revealing orbital-selective character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Materials with giant spin splitting are desired for spintronic applications. The fabrications of spintronic devices from half metals with one spin direction are often hampered, however, by stray magnetic fields, domain walls, short spin coherence times, scattering on magnetic atoms or magnetically active interfaces, and other characteristics that come along with the magnetism. The surfaces of topological insulators, or Dirac/Weyl semimetals, could be an alternative, but production of high‐quality thin films without the presence of the bulk states at the Fermi energy remains very challenging. Here, by utilizing angle‐resolved photoemission spectroscopy, a record‐high Dresselhaus spin–orbit splitting of the bulk state in the nonmagnetic IrBiSe is found. The band structure calculations indicate that the splitting band is fully spin‐polarized with 3D chiral spin texture. As a source of spin‐polarized electrons, lightly doped IrBiSe is expected to generate electric‐field‐controlled spin‐polarized currents, free from back scattering, and could host triplet and Fulde–Ferrel–Larkin–Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superconductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To evaluate the effect of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP‐2) incorporated biomimetic calcium phosphate (BMP‐2/BioCaP) in conjunction with barrier membrane on periodontal regeneration in chronic periodontitis experimental model. Material and Methods: Chronic periodontitis experimental model with critical‐sized supra‐alveolar defects was created in 15 dogs' mandibles. After the initial periodontal therapy, the defects were randomly assigned to the following groups: (a) control; (b) barrier membrane; (c) deproteinized bovine bone mineral + barrier membrane; (d) BioCaP + barrier membrane and (e) BMP‐2/BioCaP + barrier membrane (6 quadrants with 18 teeth per group). Eight weeks later, clinical examinations, micro‐CT, and histomorphometric analyses were performed. Results: Clinical examinations, including plaque index, bleeding index, and probing depth, were similar for all groups. In contrast, the clinical attachment loss was significantly lower in defects grafted with BMP‐2/BioCaP and barrier membrane. The micro‐CT results showed that the height of mineralized tissue in defects grafted with BMP‐2/BioCaP and barrier membrane was significantly higher. For histometric analysis, the defects grafted with BMP‐2/BioCaP and barrier membrane exhibited significantly more connective tissue height, new cementum height, new bone height and area, as well as less down‐growth of junctional epithelium. Conclusion: BMP‐2/BioCaP could be a promising bone substitute for periodontal regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the task of nuclei segmentation in high-resolution histopathology images. We propose an automatic end-to-end deep neural network algorithm for segmentation of individual nuclei. A nucleus-boundary model is introduced to predict nuclei and their boundaries simultaneously using a fully convolutional neural network. Given a color-normalized image, the model directly outputs an estimated nuclei map and a boundary map. A simple, fast, and parameter-free post-processing procedure is performed on the estimated nuclei map to produce the final segmented nuclei. An overlapped patch extraction and assembling method is also designed for seamless prediction of nuclei in large whole-slide images. We also show the effectiveness of data augmentation methods for nuclei segmentation task. Our experiments showed our method outperforms prior state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, it is efficient that one 1000×1000 image can be segmented in less than 5 s. This makes it possible to precisely segment the whole-slide image in acceptable time. The source code is available at https://github.com/easycui/nuclei_segmentation . Graphical Abstract The neural network for nuclei segmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP), the source and upper reaches of many Asian rivers, are crisscrossed by rivers and dotted with lakes. Schizothoracinae fishes, species native to the QTP, are distributed widely through these rivers and lakes. Over the past decades, ecological protection has become increasingly intense. The rapid acquisition of the genetic information and accurate gene sequence database are assumed to play an important role in the conservation of species diversity and biodiversity. In this study, 153 COI sequences (648bp in length) covering 13 species in 8 genera of Schizothoracinae fishes in Qinghai Province were used to determine whether barcode could identify Schizothoracinae species accurately. The average Kimura two parameter (K2P) genetic distances within and among species were 0.35% and 8.83%, respectively. The maximum K2P distance within species was observed in Gymnocypris eckloni (1.36%) while minimum K2P distance among species was observed between Chuanchia labiosa and Schizopygopsis pylzovi (0.23%). Overlaps existed in K2P distance intra- and inter- species based on both the genes. Eleven groups with 9 single-species groups and 2 multi-species groups were identified through Automatic Barcode Gap Discovery System, which were consistent with the overlaps of K2P distance. 96.7% as the accurate ratio for COI barcode was calculated and high solution was observed in the phylogenetic trees based on COI gene and Cyt b gene. Except for the similar results based on two genes above, COI barcode was more economical than Cyt b gene. The SOM model successfully predicted characteristic-diagnostic sites at species level: 36 characteristic-diagnostic sites from eight species, in which 12 from Gmnodiptychus pachycgeilus, 2 from Platypharodon extremus, 7 from Ptychobarbus kaznakovi, 2 from Schizopygopsis anteroventris, 2 from Schizopygopsis malacanthus, 3 from Schizopygopsis malacanthus chengi, 3 from Schizothorax dolichonema and 5 from Schizothorax lantsangensis. Our results show that Schizothoracinae fishes can be identified validly by using COI DNA barcode. Thirty-six characteristic-diagnostic sites were proposed to be applied into works of species identification for the Schizothoracinae fishes in Qinghai Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objective: Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by the destruction of the periodontium. The strontium ion (Sr2+) can prevent the bone loss associated with periodontitis and promote the regeneration of the bone. The mechanisms by which the Sr2+ works remain poorly understood. We aim to investigate the effects of the Sr2+ ion on cell proliferation, inflammatory regulation and osteogenic differentiation of human periodontal ligament cells (hPDLCs) in pathological conditions. Material and methods: hPDLCs were obtained from premolars that came from the orthodontic extraction. The hPDLCs were treated with Sr2+ and/or lipopolysaccharide (LPS), which was applied as the pathological condition of periodontitis. The effect of the dose of Sr2+ on cell proliferation was analyzed using a Cell Counting Kit‐8 assay. The gene and protein expression of proinflammatory cytokines were detected by the real‐time polymerase chain reaction and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. The osteogenic differentiation and mineralization were assessed by the real‐time polymerase chain reaction, alkaline phosphatase activity assay and alizarin red staining. Results: Results demonstrated that Sr2+ in a range of concentrations from 0.02 to 2.5 mmol/L significantly improved the proliferation of hPDLCs. Sr2+ reversed LPS‐stimulated proinflammatory cytokine expressions such as tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin (IL)‐1β, IL‐6 and IL‐8. Moreover, Sr2+ rescued the LPS‐inhibited gene expression of osteogenic differentiation. Although it appeared to suppress the late mineralization, Sr2+ can reverse the LPS‐inhibited early osteogenic differentiation of hPDLCs. Conclusion: These results indicated that Sr2+ could attenuate the LPS‐stimulated proinflammatory molecule expression and inhibit early osteogenic differentiation of hPDLCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prognostics, such as remaining useful life (RUL) prediction, is a crucial task in condition-based maintenance. A major challenge in data-driven prognostics is the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number of samples of failure progression. However, for traditional machine learning methods and deep neural networks, enough training data is a prerequisite to train good prediction models. In this work, we proposed a transfer learning algorithm based on Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory (BLSTM) recurrent neural networks for RUL estimation, in which the models can be first trained on different but related datasets and then fine-tuned by the target dataset. Extensive experimental results show that transfer learning can in general improve the prediction models on the dataset with a small number of samples. There is one exception that when transferring from multi-type operating conditions to single operating conditions, transfer learning led to a worse result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently gear fault diagnosis is mainly based on vibration signals with a few studies on acoustic signal analysis. However, vibration signal acquisition is limited by its contact measuring while traditional acoustic-based gear fault diagnosis relies heavily on prior knowledge of signal processing techniques and diagnostic expertise. In this paper, a novel deep learning-based gear fault diagnosis method is proposed based on sound signal analysis. By establishing an end-to-end convolutional neural network (CNN), the time and frequency domain signals can be fed into the model as raw signals without feature engineering. Moreover, multi-channel information from different microphones can also be fused by CNN channels without using an extra fusion algorithm. Our experiment results show that our method achieved much better performance on gear fault diagnosis compared with other traditional gear fault diagnosis methods involving feature engineering. A publicly available sound signal dataset for gear fault diagnosis is also released and can be downloaded as instructed in the conclusion section. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to compare the histology of wound healing following incisions with the scalpel or the Er:YAG laser in the palatal mucosa of SD rats. Two types of wounds were performed with the stainless steel scalpel or the Er:YAG laser in the palatal mucosa of SD rats, while the adjacent untreated palatal mucosa was chosen as control. Rats were sacrificed on day 1, day 3, day 7, and day 30 post-surgery. Biopsy samples from each wound were examined and the expression of IL-1ß and TGF-ß1 was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The early postoperative incision of the scalpel group had obvious bleeding and swelling, while the laser wound mainly covered the surface of white pseudomembrane. The infiltration of neutrophils and lymphocytes in the stroma of the scalpel incision was more than that of the laser group. Compared to the laser group, 1 and 3 days after operation, the TGF-β1 content of the scalpel group were significantly increased (P = 0.032 and 0.019). Seven days after operation, the TGF-β1 content of two groups was decreased. TGF-β1 expression of control group was obviously increased (P > 0.05); 1, 3, and 7 days after operation, the traditional scalpel amount of IL-1β expression was significantly higher than that of control group (P = 0.000, 0.000, and 0.001). Postoperative day 1, IL-1β expression of laser group and control group had no significant difference (P = 0.572). Three days after operation, IL-1β expression of laser incision was increased and was significantly higher than that in control group (P = 0.032), however lower than the scalpel group (P = 0.03). Seven days after operation, the IL-1β expression of two groups had no significant difference (P = 0.333); however, the IL-1β expression of two groups were significantly higher than that of the control group (P = 0.02 and 0.001). Compared to the traditional scalpel, the incision of Er:YAG laser has smaller inflammation reaction, more pseudomembrane coverage, and minimal damage of the mucoperiosteal tissue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCLP) is the most common congenital craniofacial malformation, and its harmful influence on affected individuals is apparent. Despite many studies, the causative genes and their mechanisms are not completely clear. We recruited a Han Chinese NSCLP family and explored the causative variant in this pedigree. We performed whole-exome sequencing on two patients. Bioinformatics screening and analysis were used to identify the mutation. We also performed species conservation analysis, mutation function predictions, and homology protein modelling to evaluate the influence of the mutation. We identified a rare mutation in interferon regulatory factor 6 (IRF6) (c.26G>A; p.Arg9Gln) as a candidate of causative mutation. This mutation was predicted to be deleterious. The codon is conserved in many species. The residue change caused by this mutation would affect the structure of IRF6 to a degree. Our study suggested that the rare IRF6 variant is probably the pathogenic mutation in this family. Our result adds evidence that IRF6 variants play a role in the aetiology of orofacial clefts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crocetin is an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine and has therapeutic potential in various diseases due to its pharmacological properties, such as neuroprotection, anti-oxidative stress, and anti-inflammation. These properties might benefit the treatment of spinal cord injury. In the present study, we tested the effect of crocetin on neurite growth and sensorimotor dysfunction in a rat model of spinal cord injury. We evaluated the viability of cultured hippocampal neurons with tetrazolium dye and lactate dehydrogenase assays, visualized neurites and axons with antibody staining, and monitored motor and sensorimotor functions in rats with spinal cord injury using the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan assay and the contact plantar placement test, respectively, and measured cytokine expression using enzyme-linked immuno-absorbent assays. We found that crocetin (1) did not alter the viability of cultured hippocampal neurons; (2) accelerated neurite growth with preference for the longest process in individual hippocampal neurons; (3) reversed the inhibition of neurite growth by chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan and NogoA; (4) facilitated the recovery of motor and sensorimotor functions after spinal cord injury; and (5) did not inhibit pro-inflammatory responses, but restored the innervation of the descending 5-HT system in injured spinal cord. Crocetin promotes neurite growth and facilitates the recovery of motor and sensorimotor functions after spinal cord injury, likely through repairing neuronal connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The aim of this study was to perform a histomorphometric evaluation of the healing characteristics and jawbone remodeling processes in the peri-implant bone tissue of three commonly used implant surfaces, during the early weeks of osseointegration. Material and methods Dental implants with three different surfaces (anodically modified, hydroxyapatite ( HA)-coated and machined) were inserted into the mandibular side-tooth region of twelve adult mini-pigs. Histomorphometric analyses were performed to evaluate remodeling processes 3, 6 and 12 weeks post-implantation. Results Only a few very early bone remodeling-resorption sites were found at 3 weeks. After 6 weeks, additional signs of remodeling-related reversal and bone formation were detectable in all three groups, which steadily increased until 12 weeks. At the latter time point, the amount of remodeled bone was significantly higher for the anodized and HA-coated surfaces than for the machined implants. Conclusion The results of this study demonstrate that peri-implant bone remodeling can start as early as 3 weeks after implantation and continues at a substantial level up to 12 weeks. The anodic modification or HA coating of implant surfaces appears to accelerate the conversion of primary regenerated bone into more mature secondary lamellar bone. If this observation is of clinical relevance, it has to be clarified in studies that include longer observational time periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims: Patients with diabetes mellitus have a higher risk of dental implant failure. One major cause is high-glucose induced oxidative stress. Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), a naturally occurring compound and dietary supplement, has been established as a potent antioxidant that is a strong scavenger of free radicals. However, few studies have yet investigated the effect of ALA on osteogenic differentiation of osteoblasts cultured with high glucose medium. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of ALA on the osteoblastic differentiation in MC3T3-E1 cells under high glucose condition. Methods: MC3T3-E1 cells were divided into 4 groups including normal glucose (5.5 mM) group (control), high glucose (25.5 mM) group, high glucose + 0.1 mM ALA group, and high glucose + 0.2 mM ALA group. The proliferation, osteogenic differentiation and mineralization of cells were evaluated by MTT assay, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity assay, alizarin red staining and real time-polymerase chain reaction. High-glucose induced oxidative damage was also assessed by the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Western blots were performed to examine the role of PI3K/Akt pathway. Results: The proliferation, osteogenic differentiation and mineralization of MC3T3-E1 cells were significantly decreased by the ROS induced by high-glucose. All observed oxidative damage and osteogenic dysfunction induced were inhibited by ALA. Moreover, the PI3K/Akt pathway was activated by ALA. Conclusions: We demonstrate that ALA may attenuate high-glucose mediated MC3T3-E1 cells dysfunction through antioxidant effect and modulation of PI3K/Akt pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the treatment safety and efficacy of iodine 125 (I125) seeds implantation in patients with bone metastases and assess the availability of quality of life (QOL) as an index for efficacy evaluation.Patients and Methods: The study enrolled 98 patients with 133 bone metastases from July 2010 to January 2016, who had undergone computed tomography-guided brachytherapy with I125 seeds. Brief pain inventory was administered to assess the degree of pain at the preoperative (W0) and postoperative 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, and 24 weeks (W2, W4, W8, W12, and W24). Drug use, QOL score, and complications were also assessed.Results: Postoperative pain scores were significantly decreased and maintained for a long term. Numerical rating scale score at W0 was 7.3 ± 1.6, which was decreased to 4.5 ± 1.7 (P < 0.01), 3.7 ± 1.3 (P < 0.01), 2.5 ± 1.1 (P < 0.01), 1.9 ± 0.9 (P < 0.01), and 1.3 ± 0.5 (P < 0.01) at W2, W4, W8, W12, and W24, respectively. After standardized transformation, the dose of morphine for patients at W0 was 175.2 ± 24.5 mg, which was decreased to 91.2 ± 21.7 mg (P < 0.01), 89.4 ± 24.6 mg (P < 0.01), 89.4 ± 24.6 mg (P < 0.01), 72.8 ± 14.8 mg (P < 0.01), and 56.7 ± 11.3 mg (P < 0.01) at W2, W4, W8, W12, and W24, respectively. The efficiency reached 65.3%, 85.1%, 91.2%, 95.2%, and 92.7% at postoperative W2, W4, W8, W12, and W24, respectively. QOL score at W0 was 17.4 ± 3.3, which increased to 23.2 ± 4.5 (P < 0.01), 28.6 ± 7.6 (P < 0.01), 43.2 ± 9.1 (P < 0.01), 45.6 ± 10.3 (P < 0.01), and 47.6 ± 9.8 (P < 0.01) at W2, W4, W8, W12, and W24, respectively.Conclusion: Brachytherapy with I125 seeds was safe and effective for treating bone metastases, offering a potential alternative to external-beam radiotherapy. QOL could be applied to evaluate the efficacy of I125 seeds implantation for treating bone metastases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A mix of flavonoids comprising baicalin (BA) and catechin showed effective impacts on controlling the progress of knee osteoarthritis (OA). However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms. The influences of BA on the transcriptional levels of a series of proinflammatory genes were measured using real-time reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The expressions of proteins involved in nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) activation were detected by Western blot. The in vitro results were confirmed in a mouse OA model. We found that BA treatment led to remarkable reductions of OA-related proinflammatory gene expressions, including interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 1 (CXCL1), and CXCL10. The transcriptional levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS/Nos2), matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)3, and MMP13 were significantly inhibited by BA. We measured the productions of nitrite and prostaglandin E2 from human chondrocytes and BA was shown to reduce their productions. On the contrary, mRNA levels of aggrecan and collagen-II were enhanced by BA treatment. The inhibitory role of BA on OA may possibly be mediated by NF-κB signaling because of comparable decreases of phosphorylated (p)-p65 and p-IκBα and less p65 translocation in the nucleus after BA treatment. In OA mice model, BA significantly reduced synovitis scores and related gene expressions, including IL-6, TNF, CXCL1, CXCL10, MMP3, MMP13, and Nos2. In conclusion, BA suppresses the inflammatory responses of human chondrocytes to IL-1β stimulation, and NF-κB signaling may be involved in the mechanisms of BA functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is a fundamental interaction in solids that can induce a broad spectrum of unusual physical properties from topologically non-trivial insulating states to unconventional pairing in superconductors. In iron-based superconductors (IBS) its role has so far been considered insignificant with the models based on spin- or orbital fluctuations pairing being the most advanced in the field. In this review we discuss the recent direct observation of SOC by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Electron-like Fermi surface of LiFeAs split by SOC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: BTB/POZ domain-containing protein 7 (BTBD7) is recognized as a regulatory gene that regulates epithelial cell dynamics and branching morphogenesis. It is also reported for regulating epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) molecules and involved in the process of invasion and metastasis of lung cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. Slug is a transcriptional factor of EMT which plays a crucial role in the process of primary salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma (SACC). However, the role of BTBD7 in SACC and the correlation with Slug have not been identified. This study investigated the expression of BTBD7 and correlation with Slug, as well as the prognostic significance of BTBD7 in SACC. METHODS: The expression of BTBD7 and Slug were examined in ACC-LM and ACC-83 cell lines and immunohistochemically in paraffin embedded tissue specimens from 66 primary SACC patients. Statistical analyses were performed to evaluate the correlation between BTBD7 expression and Slug expression and the prognostic significance of BTBD7 expression. RESULTS: BTBD7 protein expression was initially verified in ACC-LM and ACC-83 cell lines. The positive rate of BTBD7 expression was 62.1% in SACC to 20% in normal salivary tissues comparatively. BTBD7 expression was significantly correlated with Slug expression in SACC (P< 0.05). Increased BTBD7 expression was significantly associated with the TNM stage, tissue typing, distant metastasis and patients' poor clinical outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Positive expression of BTBD7 in SACC could play an important role in the development of cancer and may serve as a favorable predictor for diagnosis and poor prognosis of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given its high recurrence and rapid progress, bladder cancer (BLCA) treatment has become a major problem for clinicians. BLCA is difficult to control even with surgical resection and extensive use of chemotherapeutic drugs. The non-toxicity and ease of accessibility of natural compounds have attracted much attention in recent years. Flavonoids serve an essential role given their antioxidant, antibacterial, anticancer and cardiovascular properties. They are mainly divided into several subclasses; flavones, flavanones, flavonols, flavanols, anthocyanins isoflavones and chalcones. Over the years, the role of flavonoids in BLCA has been extensively studied. The present review provided a comprehensive overview of the classification of flavonoids and substantiate the role of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, cancer stem cells, angiogenesis, epigenetic regulation and programmed cell death in BLCA. The present review emphasized that flavonoids for BLCA treatment are worthy of further study and anti-BLCA drugs have huge prospects for clinical use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ConclusionThe spindle and kinetochore-associated complex sub unit 1(SKA1) and matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) are highly expressed in salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma (SACC), and SKA1 may be the novel, promising prognostic factor for clinical outcomes in head and neck adenoid cystic carcinoma patients.ObjectivesThis study aimed to investigate the expression of SKA1 and MMP-9 in SACC tissues and the clinical significance.MethodsSKA1 and MMP-9 expression in samples from 42 cases of SACC and 20 subjects with the normal tissue adjacent to carcinoma were detected by immunohistochemical analysis.ResultsThe positive rate of SKA1 and MMP-9 staining was 78.6% and 66.7% in SACC, respectively, significantly higher than in normal salivary gland tissues (p < 0.001). Chi-square test showed that there was no significant correlation between SKA1 expression and MMP-9 expression in SACC tissues. However, SKA1 and MMP-9 expression was positively associated with advanced stage and solid histological pattern of SACC (p < 0.05). In addition, SKA1 and MMP-9 expression was positively associated with recurrence and perineural invasion, and survival time, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]