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Lanthanum (La) is widely used in modern industry and agriculture because of its unique physicochemical properties and is broadly exposed in the population. Some studies have shown that La may have some effects on adipogenesis, but there is a lack of related in vivo evidence. In this study, the effects of La(NO3)3 on adipogenesis and its associated mechanism were studied using C57BL/6J mouse model. The results showed that La(NO3)3 exposure caused a decrease in body weight and the percentage of fat content in mice. In addition, the adipose marker molecules and specific adipogenic transcription factors decreased in both white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT). Detection of signaling pathway‐related molecules revealed that canonical wnt/β‐catenin pathway‐related molecules were upregulated in both adipose tissues. In summary, in vivo exposure to La(NO3)3 might inhibited adipogenesis in mice, possibly through upregulation of the canonical Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway. Lanthanum (La) is widely used in many aspects and might have some effects on adipogenesis. In this study, the effects of La(NO3)3 on adipogenesis and its associated mechanism were studied using C57BL/6J mouse model. The results showed that in vivo exposure to La(NO3)3 might inhibited adipogenesis in mice, possibly through upregulation of the canonical Wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sn-2 palmitate is widely used in infant formula. However, little is known about its effects on metabolism and body composition in middle-aged and elderly adults. In a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial, we enrolled Chinese adults aged 45–75 years with self-reported constipation. Individuals were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to a 1,3-dioleoyl-2-palmitoyl-glycerol (OPO)-enriched oil (66% palmitic acid in the sn-2 position) or a control vegetable oil (24% palmitic acid in the sn-2 position) daily for 24 weeks. Skim milk powder was used as the carrier for both fats. Interviews and body composition were performed at baseline, week 4, week 12 and week 24. A fasting blood draw was taken except at week 4. This study was a secondary analysis and considered exploratory. A total of 111 adults (83 women and 28 men, mean age 64.2 ± 7.0 years) were enrolled, of whom 53 were assigned to the OPO group and 57 to the control group. During the intervention, blood glucose, triglyceride, the triglyceride-glucose index, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and remnant cholesterol remained stable, while high-density lipoprotein cholesterol decreased in both groups (p = 0.003). No differences in change were observed between the groups (all p > 0.05). From baseline to week 24, the level of visceral fat increased slightly (p = 0.017), while body weight, total body water, protein, soft lean mass, fat-free mass, skeletal muscle and skeletal muscle mass index (SMI) decreased in two groups (p < 0.01). At weeks 4, 12 and 24, the SMI decreased less in the OPO group than in the control group, with a trend towards significance (p = 0.090). A 24-week daily intake of sn-2-palmitate-enriched oil had no adverse impact on fasting blood glucose, lipids and body composition compared with the control vegetable oil in Chinese adults (funded by Chinese Nutrition Society National Nutrition Science Research Grant, National Key Research and Development Program of China and Wilmar (Shanghai) Biotechnology Research & Development Center Co., Ltd.; ChiCTR1900026480). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yttrium is a typical heavy rare earth element with widespread use in numerous sectors. Only one previous study has indicated that yttrium has the potential to cause developmental immunotoxicity (DIT). Therefore, there remains a paucity of evidence on the DIT of yttrium. This study aimed to explore the DIT of yttrium nitrate (YN) and the self‐recovery of YN‐induced DIT. Dams were treated with 0, 0.2, 2, and 20 mg/kg bw/day YN by gavage during gestation and lactation. No significant changes were found in innate immunity between the control and YN‐treated groups in offspring. In female offspring at postnatal day 21 (PND21), YN markedly inhibited humoral and cellular immune responses, the proliferative capacity of splenic T lymphocytes, and the expression of costimulatory molecules in splenic lymphocytes. Moreover, the inhibitory effect on cellular immunity in female offspring persisted to PND42. Unlike females, YN exposure did not change the adaptive immune responses in male offspring. Overall, maternal exposure to YN showed a strong DIT to offspring, with the lowest effective dose of 0.2 mg/kg in the current study. The toxicity of cellular immunity could persist throughout development into adulthood. There were sex‐specific differences in YN‐induced DIT, with females being more vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visible-light-based transmission application plays an important role in various types of sensor services for the Internet of Things (IoTs). However, in big data scenarios, current visible-light-based systems cannot achieve concurrent high-speed communication, low-speed communication, and positioning. Therefore, in this article, we propose a smart visible-light-based fusion applications system, named Fasys, to solve the above problem for the big data traffic with heterogeneity. Specifically, for low-speed data services, we propose a novel linear block coding and bit interleaving mechanism, which enhances the LED positioning accuracy and recovers the lost data bits in the interframe gap (IFG). For high-speed data services with traffic possessing burstiness, an elegant statistical reliability analysis framework in regard to latency is proposed based on martingale theory. The backlog martingale process is constructed. Leveraging stopping time theory, a tight upper bound of unreliability is obtained. An arrival abstraction and traffic allocation scheme is designed, which contributes to decouple the reliability requirement as the maximum supportable arrival load. Finally, we implement our Fasys system, and extensive experimental results show that our system can achieve consistent high-precision positioning and low-BER data communication for low-speed data services. And the proposed martingale-based traffic allocation scheme can achieve the provisioning of reliability in regard to the latency for high-speed data services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lanthanum (La) as a rare earth element is widely used in agriculture, industry, and medicine. It has been suggested in several studies that La might influence glycolipid metabolism in vivo. In this study, we used 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes as in vitro cell model to elucidate the effects of La(NO3)3 on adipogenesis and the underlying mechanisms. The results showed that La(NO3)3 could inhibit the adipogenic differentiation of 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes, which showed a decrease in lipid accumulation and the downregulation of specific adipogenic transcription factors. La(NO3)3 exerted its inhibitory effect mainly at the early differentiation stage. Furthermore, La(NO3)3 influenced the S‐phase entry and cell cycle process during the mitotic clonal expansion and regulated the phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and expressions of the proteins in phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway at the early stage of differentiation. Besides, La(NO3)3 upregulated the expressions of wnt10b mRNA and β‐catenin protein and promoted the nucleus translocation of β‐catenin. Additionally, we found that La(NO3)3 could promote the growth of 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes both with and without MDI (3‐isobutyl‐1‐methylxanthine [IBMX], dexamethasone [Dex], and insulin) stimulation. Collectively, these results indicated that La(NO3)3 could inhibit adipogenesis in 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes and influence cell proliferation. Lanthanum (La) as a rare earth element is widely used in many aspects and might influence glycolipid metabolism in vivo. In this study, we used 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes as in vitro cell model to elucidate the effects of La(NO3)3 on adipogenesis. The results showed that La(NO3)3 could inhibit the adipogenic differentiation of 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes and influence the cell cycle process during the mitotic clonal expansion. Also, the wnt/β‐catenin signaling pathway might be involved in the inhibitory effect of La(NO3)3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black carbon (BC) correlates with the occurrence and progression of atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases. Increasing evidence has demonstrated that BC could impair vascular endothelial cells, but the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. It is known that IL‐33 exerts a significant biological role in cardiovascular disease, but little is known about the molecular regulation of IL‐33 expression at present. We first found that BC significantly increased IL‐33 mRNA in EA.hy926 cells in a concentration and time‐dependent manner, and we conducted this study to explore its underlying mechanism. We identified that BC induced mitochondrial damage and suppressed autophagy function in EA.hy926 cells, as evidenced by elevation of the aspartate aminotransferase (GOT2), reactive oxygen species (ROS) and p62, and the reduction of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm). However, ROS cannot induce IL‐33 mRNA‐production in BC‐exposed EA.hy926 cells. Further, experiments revealed that BC could promote IL‐33 mRNA production through the PI3K/Akt/AP‐1 and p38/AP‐1 signaling pathways. It is concluded that BC could induce oxidative stress and suppress autophagy function in endothelial cells. This study also provided evidence that the pro‐cardiovascular‐diseases properties of BC may be due to its ability to stimulate the PI3K/AKT/AP‐1 and p38/AP‐1 pathway, further activate IL‐33 and ultimately result in a local vascular inflammation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The processed surface contour shape is extracted with the finite element simulation software. The difference value of contour shape change is used as the parameters of balancing surface roughness to construct finite element model of supersonic vibration milling in cutting stability domain. The surface roughness trial scheme is designed in the orthogonal test design method to analyze the surface roughness test result in the response surface methodology. The surface roughness prediction model is established and optimized. Finally, the surface roughness finite element simulation prediction model is verified by experiments. The research results show that, compared with the experiment results, the error range of the finite element simulation model is 27.5%–30.9%, and the error range of the empirical model obtained by the response surface method is between 4.4% and 12.3%. So, the model in this paper is accurate and will provide the theoretical basis for the optimization study of the auxiliary milling process of supersonic vibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Obesogens are a subset of endocrine disruptor chemicals (EDCs) that cause obesity. The typical EDC 4‐nonylphenol (4‐NP) has been identified as an obesogen. However, the in vitro effects of 4‐NP on adipogenesis remain unclear. In this study, 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes and C3H/10T1/2 mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were used to investigate the influence of 4‐NP on adipogenesis. The differentiation protocols for 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes and C3H/10T1/2 MSCs took 8 and 12 days, respectively, beginning at Day 0. In differentiated 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes, 20 μM 4‐NP decreased cell viability on Days 4 and 8. Exposure to 4‐NP inhibited triglyceride (TG) accumulation and adipogenic marker expression on Days 0–8, but the inhibitory effects were weaker on Days 2–8. The protein expression of pSTAT3 or STAT3 decreased on Days 0–8 and 2–8. Conversely, 4‐NP promoted TG accumulation and the adipogenic marker expression in C3H/10T1/2 adipocytes. The opposing effects were attributed to physiological differences between the two cell lines. The 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes are dependent on mitotic clonal expansion (MCE) to drive differentiation, while C3H/10T1/2MSCs and human preadipocytes are not. Additionally, 4‐NP downregulated β‐catenin expression in C3H/10T1/2 adipocytes. Accordingly, we hypothesized that 4‐NP promotes adipogenesis. The role of the canonical Wnt pathway in the promotion of adipogenesis by 4‐NP requires further validation. This study provides new insights into the mechanisms and appropriate risk management of 4‐NP. This study aimed to investigate the effects of 4‐nonylphenol (4‐NP) on adipogenesis in vitro. The results showed that 4‐NP inhibited 3T3‐L1 preadipocyte differentiation but promoted C3H/10T1/2 mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) adipogenesis. The opposing effects were likely due to physiological differences between the two cell lines. The 3T3‐L1 preadipocytes are dependent on MCE to drive differentiation, whereas C3H/10T1/2 MSCs are not. We found that 4‐NP promoted adipogenesis, and new insights into the mechanisms have been provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Environmental pollution is a risk factor for adverse birth outcomes, especially preterm birth (PTB) and early-term birth (ETB). It has been revealed that exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) during pregnancy increase the prevalence of PTB. However, the relationship between PM2.5 exposure and ETB has not been elucidated. In high-risk pregnancies, whether PM2.5 exposure will bring higher risk of PTB and ETB than in normal pregnancies is still unclear, and the susceptible exposure window is obscure. Therefore, it is worthy of assessing the risk on PTB and ETB and identifying the susceptible exposure windows of PM2.5 exposure in high-risk pregnant women. Results: This paper collected the clinical data of 7974 singletons, high-risk pregnant women in Peking University First Hospital from 2014 to 2018, and analyzed them using logistic regression and stratified analysis. We observed that exposure to high-level (≥ 75 µg/m3) of PM2.5 during the third trimester of pregnancy increases the risk of PTB and ETB (PTB: odds ratio[OR] = 1.43, 95% confidence interval [CI]:1.05–1.93. ETB: OR = 1.29, 95%CI: 1.09–1.54). Furthermore, the effects of each 10ug/m3 increase in PM2.5 on PTB and ETB were significant during the third trimester (PTB: OR = 1.35, 95%CI:1.16–1.58. ETB: OR = 1.12, 95%CI:1.02–1.22) and the entire pregnancy (PTB: OR = 6.12, 95%CI:4.27–8.89. ETB: OR = 1.96, 95%CI:1.59–2.43) in the high-level exposure group. Conclusions: These results suggest that high-level PM2.5 exposure during pregnancy is associated with high risk of PTB and ETB in high-risk pregnancies. The third trimester of pregnancy is speculated to be the susceptible exposure window. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of smart cities, white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are widely used in indoor lighting due to their characteristics of energy-saving, long lifetimes, and low cost. At the same time, the high-frequency modulated LEDs allow visible light to be used for indoor communications, positioning, and security. Visible light applications have many advantages, such as avoiding electromagnetic interference, high communication speed, great privacy, and high-precise positioning. In this paper, we will survey the application prospects and research results of visible light from scenarios such as high-speed communication, privacy security, and navigation localization and focus on analyzing and discussing the challenges and development trends encountered in visible light positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of smart cities, white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are widely used in indoor lighting due to their characteristics of energy-saving, long lifetimes, and low cost. At the same time, the high-frequency modulated LEDs allow visible light to be used for indoor communications, positioning, and security. Visible light applications have many advantages, such as avoiding electromagnetic interference, high communication speed, great privacy, and high-precise positioning. In this paper, we will survey the application prospects and research results of visible light from scenarios such as high-speed communication, privacy security, and navigation localization and focus on analyzing and discussing the challenges and development trends encountered in visible light positioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The time series data generated by massive sensors in Internet of Things (IoT) is extremely dynamic, heterogeneous, large scale and time-dependent. It poses great challenges (e.g. accuracy, reliability, stability) on the real-time analysis and decision making for different IoT applications. In this paper, we design, implement and evaluate EdgeLSTM, a unified data-driven system to enhance IoT computing at the network edge. The EdgeLSTM leverages the grid long short-term memory (Grid LSTM) to provide an agile solution for both deep and sequential computation, therefore can address important features such as large-scale, variety, time dependency and real time in IoT data. Our system exploits the advantages of Grid LSTM network and extends it with a multiclass support vector machine by rigorous regularization and optimization approaches, which not only has strong prediction capability of time series data, but also achieves fine-grained multiple classification through the predictive error. We deploy the EdgeLSTM into four IoT applications, including data prediction, anomaly detection, network maintenance and mobility management by extensive experiments. Our evaluation results of real-world time series data with different short-term and long-term time dependency from these typical IoT applications show that our EdgeLSTM system can guarantee robust performance in IoT computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The data generated by millions of sensors in the industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are extremely dynamic, heterogeneous, and large scale and pose great challenges on the real-time analysis and decision making for anomaly detection in the IIoT. In this article, we propose a long short-term memory (LSTM)-Gauss-NBayes method, which is a synergy of the long short-term memory neural network (LSTM-NN) and the Gaussian Bayes model for outlier detection in the IIoT. In a nutshell, the LSTM-NN builds a model on normal time series. It detects outliers by utilizing the predictive error for the Gaussian Naive Bayes model. Our method exploits advantages of both LSTM and Gaussian Naive Bayes models, which not only has strong prediction capability of LSTM for future time point data, but also achieves an excellent classification performance of the Gaussian Naive Bayes model through the predictive error. We evaluate our approaches on three real-life datasets that involve both long-term and short-term time dependence. Empirical studies demonstrate that our proposed techniques outperform the best-known competitors, which is a preferable choice for detecting anomalies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Air pollution increases the morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Atherosclerosis (AS) is the pathological basis of most CVD, and the progression of atherosclerosis and the increase of fragile plaque rupture are the mechanism basis of the relationship between atmospheric particulate pollution and CVD. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of coal-fired fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on the expression levels of atherosclerosis-related proteins (von Willebrand factor (vWF), Endothelin-1 (ET-1), intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), and E-selectin, and to explore the role and mechanism of the progression of atherosclerosis induced by coal-fired PM2.5 via the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways. Methods: Different concentrations of PM2.5 were given to apolipoprotein-E knockout (ApoE−/−) mice via intratracheal instillation for 8 weeks. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect the levels of vWF, ET-1 in serum of mice. Immunohistochemistry was used to observe the expression and distribution of ICAM-1 and E-selectin in the aorta of mice. Western blot was used to investigate the phosphoylation of proteins relevant to MAPK signaling pathways. Results: Coal-fired PM2.5 exacerbated atherosclerosis induced by a high-fat diet. Fibrous cap formation, foam cells accumulation, and atherosclerotic lesions were observed in the aortas of PM2.5-treated mice. Coal-fired PM2.5 increased the protein levels of ET-1, ICAM-1, and E-selectin, but there was no significant difference in the vWF levels between the PM2.5-treatment mice and the HFD control mice. Coal-fired PM2.5 promoted the phosphorylation of p38, c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in aortic tissues of mice. Conclusion: Coal-derived PM2.5 exacerbated the formation of atherosclerosis in mice, increased the expression levels of atherosclerosis-related proteins in mice serum, and promoted the phosphorylation of proteins relevant to MAPK signaling pathway. Thus, MAPK signaling pathway may play a role in the atherosclerosis pathogenesis induced by Coal-derived PM2.5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of data deluge, data analysis has become a key task for many industrial applications, e.g., master data management, and data integration. In particular, similarity join is an important primitive operator to support data analysis, which is to find similar pairs based on similarity functions and thresholds. In this article, we first propose a new similarity join operation called the dynamic skyline join without having to specify any similarity function or similarity threshold, which measures the similarity through multicriteria optimization. The dynamic skyline join operator makes the similarity join more flexible to support different criteria in multidimensional space. However, it is nontrivial to achieve dynamic skyline joins as both join operations and dynamic skyline queries are computationally complex in the increasing volume of real-world data. Therefore, we further propose Grid-SkyJoin, a framework to enable efficient parallel dynamic skyline joins on a shared-nothing cluster. Specifically, we use a grid partitioning to facilitate the data filtering and grouping strategies to provide load balancing and reduce the number of replicas. We also propose a multilevel filtering scheme to prune away a large fraction of unpromising points that do not fit into join results without actual join operations. Extensive experiments using benchmark datasets demonstrate that our filtering scheme can greatly reduce the number of data points to be joined, and our approach is about two times faster compared with the straightforward method in average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market analysis is crucial for companies to remain invincible in the increasingly fierce market competition. A typical application is to find the most influential product, which attracts the largest number of customers, from a collection of candidate products. Previous work assumes a random distribution of the candidates. However, in many cases, there is a set of constraints on the distribution of candidate products. In this paper, we study the most influential product problem under constraints of the distribution. We model the constraints as both non-linear and linear constraints, where the candidate products reside in a hyper-rectangle and hyper-plane of the data space, respectively. We capitalize on reverse skyline queries to define the most influential product as the product with the largest reverse skyline set. We propose a general framework to solve the problem efficiently by taking advantage of candidate distributions. More specifically, we introduce a constraint-based filtering scheme, which prunes searching space and enables quick identification of some reverse skyline points, through pre-processing based on distribution constraints. We also propose a distance-based ordering technique, such that the processing results of a candidate can be utilized for data pruning of subsequent candidates. By combining the filtering scheme and ordering technique, we present two algorithms for handling different constraint models. Our experimental results with both real and synthetic datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bisphenol A (BPA) is widely used as the raw material for the production of plastics and paper products. People can be exposed to BPA through dermal contact, particularly for cashiers in contact with thermal paper every day. BPA is a known endocrine disruptor that has been shown to be carcinogenic. Many tumors show weak gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) function. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects and possible mechanisms of BPA's action on GJIC of human HaCaT skin cells. The results showed that BPA increased cell proliferation rates, prolonged GJIC photobleaching fluorescence recovery times and reduced overall fluorescence recovery rates at 0.01, 0.1 and 1 μm. BPA downregulated connexin (Cx)26 mRNA level at 0.1 μm. Estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist ICI 182 780 at 5 nm partially blocked the above effects of BPA indicating involvement of the ER pathway with BPA exposure. However, BPA did not influence Cx43 mRNA and protein levels. Our immunofluorescence data showed that Cx26 was expressed in the cytoplasm and plasma membrane, and was involved in the formation of gap junctions between adjacent cells, while Cx43 was expressed only in the cytoplasm. Therefore, our data indicate that Cx26 gap junctions may be involved in the GJIC inhibition caused by BPA. In conclusion, our results indicate that BPA can promote human skin cell proliferation, inhibit skin cell GJIC function but not formation and downregulate Cx26 mRNA levels partially through the ER pathway. We hypothesize that BPA can exhibit carcinogenicity by inhibiting GJIC. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects and possible mechanisms of BPA's action on gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) of human normal keratinocytes, HaCaT cells. The results reveal that BPA can promote human skin cell proliferation, inhibit skin cell GJIC function but not formation and downregulate connexin 26 mRNA levels partially through the estrogen receptor pathway. We hypothesize that BPA can exhibit carcinogenicity by inhibiting GJIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Ambient light has a vital impact on mood and cognitive functions. Blue light has been previously reported to play a salient role in the antidepressant effect via melanopsin. Whether blue light filtered white light (BFW) affects mood and cognitive functions remains unclear. The present study aimed to investigate whether BFW led to depression-like symptoms and cognitive deficits including spatial learning and memory abilities in rats, and whether they were associated with the light-responsive function in retinal explants. Methods: Male Sprague-Dawley albino rats were randomly divided into 2 groups (n = 10) and treated with a white light-emitting diode (LED) light source and BFW light source, respectively, under a standard 12 : 12 h L/D condition over 30 days. The sucrose consumption test, forced swim test (FST) and the level of plasma corticosterone (CORT) were employed to evaluate depression-like symptoms in rats. Cognitive functions were assessed by the Morris water maze (MWM) test. A multi-electrode array (MEA) system was utilized to measure electro-retinogram (ERG) responses induced by white or BFW flashes. Results: The effect of BFW over 30 days on depression-like responses in rats was indicated by decreased sucrose consumption in the sucrose consumption test, an increased immobility time in the FST and an elevated level of plasma CORT. BFW led to temporary spatial learning deficits in rats, which was evidenced by prolonged escape latency and swimming distances in the spatial navigation test. However, no changes were observed in the short memory ability of rats treated with BFW. The micro-ERG results showed a delayed implicit time and reduced amplitudes evoked by BFW flashes compared to the white flash group. Conclusions: BFW induces depression-like symptoms and temporary spatial learning deficits in rats, which might be closely related to the impairment of light-evoked output signals in the retina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: In fracture treatment, biological bone union generally depends on the bone's natural fracture healing capacity, even in surgically treated cases. Hydroxyapatite/collagen composite (HAp/Col) has high osteoconductivity and stimulates osteogenic progenitors. Furthermore, it has the potent capacity to adsorb bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs). In this study, we prepared an injectable HAp/Col paste and evaluated its augmentation of bone union. Furthermore, the effect of HAp/Col paste combined with BMP‐2 was also evaluated. We used a rat femur osteotomy model with a defect size of 1 mm. Male Wistar rats were assigned to one of the following four groups; a control group without any implant, a HAp/Col implant group, a group that received an absorbable collagen sponge (ACS) implant impregnated with BMP‐2 (1 μg), and a group that received a HAp/Col implant impregnated with BMP‐2 implant. Micro‐CT analysis, three‐point bending tests, and histological evaluation were performed. Bone union was achieved in two of eight cases in the HAp/Col group, five of eight cases in the ACS + BMP‐2 group, and all cases in the HAp/Col + BMP‐2 group at 8 weeks post‐surgery. The control group did not achieve bone union. In addition, in the HAp/Col + BMP‐2 group, the biomechanical strength of the fused femurs was comparable to that of the contralateral intact femur; the ratio of the mechanical load at the breaking point of the osteotomy side relative to that of the contralateral side was 1.00 ± 0.151 (SD). These results indicate that HAp/Col paste with or without BMP‐2 augments bone union. © 2017 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 36:129–137, 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broadband mobile networks utilize a radio resource control (RRC) state machine to allocate scarce radio resources. Current implementations introduce high latencies and cross-layer degradation. Recently, the RRC enhancements, continuous packet connectivity (CPC), and the enhanced forward access channel (Enhanced FACH), have emerged in UMTS. We measure the availability and performance of these enhancements on a network serving a market with a population in the millions. We demonstrate that these enhancements offer significant reductions in latency, mobile device energy consumption, and improved end user experience. We develop new over-the-air measurements that resolve existing limitations in measuring RRC parameters. We find CPC provides significant benefits with minimal resource costs, prompting us to rethink past optimization strategies. We examine the cross-layer performance of CPC and Enhanced FACH, concluding that CPC provides reductions in mobile device energy consumption for many applications. While the performance increase of HS-FACH is substantial, cross-layer performance is limited by the legacy uplink random access channel (RACH), and we conclude full support of Enhanced FACH is necessary to benefit most applications. Given that UMTS growth will exceed LTE for several more years and the greater worldwide deployment of UMTS, our quantitative results should be of great interest to network operators adding capacity to these networks. Finally, these results provide new insights for application developers wishing to optimize performance with these RRC enhancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Users are increasingly relying on smartphones, hence concerns such as mobile app security, privacy, and correctness have become increasingly pressing. Software analysis has been successful in tackling many such concerns, albeit on other platforms, such as desktop and server. To fill this gap, he have developed infrastructural tools that permit a wide range of software analyses for the Android smartphone platform. Developing these tools has required surmounting many challenges unique to the smartphone platform: dealing with input non-determinism in sensor-oriented apps, non-standard control ow, low-overhead yet high-fidelity record-and-replay. Our tools can analyze substantial, widely-popular apps running directly on smartphones, and do not require access to the app's source code. We will first present two tools (automated exploration, record-and-replay) that increase Android app reliability by allowing apps to be explored automatically, and bugs replayed or isolated. Next, we present several security applications of our infrastructure: a permission evolution study on the Android ecosystem; understanding and quantifying the risk posed by URL accesses in benign and malicious apps; app profiling to summarize app behavior; and Moving Target Defense for thwarting attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Articular cartilage has a limited capacity for spontaneous repair, and an effective method to repair damaged articular cartilage has not yet been established. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of transplantation of porous hydroxyapatite collagen ( HAp/ Col) impregnated with bone morphogenetic protein-2 ( BMP-2). To evaluate the characteristics of porous HAp/ Col as a drug delivery carrier of recombinant human BMP-2 ( rhBMP-2), the rhBMP-2 adsorption capacity and release kinetics of porous HAp/ Col were analyzed. Porous HAp/ Col impregnated with different amounts of rhBMP-2 (0, 5, and 25 μg) was implanted into osteochondral defects generated in the patellar groove of Japanese white rabbits to evaluate the effect on osteochondral defect regeneration. At 3, 6, 12, and 24 weeks after operation, samples were harvested and subjected to micro-computed tomography analysis and histological evaluation of articular cartilage and subchondral bone repair. The adsorption capacity was 329.4 μg of rhBMP-2 per cm3 of porous HAp/ Col. Although 36% of rhBMP-2 was released within 24 h, more than 50% of the rhBMP-2 was retained in the porous HAp/ Col through the course of the experiment. Defects treated with 5 μg of rhBMP-2 showed the most extensive subchondral bone repair and the highest histological regeneration score, and differences against the untreated defect group were significant. The histological regeneration score of defects treated with 25 μg of rhBMP-2 increased up to 6 weeks after implantation, but then decreased. Porous HAp/ Col, therefore, is an appropriate carrier for rhBMP-2. Implantation of porous HAp/ Col impregnated with rhBMP-2 is effective for rigid subchondral bone repair, which is important for the repair of the smooth articular surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of WDM techniques and cloud computing, incorporating the optical backbone into data centers has received extensive attention. Virtual network (VN) planning has been proposed for this new networking paradigm by taking advantage of network virtualization. VN planning is essentially a united virtualization of optical and server resources in a collaborative manner. In this article, we first elaborate the advantages and problems of existing VN planning schemes through a comprehensive survey. Next, we provide a VN planning scheme. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our strategy, particularly in the context of power outage and evolving recovery. Finally, the future opportunities and challenges are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we study the intertwined propagation of two competing "memes" (or data, rumors, etc.) in a composite network. Within the constraints of this scenario, we ask two key questions: (a) which meme will prevail? and (b) can one influence the outcome of the propagations? Our model is underpinned by two key concepts, a structural graph model (composite network) and a viral propagation model (SI_1I_2S). Using this framework, we formulate a non-linear dynamic system and perform an eigenvalue analysis to identify the tipping point of the epidemic behavior. Based on insights gained from this analysis, we demonstrate an effective and accurate prediction method to determine viral dominance, which we call the EigenPredictor. Next, using a combination of synthetic and real composite networks, we evaluate the effectiveness of various viral suppression techniques by either a) concurrently suppressing both memes or b) unilaterally suppressing a single meme while leaving the other relatively unaffected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The virtualization of both servers and substrate networks is a promising technique that will enable the future Internet architecture to support a variety of cloud computing services and architectures. The problem of efficiently mapping a virtual infrastructure (VI) over a wide-area optical network is a key problem in provisioning Infrastructure (and Network) as a Service over multiple datacenters. In this paper, we study the problem of cost efficient VI mapping and propose a novel approach called the virtual infrastructure mapping algorithm (VIMA) that jointly considers node mapping and link mapping. Such a close coordination between the link and node mapping stages increases the efficiency of the VIMA algorithm. We compare the performance of our VIMA algorithm with other VI mapping algorithms such as NSVIM, vnmFlib and R-ViNE under various performance metrics using simulation. Our simulation results and analysis show that the VIMA algorithm outperforms the other algorithms in terms of VI mapping costs and path length of VI links. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses cloud optical network.