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Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder characterized by persistently elevated glucose levels. There is no effective treatment strategy for this condition, and it poses a massive economic burden globally. Schistosoma soluble egg antigen (SEA)-induced immunomodulatory mechanisms have been reported in the treatment of autoimmune disease. This study aimed to determine the ability of Schistosoma japonicum SEA to protect against type 2 diabetes in Leprdb/db mice and understand the associated mechanisms. The mice were divided into four groups: C57BL/6 (the normal group), SEA (C57BL/6 mice treated with SEA), Leprdb/db, and SEA and Leprdb/db co-treatment groups. The mice in the SEA and co-treatment groups were injected with 50 μg of SEA (twice a week for 6 weeks), and the same volume of PBS was used as control. Blood glucose, insulin, and HOMA-IR levels were measured in all mice, which were sacrificed 6 weeks after the last SEA administration. Flow cytometry was used to detect the percentages of regulatory T cells in splenocytes. ELISA was used to detect the levels of IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-4, and IL-5 in cell culture supernatants. Compared with the mice in the Leprdb/db group, the mice in the SEA + Leprdb/db group exhibited significantly reduced insulin resistance, as evidenced by the enhancement of wound healing. The frequency of spleen regulatory T cells increased significantly after SEA administration; meanwhile, the secretion of IL-4 and IL-5 in spleen cells was elevated. These results indicate that SEA can reduce insulin resistance and provide new targets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The potential mechanisms might be associated with increases in regulatory T cells and Th2 cytokines in Leprdb/db mice, which warrants further investigation.

The present study evaluated the impact of blocking cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) activity on the protective effect elicited by the fatty acid binding protein (FABP) vaccine against Schistosoma japonicum infection. Mice were randomly divided into uninfected, infected control, anti-CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody (anti-CTLA-4 mAb), FABP, and combination (anti-CTLA-4 mAb and FABP) groups. An assessment of the S. japonicum worm and egg burden in the infected mice revealed that the worm reduction-rate induced by FABP administration was increased from 26.58 to 54.61% by co-administration of the monoclonal anti-CTLA antibody (anti-CTLA-4 mAb). Furthermore, the regulatory T cell (Treg) percentage was significantly increased in mice after administration of the anti-CTLA-4 mAb, but not the FABP vaccine, and elevated levels of the cytokines interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, and IL-5 were observed in infected mice that were administered the anti-CTLA-4 mAb. Notably, the diameter of egg granulomas in the anti-CTLA-4 mAb and combination groups was significantly increased compared to that observed in the infected control group. Together, these results suggest that co-administering the FABP vaccine and anti-CTLA-4 treatment may have synergistically increased the immunoprotective effect of the FABP vaccine by promoting T-helper 1-type immune responses, while incurring increased tissue damage.

The inherent flexibility of hierarchical structure scheme with main-servo loop control structure is proposed to the problem of integrated chassis control system for the vehicle. It includes both main loop, which calculates and allocates the aim force using the optimal robust control algorithm and servo loop control systems, which track and achieve the target force using the onboard independent brake actuators. In fact, for the brake actuator, the aim friction is obtained by tracking the corresponding slip ratio of target force. For the coefficient of tire-road friction varying with different road surface, to get the nonlinear time-varying target slip ratio, the most famous quasi-static magic formula is proposed to estimate and predict real-time coefficient of different road surface and the constrained hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) is used to identify the key parameters of the magic formula on-line. Then, a self-tuning longitudinal slip ratio controller (LSC) based on the nonsingular and fast terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) control method is designed to improve the tracking accuracy and response speed of the actuators. At last, the proposed integrated chassis control strategies and the self-tuning control strategies are verified by computer simulations.

Lane departure warning system (LDWS) has been regarded as an efficient method to lessen the damages of road traffic accident resulting from driver fatigue or inattention. Lane detection is one of the key techniques for LDWS. To overcome the contradiction between complexity of algorithm and the real-time requirement for vehicle onboard system, this paper introduces a new lane detection method based on intelligent CCD parameters regulation. In order to improve the real-time capability of the system, a CCD parameters regulating method is proposed which enhances the contrast between lane line and road surfaces and reduces image noise, so it lays a good foundation for the following lane detection. Hough transform algorithm is improved by selection and classification of seed points. Finally the lane line is extracted through some restrictions. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, which improves not only real-time capability but also the accuracy of the system.

We investigated the effect of Schistosoma japonicum adenylate kinase 1 (Sjak1) on the growth and development of schistosomula. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that Sjak1 mRNA was expressed in 3-, 10-, 14-, 18-, and 21-day-old schistosomula, and its levels increased gradually with the development of S. japonicum. Using immunohistochemical techniques, ak1 protein was found to be mainly distributed in the tegument and some parenchymal tissues of the schistosomula. Doublestranded RNA-mediated knockdowns of ak1 decreased ak1 mRNA transcripts by more than 90%, and western blot results showed that expression of ak1 protein was decreased by 66%. Scanning electron microscopy following the RNA-mediated ak1 knockdown showed that the sensory papillae did not develop. Transmission electron microscopy showed a lower mean thickness of the tegument in the Sjak1 interference group than in the negative control group. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labeling suggested higher apoptosis in the interference group than the negative control group. These results showed that ak1 may be involved in the growth and development of S. japonicum schistosomula and especially in the development of the integument. Consequently, ak1 may be a potential target in developing prevention methods for schistosomiasis in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an issue under heated discussion, spectrum sensing (SS) exhibits its particular significance in various application scenarios due to its limited spectrum resource and low spectrum utilisation. For a given SS scheme, detection probability, false alarm probability and available throughput jointly determine its performance. To consider these three factors as a whole, the possible performance improvement of an SS scheme will make a great difference in active demand for idle spectrum, especially in Internet of things-based domains. Motivated by this, this study proposes a new strategy on SS to further improve its sensing performance, where the optimal sensing performance is demonstrated to be better than traditional schemes when signal-to-noise ratio is higher than 1.76 dB. Additionally, the authors extend the proposed scheme to multiple secondary user case and give optimal N for N-out-of-K fusion rule. Both theoretical derivation and simulation experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]