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The cloud-based solutions are becoming inefficient due to considerably large time delays, high power consumption, security and privacy concerns caused by billions of connected wireless devices and typically zillions bytes of data they produce at the network edge. A blend of edge computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques could optimally shift the resourceful computation servers closer to the network edge, which provides the support for advanced AI applications (e.g., video/audio surveillance and personal recommendation system) by enabling intelligent decision making on computing at the point of data generation as and when it is needed, and distributed Machine Learning (ML) with its potential to avoid the transmission of large dataset and possible compromise of privacy that may exist in cloud-based centralized learning. Therefore, AI is envisioned to become native and ubiquitous in future communication and networking systems. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive overview of recent advances in distributed intelligence in wireless networks under the umbrella of native-AI wireless networks, with a focus on the basic concepts of native-AI wireless networks, on the AI-enabled edge computing, on the design of distributed learning architectures for heterogeneous networks, on the communication-efficient technologies to support distributed learning, and on the AI-empowered end-to-end communications. We highlight the advantages of hybrid distributed learning architectures compared to the state-of-art distributed learning techniques. We summarize the challenges of existing research contributions in distributed intelligence in wireless networks and identify the potential future opportunities., submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials

Soil is a highly significant resource for human survival, and agglomerates, as the basic unit of the soil structure, not only enhance the soil fertility and control the biological validity of nutrients but also strengthen the soil’s erosion resistance. The mass application of fertilizers may significantly affect crop growth and the soil structure, and the rational application and dispensing of fertilizers will be an urgent issue to be addressed. Therefore, the effect of fertilizer application on the stability of water-stable soil aggregates needs to be studied under different meteorological and soil conditions to draw more general and feasible conclusions. Our meta-analysis of data from 220 independent observations from 56 published studies found that fertilizer application increased the mean weight diameter (MWD) by an average of 18% compared to the no-fertilizer treatment. Among the nitrogen (N), phosphate (P), and organic (OM) fertilizer treatments, the organic fertilizer treatment had a more significant stimulatory effect on the MWD (26%). Among the different fertilizer levels, a low level of phosphorus (120 kg·ha−1·yr−1), and a low level of organic fertilizer (

Viruses can survive only in living cells, where they depend on the host's enzymatic system for survival and reproduction. Virus-host interactions are complex. On the one hand, hosts express host-restricted factors to protect the host cells from viral infections. On the other hand, viruses recruit certain host factors to facilitate their survival and transmission. The identification of host factors critical to viral infection is essential for comprehending the pathogenesis of contagion and developing novel antiviral therapies that specifically target the host. Receptor for activated C kinase 1 (RACK1), an evolutionarily conserved host factor that exists in various eukaryotic organisms, is a promising target for antiviral therapy. This review primarily summarizes the roles of RACK1 in regulating different viral life stages, particularly entry, replication, translation, and release.

Excessive nitrogen fertilizer application is harmful to the environment and reduces the quality of cereal crops. Maintaining crop yields under low nitrogen (LN) conditions and improving quality are important goals for cereal crop breeding. Although the effects of nitrogen assimilation on crop nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) have been intensively studied, natural variations of the key assimilation genes underlying grain development and quality are largely unclear. Here, we identified an NUE-associated gene, OsGS1;1, encoding glutamine synthase, through genome-wide association analysis, followed by validation experiments and functional analysis. Fifteen single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the OsGS1;1 region led to alternative splicing that generated two functional transcripts: OsGS1;1a and OsGS1;1b. The elite haplotype of OsGS1;1 showed high OsGS1;1b activity, which improved NUE, affected grain development, and reduced amylose content. The results show that OsGS1;1, which is induced under LN conditions, affects grain formation by regulating sugar metabolism and may provide a new avenue for the breeding of high-yield and high-quality rice (Oryza sativa).

Painful tic convulsif syndrome is ipsilateral facial trigeminal neuralgia combined with hemifacial spasm, which is relatively rare in the clinic. Microvascular decompression is currently considered to be an effective treatment. We report extracranial radiofrequency treatment of painful tic convulsif syndrome under local anesthesia, a technique which provides a safer and more economical treatment for this kind of patient.We report a case of painful tic convulsif syndrome which was treated with extracranial radiofrequency therapy of the trigeminal nerve and facial nerve. After operations, the symptoms of pain and spasm were relieved immediately, but the right facial numbness and facial paralysis (House-Brackmann grade III) were left. The facial paralysis was completely relieved after 3 months of follow-up, and there was no recurrence of trigeminal neuralgia or hemifacial spasm after 35 months.Painful tic convulsif syndrome is a combination of ipsilateral facial trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm, which is relatively rare in the clinic. So far, only one treatment method of microvascular decompression has been reported for the disease. We report the first case of CT-guided extracranial radiofrequency therapy for painful tic convulsif syndrome.Extracranial radiofrequency therapy can provide safe and economical treatment for patients with painful tic convulsif syndrome.

Based on the coupling res model of vehicular and road, the influences of surface layer modulus, surface layer thickness and equivalent modulus of elasticity on the spectrum of the acceleration, surface deflection under wheels, and surface strain at the distance of 0.4 m to 0.8 m away from wheels are analyzed. Results show that the fundamental frequency of the road pavement increases with the growth of surface layer modulus and equivalent modulus of elasticity, and decreases with the increase of surface layer thickness. Both surface deflections and surface strains decrease with the increase of equivalent modulus of elasticity as well as surface layer modulus and thickness. Moreover, when the equivalent modulus of elasticity is more than 2500 MPa and surface layer modulus is more than 4000 MPa, surface deflections and surface strains have a little variation with the enhance of the surface layer modulus and equivalent modulus of elasticity. The solution method of the spectrum of the acceleration and equivalent modulus of elasticity, surface deflection under wheels, surface strain at the distance of 0.4 m to 0.8 m away from wheels, and surface deflection based on surface strain are established. The load bearing capacity assessment method of the road pavement based on surface strain and the spectrum of the acceleration is provided. Finally, the feasibility and accuracy of this method is verified by comparing measured values in field testing. The method in this paper provides a theoretical support for the design, construction and maintenance of road engineering.

Soil is an extremely significant resource for human survival, and agglomerates, as the basic unit of soil structure, not only enhance soil fertility and control the biological validity of nutrients, but also strengthen the soil's erosion resistance. The mass application of fertilizers may have a significant impact on crop growth and soil structure, and the rational application and dispensing of fertilizers will be an urgent issue to be addressed. Therefore, the effect of fertilizer application on the stability of water-stable soil aggregates needs to be studied under different meteorological and soil conditions to draw more general and feasible conclusions. Our Meta-analysis of data from 220 of 56 published studies found that fertilizer application increased mean weight diameter (MWD) by an average of 18% compared to the no-fertilizer treatment. Among the nitrogen (N), phosphate (P), and organic (OM) fertilizer treatments, the organic fertilizer treatment had a greater stimulatory effect on MWD (26%). Among the different fertilizer levels, low level of phosphorus (120kg·hm-2·yr-1), and low level of organic fertilizer (

Nanohydrogels show great potential as efficient drug carriers due to their biocompatibility, low toxicity, and high water absorbability. In this paper, we prepared two O-carboxymethylated chitosan (OCMC)-based polymers functionalized with β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) and amino acid. The structures of the polymers were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy. Morphological study was carried out on a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), and the results indicated that the two polymers had irregular spheroidal structure with some pores distributed on their surface. The average particle diameter was below 500 nm, and the zeta potential was above +30 mV. The two polymers were further used for preparing nanohydrogels loaded with anticancer drugs lapatinib and ginsenoside Rg1, and the resulting nanohydrogels showed high drug loading efficiency and pH-sensitive (pH = 4.5) drug release behavior. In vitro cytotoxicity investigation revealed that the nanohydrogels exhibited high cytotoxicity against lung cancer (A549) cells. In vivo anticancer investigation was performed in a transgenic Tg(fabp10:rtTA2s-M2; TRE2:EGFP-krasV12) zebrafish model. The results showed that the synthesized nanohydrogels significantly inhibited the expression of EGFP-krasv12 oncogene in zebrafish liver, and the L-arginine modified OCMC-g-Suc-β-CD nanohydrogels loading lapatinib and ginsenoside Rg1 showed the best results.

Background: Follicular lymphoma (FL), an indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), is generally incurable. Favourable prognosis and durable remission are crucial for FL patients. The genetic mutation spectrum provides novel biomarkers for determining the prognosis of FL patients, but its detection is easily affected by the collection of tumour tissue biopsies. In this study, we aimed to describe the mutational landscape of FL using circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) samples and to explore the relationship between mutations and prognostic indicators of clinical outcome in patients with newly diagnosed follicular lymphoma and the prognostic value of such mutations.Methods: A total of 28 patients with newly diagnosed FL were included in this study. A targeted NGS-based 59-gene panel was used to assess the ctDNA mutation profiles. Differences in clinical factors between patients carrying mutations and those without mutations were analysed. We also explored the relationship between gene mutation status, mean VAFs (variant allele frequencies) and clinical factors. The Kaplan‒Meier method was applied to analyse the overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) of patients carrying mutations and those without mutations.Results: ctDNA mutations were detectable in 21 (75%) patients. The most commonly mutated genes were CREBBP (54%, 15/28), KMT2D (50%, 14/28), STAT6 (29%, 8/28), CARD11 (18%, 5/28), PCLO (14%, 4/28), EP300 (14%, 4/28), BCL2 (11%, 3/28), and TNFAIP3 (11%, 3/28), with a mutation frequency of >10%. Patients with detectable ctDNA mutation tended to present with advanced Ann Arbor stage (III-IV) (p = 0.009), high FLIPI risk (3–5) (p = 0.023) and severe lymph node involvement (No. of involved areas ≥5) (p = 0.02). In addition, we found that the mean VAF was significantly higher in patients with advanced Ann Arbor stage, high-risk FLIPI, elevated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH: 0–248U/L), advanced pathology grade, bone marrow involvement (BMI) and lymph node involvement. Additionally, KMT2D, EP300, and STAT6 mutations were associated with inferior PFS (p < 0.05).Conclusion: We described the ctDNA mutation landscapes in Chinese patients with newly diagnosed FL and found that ctDNA VAF means reflect tumour burden. Moreover, PFS was shorter in patients with KMT2D, EP300 and STAT6 mutations.

In this paper, we propose an alternated inertial projection algorithm for solving multi-valued variational inequality problem and fixed point problem of demi-contractive mapping. On one hand, this algorithm only requires the mapping is pseudo-monotone. On the other hand, this algorithm is combined with the alternated inertial method to accelerate the convergence speed. The global convergence of the algorithm can be obtained under mild conditions. Preliminary numerical results show that the convergence speed of our algorithm is faster than some existing algorithms.

Low-impact development measures are a kind of ecological technology system that can easily realize urban rainwater collection and utilization to alleviate the contradiction between flooding/water logging disasters and water shortages. But most of the low-impact development measures are difficult to solve the problem of deep soil infiltration and fully utilize runoff regulation and seepage benefits. Therefore, this paper proposes the concrete microseepage well with the optimum proportion of crushed stone, cement, and water of 1 : 0.13 : 0.11 and 2% steel fiber content. The artificial rainfall experiment is applied to verify the high-infiltration of concrete microseepage well in deep soil. The numerical analysis shows that the concrete microseepage well around a single building and two adjacent buildings can all decrease 15%–40% of the pore water pressure, decrease 11%–33% of total head, and improve 43–55 times of infiltration velocity. The concrete microseepage well with 0.1 m in diameter and 1 m in height can affect the infiltration area of 1 m2. Each building being surrounded by seepage wells is the optimal layout scheme to alleviate the flooding/water logging disasters. This study provides a scientific reference for the development of sponge cities with low-impact development measures to reduce the problem of flooding/water logging disasters and water shortages.

A study was conducted to investigate the inclusion effects of sugar beet pulp and rice straw mixture silage with inoculation (BRMS), in place of whole-plant corn silage (CS), on the dry matter intake, total-tract nutrient digestibility, plasma metabolites, rumen fermentation, and lactation performance in high-production dairy cows. Sixteen multiparous Holstein cows (body weight, 622 ± 35 kg; days in milk, 90 ± 11 d; mean ± standard deviation) were used in our experiments; the experiments were based on a repeated 4 × 4 Latin square design for 21 d, and each experimental period consisted of 14 d of adaptation, followed by 7 d of data collection. The 4 dietary treatments used were (dry matter basis): (1) 0% BRMS and 28.6% CS (0BRMS); (2) 4.3% BRMS and 24.3% CS (15BRMS); (3) 8.60% BRMS and 20.0% CS (30BRMS); and (4) 12.9% BRMS and 15.7% CS (45BRMS). The increasing inclusion of dietary BRMS was observed to linearly increase the total volatile fatty acids and the propionate concentration. The dry matter intake and digestibility values of neutral detergent fiber and acid detergent fiber increased linearly as the percentage of BRMS increased up to 45%. Milk yield linearly increased with the increase in the content of BRMS (39.0, 39.8, 40.9, and 40.3 kg/d for 0BRMS, 15BRMS, 30BRMS, and 45BRMS, respectively). The increasing inclusion of dietary BRMS induced a decrease in the ammonia nitrogen and milk urea nitrogen concentration, leading to a linear increase in milk protein production (1.15, 1.26, 1.35, and 1.27 kg/d for 0BRMS, 15BRMS, 30BRMS, and 45BRMS, respectively). In conclusion, the diets with the replacement of CS with BRMS up to 45% were beneficial to the production performance of high-production dairy cows, indicating that this method may be an appropriate use of sugar beet pulp and rice straw.

Doxorubicin (DOX) has been an emerging environmental pollutant due to its significant genotoxicity to mankind. Advanced oxidation processes are a potential strategy to remove DOX in water solution. To develop a highly efficient catalytic agent to remove DOX, bimetal MOFs were synthesized, with Cu

Centromere dysfunctions leading to numerical chromosome alterations are believed to be closely related to human cancers. As a centromere-specific protein, centromere protein A (CENP-A) replaces the histone H3 in centromeres and is therefore considered a key factor of centromere identity. Researches have shown that CENP-A is overexpressed in many types of human cancers. However, the behavior and function of CENP-A in tumorigenesis have not yet been systematically summarized. In this article, we describe the pleiotropic roles of CENP-A in human cells. Moreover, we provide a comprehensive review of the current knowledge on the relationship between aberrant expression and ectopic localization of CENP-A and tumorigenesis, and the mechanism of the ectopic deposition of CENP-A in cancers. Furthermore, we note that some oncogenic viruses can modulate the expression and localization of this centromere protein along with its chaperone. At last, we also discuss the therapeutic potential of targeting CENP-A for cancer therapy.

To support the social-aware content uploading for users (clients) with a poor uplink channel quality in cellular networks, we propose a cooperative device-to-device (D2D) communication scheme. Under this scheme, mobile clients are able to communicate directly and the ones with social relationship form a multi-hop D2D chain, the head of which is in charge of transmitting the desired content to the base station (BS). A promising feature of this scheme is to stimulate effective cooperation among all clients by making use of social-aware relationship. To establish the D2D chain in this scheme, we first employ coalitional game to divide all clients with social relationship into multi-chains, and then propose a coalition formation algorithm to select the optimal chain according to the cost of content uploading such as energy and time. Finally, simulation results are presented to verify the efficiency of our proposed scheme in terms of the total content uploading time and energy consumption.

Multichannel image completion with mixture noise is a challenging problem in the fields of machine learning, computer vision, image processing, and data mining. Traditional image completion models are not appropriate to deal with this problem directly since their reconstruction priors may mismatch corruption priors. To address this issue, we propose a novel nonlocal self-similarity-based weighted tensor low-rank decomposition (NSWTLD) model that can achieve global optimization and local enhancement. In the proposed model, based on the corruption priors and the reconstruction priors, a pixel weighting strategy is given to characterize the joint effects of missing data, the Gaussian noise, and the impulse noise. To discover and utilize the accurate nonlocal self-similarity information to enhance the restoration quality of the details, the traditional nonlocal learning framework is optimized by employing improved index determination of patch group and handling strip noise caused by patch overlapping. In addition, an efficient and convergent algorithm is presented to solve the NSWTLD model. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on four types of multichannel images under various corruption scenarios. The results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed model.

Novel double yolk–shell structure molecularly imprinted polymers were synthesized by surface polymerization with 17β-estradiol as the template, followed by chemical etching.

This study aimed to investigate where acidification occurred in soil profiles of Guizhou tea gardens, in addition to the influence of acidification on the availability of soil mineral elements in order to inform soil nutrient management and improvement practices in tea gardens. Important tea-producing areas of Guizhou were investigated in this study and samples were collected from tea gardens with similar soil parent material and management measures. The acidification characteristics were investigated in soils from plantations grown for various numbers of years and across different soil layer profiles. Moreover, the pH buffering capacities (pHBC) of soils were evaluated and changes in soil Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Mo, B, As, Pb, Cr, and Cd concentrations due to soil acidification were explored. With increased tea plantation age, the acidification rate of 0–20-cm soil layers reached 0.025 pH unit/year. Soil acidification extended from the surface layer downwards through profiles, while the pH of entire soil layers were

The descending neurons (DNs) of insects connect the brain and thoracic ganglia and play a key role in controlling insect behaviors. Here, a comprehensive investigation of the distribution and organization of the DNs in the brain of Helicoverpa armigera (Hübner) was made by using backfilling from the neck connective combined with immunostaining techniques. The maximum number of DN somata labeled in H. armigera was about 980 in males and 840 in females, indicating a sexual difference in DNs. All somata of DNs in H. armigera were classified into six different clusters, and the cluster of DNd was only found in males. The processes of stained neurons in H. armigera were mainly found in the ventral central brain, including in the posterior slope, ventral lateral protocerebrum, lateral accessory lobe, antennal mechanosensory and motor center, gnathal ganglion and other small periesophageal neuropils. These results indicate that the posterior ventral part of the brain is vital for regulating locomotion in insects. These findings provide a detailed description of DNs in the brain that could contribute to investigations on the neural mechanism of moth behaviors.

The sense of taste plays a crucial role in herbivorous insects by discriminating nutrients from complex plant metabolic compounds. The peripheral coding of taste has been thoroughly studied in many insect species, but the central gustatory pathways are poorly described. In the present study, we characterized single neurons in the gnathal ganglion of Helicoverpa armigera larvae using the intracellular recording/staining technique. We identified different types of neurons, including sensory neurons, interneurons, and motor neurons. The morphologies of these neurons were largely diverse and their arborizations seemingly covered the whole gnathal ganglion. The representation of the single neurons responding to the relevant stimuli of sweet and bitter cues showed no distinct patterns in the gnathal ganglion. We postulate that taste signals may be processed in a manner consistent with the principle of population coding in the gnathal ganglion of H. armigera larvae. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This paper addresses a problem of global optimization in a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space context without fuzzy P-property. Specifically, it concerns the determination of the fuzzy distance between two subsets of a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space. Our approach to solving this problem is to find an optimal approximate solution to a fixed point equation. This approach has been well studied within a category of problems called proximity point problems. We explore some new types of (ψ−ϕ)-weak proximal contractions and investigate the existence of the unique best proximity point for such kinds of mappings. Subsequently, some fixed point results for corresponding contractions are proved, and some illustrative examples are presented to support the validity of the main results. Moreover, an interesting application in computer science, particularly in the domain of words has been provided. Our work is a fuzzy generalization of the proximity point problem by means of fuzzy fixed point method.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disease, affecting more than 55 million individuals worldwide in 2021. In addition to the “amyloid hypothesis,” an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that phosphorylated tau plays an important role in AD pathogenesis. Both soluble tau oligomers and insoluble tau aggregates in the brain can induce structural and functional neuronal damage through multiple pathways, eventually leading to memory deficits and neurodegeneration. Autophagy is an important cellular response to various stress stimuli and can generally be categorized into non-selective and selective autophagy. Recent studies have indicated that both types of autophagy are involved in AD pathology. Among the several subtypes of selective autophagy, mitophagy, which mediates the selective removal of mitochondria, has attracted increasing attention because dysfunctional mitochondria have been suggested to contribute to tauopathies. In this review, we summarize the latest findings on the bidirectional association between abnormal tau proteins and defective autophagy, as well as mitophagy, which might constitute a vicious cycle in the induction of neurodegeneration. Neuroinflammation, another important feature in the pathogenesis and progression of AD, has been shown to crosstalk with autophagy and mitophagy. Additionally, we comprehensively discuss the relationship between neuroinflammation, autophagy, and mitophagy. By elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms governing these pathologies, we highlight novel therapeutic strategies targeting autophagy, mitophagy and neuroinflammation, such as those using rapamycin, urolithin, spermidine, curcumin, nicotinamide, and actinonin, for the prevention and treatment of AD.

To study the influence of the micromorphology and structure of modified asphalt on pavement performance under combined action of multiple modifiers, styrene–butadiene–styrene, styrene–butadiene–rubber, stabilizer and furfural extract oil were selected to modify the matrix asphalt, and short-term aging experiments were carried out. The cross-linking and distribution of the modifiers were analyzed by fluorescence microscopy, the micromorphology of the modified asphalt before and after short-term aging was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, and the change in molecular weight of the modifier and asphalt phase was analyzed by gel permeation chromatography. The results showed that the content of saturated and aromatic of Panjin asphalt was more than 65%, and the content of aromatic was more than 33%, which was suitable for simultaneous modification of multiple modifiers with good modification effect. After the stabilizer and the compatibilizer were added, the interface adsorption layer between the modifier particle and the asphalt phase was stable under the action of the active free radicals. The surface morphology of the matrix asphalt changed greatly after aging. The modifier did not further aggravate the folds on the surface of the asphalt after aging, but the aging process was accompanied by the decomposition of modifier macromolecules and the aggregation of small molecules. In the aging process of the composite modifiers, the degradation of macromolecules was the main molecular reaction, while the polymerization reaction was the main reaction of asphalt phase. The conclusions could provide theoretical and technical support for the development and application of high-performance modified asphalt.

Sensitivity enhancement was demonstrated in a nonreciprocal fiber cavity operating near the exceptional point (EP). A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) was used to couple a pair of modes propagating in the opposite direction in a fiber ring cavity and give rise to mode splitting in the spectrum. The different roundtrip losses between the two counter-propagating modes showing nonreciprocity is introduced by coupling an extra fiber ring with an isolator. It could enter the EP in the nonreciprocity cavity due to the pair of modes coalesced in both the real and imaginary parts. In order to resolve the weak mode splitting near the EP, the mode linewidth was narrowed by compensating the roundtrip loss by a section of the pumped active fiber. The experimental results showed that a larger change in the mode splitting strength was observed in the nonreciprocity cavity when the temperature in the cavity was controlled by the incident power, indicating an obvious improvement of sensitivity in the EP-based fiber sensor.

This paper describes an investigation into the factors influencing the resilient modulus and cumulative plastic strain of frozen silty clay. A series of dynamic triaxial tests are conducted to analyze the influence of the temperature, confining pressure, frequency, and compaction degree on the resilient modulus and cumulative plastic strain of frozen silty clay samples. The results show that when the temperature is below − 5 °C, the resilient modulus decreases linearly, whereas when the temperature is above − 5 °C, the resilient modulus decreases according to a power function. The resilient modulus increases logarithmically when the frequency is less than 2 Hz and increases linearly once the frequency exceeds 2 Hz. The resilient modulus increases as the confining pressure and compaction degree increase. The cumulative plastic strain decreases as the temperature decreases and as the confining pressure, frequency, and compaction degree increase. The research findings provide valuable information for the design, construction, operation, maintenance, safety, and management of airport engineering in frozen soil regions.

In this study, the impacts of transglutaminase (TGase)-induced glycosylation and limited enzymatic hydrolysis on the foaming property of soy protein isolates (SPI) and the possible underlying mechanisms were investigated. SPI were first glycosylated with oligochitosan by TGase to produce glycosylated samples (GSPI). GSPI were further hydrolyzed using Protamex with controlled degree of hydrolysis (DH of 1%, 2% and 4%). As compared to native SPI, the foaming stability of GSPI sample was increased from 24.3% ± 3.1% to 40.4% ± 7.6%, and the hydrolyzed GSPI showed enhanced foaming property. GSPI-1% DH showed the best foaming capacity and foam stability, increasing about 2.12 folds and 2.33 folds, respectively. Hydrodynamic-size of dominant distribution peak in GSPI and its hydrolysates (1% DH) were about 3090 and 531 nm, respectively, which were bigger than that of SPI (about 220 nm). The presence of oligochitosan in GSPI decreased surface hydrophobicity, and the subsequent hydrolysis generated an opposite effect. GSPI and its hydrolysates had more flexible tertiary conformations as revealed by intrinsic fluorescence study. Overall, high values of negative zeta potential and apparent viscosity of samples might be responsible for the improved foaming property. This study suggested that TGase-induced glycosylation and limited enzymatic hydrolysis are promising techniques for enhancing the foaming property of SPI, which would broaden the applications of SPI in food industry.

Thin films are basic components of many types of optoelectronic devices such as thin-film solar cells, planar light-emitting diodes, and photodetectors. The preparation of nanostructured films can optimize the photoelectric properties of the films, improving the performance of optoelectronic devices, and has, therefore, received intense research attention. Nanostructuring can change the interaction of the film with incident light to optimize the optical properties of thin films. Many physical and chemical methods have been developed to prepare nanostructured films and can now be successfully used for the realization of specific functions. Nanostructured films have been widely used for controlling the optical reflection, transmission and absorption of transparent films, semiconductor films and metal films. In this paper, the preparation methods of nanostructured films and the optimization of their optical properties are reviewed.

Graph regularization has shown its effectiveness in multi-view subspace clustering methods. Many multi-view subspace clustering methods based on graph regularization build the adjacency matrix directly based on a simple similarity measure between data points for each view. However, these simply constructed graphs are sensitive to light corruptions and even generate misleading manifold. Considering this shortcoming, this paper presents a multi-view subspace clustering algorithm (CGMSC) with a well-defined locally consistent graph regularization. We formulate CGMSC by a two-stage procedure. In the first stage, an adaptive self-weighted multi-view local linear embedding (ASWMVLLE) method is proposed to build the locally consistent geometric relationship between instances. In the second stage, ASWMVLLE is introduced into CGMSC by defining a local graph regularization term about the consensus latent subspace representation, which can not only effectively keep the manifold structure of data, but also ensure the consistency across different views. Experiments on eight real-world datasets demonstrate that our method has good robustness and clustering performance.

Ulcerative colitis is a typical chronic inflammatory disease of the gastrointestinal tract, which has become a serious hazard to human health. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the antagonistic effect of corn protein hydrolysate with glutamine-rich peptides on ulcerative colitis. The sequential hydrolysis of corn gluten meal by Alcalase and Protamex was conducted to prepare the hydrolysate, and then the mouse ulcerative colitis model induced by dextran sulfate sodium was applied to evaluate its biological activities. The results indicated that the hydrolysate significantly improved weight loss (p < 0.05), reduced the colonic shortening and the disease activity index, diminished the infiltration of inflammatory cells in the colonic tissue, and reduced the permeability of the colonic mucosa in mice. In addition, the hydrolysate decreased the contents of pro-inflammatory factors IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α, increased the anti-inflammatory factor IL-10 and oxidative stress markers GSH-Px and SOD in the animal tests. Moreover, the hydrolysate also regulated the abundance and diversity of the intestinal microbiota, improved the microbiota structure, and increased the content of beneficial bacteria including Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. These results indicated that the hydrolysate might be used as an alternative natural product for the prevention of ulcerative colitis and could be further developed into a functional food.

Cornhusk is a renewable and abundant crop by-product whose diverse applications must be studied more extensively. However, thus far, cornhusk, as a raw material, has not been employed for production of cornhusk fiber (CF) nanocellulose (CNC). This study aims to extract and characterize nanocellulose using CF as a raw material by high-shear-assisted enzyme hydrolysis. The extraction process was optimized by investigating the particle size distribution. The optimal extraction conditions of CNC were as follows: cellulase concentration of 1 mg/g, pH of 4.8, temperature of 50 ℃, and 24 h treatment under high-shear conditions for 20 min. The morphological characteristics of the CNC and CF were investigated, and FTIR，XRD, and TGA analyses were performed. Compared with CF, CNC exhibited slenderer nanofibrils with a smoother surface. FTIR analysis showed that the peaks that represented hemicellulose, lignin, and pectin disappeared or diminished in the CNC spectrum. The crystal type of CNC did not change and was identical to that of CF (cellulose type I). The TGA results showed that CNC possessed a lower thermal stability and higher char residuals than those of CF.

Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease (RHD) is an economically significant infectious disease of rabbits, and its infection causes severe losses in the meat and fur industry. RHD Virus (RHDV) is difficult to proliferate in cell lines in vitro, which has greatly impeded the progress of investigating its replication mechanism and production of inactivated virus vaccines. RHDV VP60 protein is a major antigen for developing RHD subunit vaccines. Herein, we constructed a TK-deactivated recombinant Swinepox virus (rSWPV) expressing VP60 protein and VP60 protein coupled with His-tag respectively, and the expression of foreign proteins was confirmed using immunofluorescence assay and western blotting. Transmission electron microscopy showed that the recombinant VP60, with or without His-tag, self-assembled into virus-like particles (VLPs). Its efficacy was evaluated by comparison with available commercial vaccines in rabbits. ELISA and HI titer assays showed that high levels of neutralizing antibodies were induced at the first week after immunization with the recombinant strain and were maintained during the ongoing monitoring for the following 13 weeks. Challenge experiments showed that a single immunization with 106 PFU of the recombinant strain protected rabbits from lethal RHDV infection, and no histopathological changes or antigenic staining was found in the vaccine and rSWPV groups. These results suggest that rSWPV expressing RHDV VP60 could be an efficient candidate vaccine against RHDV in rabbits. ispartof: FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY vol:13 ispartof: location:Switzerland status: published

BackgroundCharacterization of gene mutation profiles can provide new treatment options for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). However, this method is challenged by the limited source of tissue specimens, especially those of DLBCL patients at advanced stages. Therefore, in the current study, we aimed to describe the gene mutation landscape of DLBCL using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) samples obtained from patients’ blood samples, as well as to explore the relationship between ctDNA mutations and the prognosis and treatment response of patients with newly diagnosed DLBCL.MethodsA total of 169 newly diagnosed Chinese DLBCL patients were included in this study, among which 85 patients were divided into a training set and 84 were assigned into a validation set. The mutation profile of a 59-gene panel was analyzed by targeted next generation sequencing (NGS) of the patients’ ctDNA samples. Differences in clinical factors between patients with and without ctDNA mutations were analyzed. In addition, we also explored gene mutation frequencies between GCB and non-GCB subtypes, and the relationship between gene mutation status, clinical factors, mean VAF (variant allele frequencies) and the patients’ overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS).ResultsctDNA mutations were detected in 64 (75.3%) patients of the training set and 67 (79.8%) patients of the validation set. The most commonly mutated genes in both sets were PCLO, PIM1, MYD88, TP53, KMT2D, CD79B, HIST1H1E and LRP1B, with mutation frequencies of >10%. Patients with detectable ctDNA mutations trended to present advanced Ann Arbor stages (III-IV), elevated LDH (lactate dehydrogenase) levels, shorter OS and PFS, and a lower complete response (CR) rate to the R-CHOP regimen compared with DLBCL patients without ctDNA mutations. In addition, mean VAF (≥4.94%) and PCLO mutations were associated with poor OS and PFS.ConclusionWe investigated the ctDNA mutation landscape in Chinese patients with newly diagnosed DLBCL and found that ctDNA could reflect tumor burden and patients with detectable ctDNA mutations trended to have shorter OS and PFS and a lower CR rate.

This study was designed for determining the effect of particle size on the functional properties of corn bran insoluble dietary fiber (IDF). Results showed that some physicochemical properties were improved with the decrease in particle size. The structure of the IDF was observed by the scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The surface was found wrinkled and sparse, the particle size was smaller, the crystallinity of IDF had increased slightly, and more -OH and C-O groups were exposed. Moreover, the corn bran IDF with a smaller particle size had a better hypoglycemic effect in vitro, and the inhibitory activity of α-glucosidase and α-amylase were also increased significantly with the decrease in particle size (p < 0.05). When the IDF was 300 mesh, the inhibitory rate of α-glucosidase was 61.34 ± 1.12%, and the inhibitory rate of α-amylase was 17.58 ± 0.33%. It had increased by 25.54 and 106.83%, respectively compared to the control treatment (CK) group. In addition, correlation analysis found that the particle size was highly negatively correlated with some functional properties of IDF (p < 0.05), and the content of cellulose was positively correlated with the functional properties of IDF except WHC (p < 0.05). To sum up, reducing particle size was suitable for the development of high value-added IDF products. This study also revealed the potential value of corn bran IDF and provided a new idea for the diversified application of IDF.