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Introduction: Allergic rhinitis (AR) is an upper airway inflammatory disease of the nasal mucosa. Conventional treatments such as symptomatic pharmacotherapy and allergen-specific immunotherapy have considerable limitations and drawbacks. As an emerging therapy with regenerative potential and immunomodulatory effect, mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes (MSC-Exos) have recently been trialed for the treatment of various inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Methods: In order to achieve sustained and protected release of MSC-Exos for intranasal administration, we fabricated Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) micro and nanoparticles-encapsulated MSC-Exos (PLGA-Exos) using mechanical double emulsion for local treatment of AR. Preclinical in vivo imaging, ELISA, qPCR, flow cytometry, immunohistochemical staining, and multiomics sequencing were used for phenotypic and mechanistic evaluation of the therapeutic effect of PLGA-Exos in vitro and in vivo. Results: The results showed that our PLGA platform could efficiently encapsulate and release the exosomes in a sustained manner. At protein level, PLGA-Exos treatment upregulated IL-2, IL-10 and IFN-γ, and downregulated IL-4, IL-17 and antigen-specific IgE in ovalbumin (OVA)-induced AR mice. At cellular level, exosomes treatment reduced Th2 cells, increased Tregs, and reestablished Th1/Th2 balance. At tissue level, PLGA-Exos significantly attenuated the infiltration of immune cells (e.g., eosinophils and goblet cells) in nasal mucosa. Finally, multiomics analysis discovered several signaling cascades, e.g., peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) pathway and glycolysis pathway, that might mechanistically support the immunomodulatory effect of PLGA-Exos. Discussion: For the first time, we present a biomaterial-facilitated local delivery system for stem cell-derived exosomes as a novel and promising strategy for AR treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrous acid (HONO) is a crucial precursor of tropospheric hydroxyl radicals but its sources are not fully understood. Soil is recognized as an important HONO source, but the lack of measurements of soil-atmosphere HONO exchange flux (FHONO) has led to uncertainties in modeling its atmospheric impacts and understanding the reactive nitrogen budget. To address this, we conduct long-period FHONO measurements over agricultural fields under fertilized (FHONO-NP) and non-fertilized (FHONO-CK) treatments. Our results show that nitrogen fertilizer use causes a remarkable increase in FHONO-NP and it exhibits distinct diurnal variations, with an average noontime peak of 152 ng N m-2 s-1. The average FHONO-NP within three weeks after fertilization is 97.7 ± 8.6 ng N m-2 s-1, around two orders of magnitude higher than before fertilization, revealing the remarkable promotion effect of nitrogen fertilizer on HONO emissions. We also discuss other factors that influence soil HONO emissions, such as meteorological parameters and soil properties/nutrients. Additionally, we estimate the HONO emission factor of 0.68 ± 0.07% relative to the applied nitrogen during the whole growing season of summer maize. Accordingly, the fertilizer-induced soil HONO emission is estimated to be 0.06 and 0.16 Tg N yr-1 in the North China Plain (NCP) and China, respectively, representing a significant reactive nitrogen source. Furthermore, our observations reveal that soil emissions sustain a high level of daytime HONO, enhancing the atmospheric oxidizing capacity and aggravating O3 pollution in the NCP. Our results indicate that in order to effectively mitigate regional air pollution, future policies should consider reactive nitrogen emissions from agricultural soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worldwide incidence of head and neck cancer (HNC) exceeds half a million cases annually, and up to half of the patients with HNC present with advanced disease. Surgical resection remains the mainstay of treatment for many HNCs, although radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy might contribute to individual patient's treatment plan. Irrespective of which modality is chosen, disease prognosis remains suboptimal, especially for higher staging tumors. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) has recently demonstrated a substantial anti-tumor effect. After a thorough literature search, we provide a comprehensive review depicting the oncological potential of CAP in HNC treatment. We discovered that CAP applies to almost all categories of HNC, including upper aerodigestive tract cancers, head and neck glandular cancers and skin cancers. In addition, CAP is truly versatile, as it can be applied not only directly for superficial or luminal tumors but also indirectly for deep solid organ tumors. Most importantly, CAP can work collaboratively with existing clinical oncotherapies with synergistic effect. After our attempts to elaborate the conceivable molecular mechanism of CAP's anti-neoplastic effect for HNC, we provide a brief synopsis of recent clinical and preclinical trials emphasizing CAP's applicability in head and neck oncology. In conclusion, we have enunciated our vision of plasma oncology using CAP for near future HNC treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the aesthetic point of view, this paper summarized the artistic style of Xu-style gardens in Han Dynasty, and through the analysis of the historical and cultural background of Xuzhou in this period, explained the formation of the style of Xu-style gardens in Han Dynasty and its cultural origin. Through the interpretation of landscape, architecture, plants and other garden elements and typical examples, the connotation of the garden art style of Xu-style was analyzed. Clarifying humble beauty of Xu-style gardens would help to better apply local artistic style in future garden construction and promote the development of regional gardens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic corneal endothelial keratopathy is an intractable ocular complication characterized by corneal edema and endothelial decompensation, which seriously threaten vision. It has been suggested that diabetes is associated with pyroptosis, a type of programmed cell death via the activation of inflammation. Long noncoding RNA KCNQ1OT1 is commonly associated with various pathophysiological mechanisms of diabetic complications, including diabetic cardiomyopathy and diabetic retinopathy. However, whether KCNQ1OT1 is capable of regulating pyroptosis and participates in the pathogenesis of diabetic corneal endothelial keratopathy remains unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanisms of KCNQ1OT1 in diabetic corneal endothelial keratopathy. Here, we reveal that KCNQ1OT1 and pyroptosis can be triggered in diabetic human and rat corneal endothelium, along with the high glucose-treated corneal endothelial cells. However, miR-214 expression was substantially decreased in vivo and in experiments with cultured cells. LDH assay was also used to verify the existence of pyroptosis in high glucose-treated cells. Bioinformatics prediction and luciferase assays showed that KCNQ1OT1 may function as a competing endogenous RNA binding miR-214 to regulate the expression of caspase-1. To further analyze the KCNQ1OT1-mediated mechanism, miR-214 mimic and inhibitor were introduced into the high glucose-treated corneal endothelial cells. The results showed that upregulation of miR-214 attenuated pyroptosis; conversely, knockdown of miR-214 promoted it. In addition, KCNQ1OT1 knockdown by a small interfering RNA decreased pyroptosis factors expressions but enhanced miR-214 expression in corneal endothelial cells. To understand the signaling mechanisms underlying the prepyroptotic properties of KCNQ1OT1, si-KCNQ1OT1 was cotransfected with or without miR-214 inhibitor. The results showed that pyroptosis was repressed after silencing KCNQ1OT1 but was reversed by cotransfection with miR-214 inhibitor, suggesting that KCNQ1OT1 mediated pyroptosis induced by high glucose via targeting miR-214. Therefore, the KCNQ1OT1/miR-214/caspase-1 signaling pathway represents a new mechanism of diabetic corneal endothelial keratopathy progression, and KCNQ1OT1 could potentially be a novel therapeutic target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) play an important role in Cyber Physical Social Sensing (CPSS) systems. An eavesdropping attack is one of the most serious threats to WSNs since it is a prerequisite for other malicious attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel anti-eavesdropping mechanism by introducing friendly jammers to wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In particular, we establish a theoretical framework to evaluate the eavesdropping risk of WSNs with friendly jammers and that of WSNs without jammers. Our theoretical model takes into account various channel conditions such as the path loss and Rayleigh fading, the placement schemes of jammers and the power controlling schemes of jammers. Extensive results show that using jammers in WSNs can effectively reduce the eavesdropping risk. Besides, our results also show that the appropriate placement of jammers and the proper assignment of emitting power of jammers can not only mitigate the eavesdropping risk but also may have no significant impairment to the legitimate communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The security and privacy of underwater acoustic sensor networks has received extensive attention recently due to the proliferation of underwater activities. This paper proposes an analytical model to investigate the eavesdropping attacks in underwater acoustic sensor networks. Our analytical framework considers the impacts of various underwater acoustic channel conditions (such as the acoustic signal frequency, spreading factor and wind speed) and different hydrophones (isotropic hydrophones and array hydrophones) in terms of network nodes and eavesdroppers. We also conduct extensive simulations to evaluate the effectiveness and the accuracy of our proposed model. Empirical results show that our proposed model is quite accurate. In addition, our results also imply that the eavesdropping probability heavily depends on both the underwater acoustic channel conditions and the features of hydrophones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]