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Lesion segmentation requires both speed and accuracy. In this paper, we propose a simple yet efficient network DSNet, which consists of a encoder based on Transformer and a convolutional neural network(CNN)-based distinct pyramid decoder containing three dual-stream attention (DSA) modules. Specifically, the DSA module fuses features from two adjacent levels through the false positive stream attention (FPSA) branch and the false negative stream attention (FNSA) branch to obtain features with diversified contextual information. We compare our method with various state-of-the-art (SOTA) lesion segmentation methods with several public datasets, including CVC-ClinicDB, Kvasir-SEG, and ISIC-2018 Task 1. The experimental results show that our method achieves SOTA performance in terms of mean Dice coefficient (mDice) and mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) with low model complexity and memory consumption.

Purpose: To investigate the therapeutic implication of mediator complex subunit 19 (Med19) in breast cancer cells. Methods: The mRNA expression of Med19 was assayed using qRT-PCR. Cell viability was determined with 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, while 4′,6-diamidino-2- phenylindole (DAPI) and annexin V/propidium iodide (PI) assays were used for determination of apoptosis. Wound healing and Transwell assays were used for the determination of cell migration and invasion. Western blotting analysis was used for assay of protein expression levels. Results: The results showed that Med19 was significantly (p < 0.05) upregulated in human breast cancer cell lines, relative to normal cells. The up-regulations ranged from 3.7-fold in UACC-2087 cells to 6.4-fold in BT-20 cells. Moreover, Med19 silencing caused significant decrease in the proliferation of BT-20 breast cancer cells (p < 0.05). The inhibition of cell proliferation was due to the induction of apoptosis, as was evident in increased Bax/Bcl-2 ratio. Annexin V/PI staining revealed 6 % apoptosis in si-NC-transfected, and about 13.30 % in si-Med19-transfected BT-20 cells. Wound healing and Transwell assays revealed that the invasion of BT-20 breast cancer cells significantly decreased upon Med19 silencing. Conclusion: Med19 regulates the proliferation, migration and invasion of human breast cancer cells. Thus, Med19 may be beneficial in the treatment of breast cancer.

The association of nephropathy with autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD) has been reported previously. However, there is limited information on the relationship between thyroid autoantibodies and nephropathy. A retrospective study was conducted using the medical records of 246 patients with nephropathy, 82 of whom had concurrent AITD. General characteristics, thyroid function, autoantibodies, and the pathological types of nephropathy were analyzed. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the thyroglobulin antibody (TG-Ab) and thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPO-Ab) in the kidneys. We found nephropathy patients with AITD exhibited higher serum levels of TPO-Ab, TG-Ab, thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor antibody (TR-Ab), and immunoglobulin G (IgG) (P

Since the launch of the World Heritage Conventions in 1972, its concept and practice have been followed by countries that endeavour to preserve heritage at an international stage. Many more scholars are dedicated to reflections that a World Heritage (WH) title can bring impact not only to the heritage place itself, but also to local communities and regional development. Debates surrounding the relationship between WH designation and local community wellbeing (particularly local residents’ resettlement), heritage tourism driven by the success of WH nomination, as well as the imbalance between conservation and reconstruction, have made great contributions towards sustainable heritage management. Particularly in China, politics has also been incorporated into the understanding of the WH nomination process. Jiaohe (also named as Yar City) in Xinjiang along the Silk Road is an example to rethink what exactly the “WH” brand brings to the sites and locals. This article is trying to demonstrate that the WH programme is not only driven by government will, but also a practical approach for heritage sites in Xinjiang to enable them to be sustainable, which in turn can contribute to the locals’ identity building and sense of place. Hopefully, a successful management of WH can improve the locals’ living standards and enhance the relationship among locals, the government and archaeological sites in Xinjiang.

As antibiotic resistance undermines efforts to treat bacterial infections, phage therapy is being increasingly considered as an alternative in clinical settings and agriculture. However, a major concern in using phages is that pathogens will develop resistance to the phage. Due to the constant evolutionary pressure by phages, bacteria have evolved numerous mechanisms to block infection. If we determine the most common among them, we could use this knowledge to guide phage therapeutics. Here we compile data from 88 peer-reviewed studies where phage resistance was experimentally observed and linked to a bacterial gene, then assessed these data for patterns. In total, 141 host genes were identified to block infection against one or more of 80 phages (representing five families of the Caudovirales) across 16 microbial host genera. These data suggest that bacterial phage resistance is diverse, but even well-studied systems are understudied, and there are gaping holes in our knowledge of phage resistance across lesser-studied regions of microbial and viral sequence space. Fortunately, scalable approaches are newly available that, if broadly adopted, can provide data to power ecosystem-aware models that will guide harvesting natural variation towards designing effective, broadly applicable phage therapy cocktails as an alternative to antibiotics.

An innovative cold-formed steel (CFS) framing wall with infilled lightweight flue gas desulfurization (FGD) gypsum was presented in Part I by Wu et al. (Submitted for publication) [1], in which cyclic loading tests were performed. This paper focuses on axial compressive behavior of the innovative wall. Eight full-scale specimens of infilled and unfilled CFS walls were tested under axial compressive loads. The failure modes, axial load-deformation responses, axial load-strain responses, axial compressive stiffness and axial bearing capacity of the specimens were investigated. In the tests, gypsum-encased wall studs lost their bearing capacity in the limit state of strength failure instead of buckling failure. Clear evidences were obtained that axial bearing capacity and axial compressive stiffness of the walls were significantly improved by infilling the gypsum. Compared with the unfilled walls, the maximum loads of the infilled were enhanced by 1.88–2.99 times. When the infilled specimens reached to their maximum loads in which the encased studs were in or close to yield state, but at that moment, the infilled gypsum cannot make full use of its axial bearing capacity in total sections. In addition, the finite element models of infilled walls were developed and validated using experimental results. Parametric studies showed that wall thickness, CFS thickness, and compressive strength of infilled gypsum had an impact on axial compression capacity of the walls, but the friction coefficient between CFS and infilled gypsum had little effect on axial bearing capacity. In this scenario, a modified superposition method was proposed to quantify axial bearing capacity of the infilled walls, and the reduction factor γ = 0.6 was then suggested in the paper, which shows a good agreement with experimental and numerical values.

The composition, basic principle and software architecture of a commercial vehicle hybrid test rig are described in detail in this paper，as well as the way to choose the dynamometer and battery simulator，and the design and implementation of data acquisition and communication. The commercial hybrid vehicle test bed can be applied to different types of commercial vehicle power-train tests, to simulate the road load and test the endurance. The thought route and design method can provide reference to the test bed design of commercial vehicle test power-train bed, and speed up the development of commercial vehicle power-train.

Microbes drive most ecosystems and are modulated by viruses that impact their lifespan, gene flow, and metabolic outputs. However, ecosystem-level impacts of viral community diversity remain difficult to assess due to classification issues and few reference genomes. Here, we establish an ∼12-fold expanded global ocean DNA virome dataset of 195,728 viral populations, now including the Arctic Ocean, and validate that these populations form discrete genotypic clusters. Meta-community analyses revealed five ecological zones throughout the global ocean, including two distinct Arctic regions. Across the zones, local and global patterns and drivers in viral community diversity were established for both macrodiversity (inter-population diversity) and microdiversity (intra-population genetic variation). These patterns sometimes, but not always, paralleled those from macro-organisms and revealed temperate and tropical surface waters and the Arctic as biodiversity hotspots and mechanistic hypotheses to explain them. Such further understanding of ocean viruses is critical for broader inclusion in ecosystem models.

With the advent of intraday high-frequency data of financial assets since the late 1990s, the research of financial econometrics has entered into a "big data" era. New theoretical techniques using the theory of continuous time stochastic processes has been extensively developed, and new empirical evidence has been documented. In particular, due to its far-reaching applications in various fields such as risk management and option pricing, the study of volatility, which quantitatively measures the uncertainty of prices of financial assets, has drawn substantial attention from researchers and there has been a large amount of literature devoted to this topic, including both modelling and prediction. In this dissertation, we are firstly concerned with the statistical inference of the so-called integrated volatility functionals, which is a general class of quantities that are computed from volatility. Secondly, we also devise a simulation method to recover the probability distribution of prices of financial assets by taking advantage of the information contained in sampled price data. Accordingly, the dissertation consists of two parts. In the first part, we focus on the estimation of integrated volatility functionals, where the volatility process is assumed to be a long memory Ito semimartingale (LMIS), which is defined as the sum of an Ito semimartingale and a process satisfying certain regularity assumptions that in particular is able to capture the long memory property of financial volatility that has been vastly documented in literature. We provide central limit theorem (CLT) in such context. Furthermore, under the such LMIS assumption, we consider both parametric and nonparametric bootstrap inference methods of integrated volatility functionals, and we show the validity of both bootstrap methods by providing CLTs. Furthermore, with the usual assumption of volatility being Ito semimartingale, we consider an empirical-process form of integrated volatility functionals, and offer functional CLTs when the indexing parameter is of arbitrary finite dimensions. We also consider bootstrap inference in this empirical-process setting. In the second part, we consider Euler method with estimated spot volatility, from which we are able to regenerate and realize the stochastic dynamics of price of financial asset by taking advantage of the information contained in the observed prices. We provide both theoretical foundation and empirical application of this method.