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Abstract Temperature is an important load for ballastless track. However, there is little research on the system dynamic responses when a train travels on a ballastless track under the temperature gradient of ballastless track. Considering the moving train, temperature gradient of slab track, gravity of slab track, and the contact nonlinearity between interfaces of slab track, a dynamic model for a high-speed train runs along the CRTS III slab track on subgrade is developed by a nonlinear coupled way in ANSYS. The system dynamic responses under the temperature gradient of slab track with different amplitudes are theoretically investigated with the model. The results show that: (1) The proportions of the initial force and stress caused by the temperature gradient of slab track are different for different calculation items. The initial fastener tension force and positive slab bending stress have large proportions exceeding 50%. (2) The maximum dynamic responses for slab track are not uniform along the track. The maximum slab bending stress, slab acceleration, concrete base acceleration appear in the slab middle, at the slab end, and at the concrete base end, respectively. (3) The maximum accelerations of track components appear when the fifth or sixth wheel passes the measuring point, and at least two cars should be used. (4) The temperature gradient of slab track has a small influence on the car body acceleration. However, the influences on the slab acceleration, concrete base acceleration, fastener tension force are large, and the influence on the slab bending stress is huge.

Background/Aims: HIF-1α is accumulated in the cellular nucleus and cytoplasm under conditions of oxygen deprivation and engaged in pathophysiologic changes of homeostasis by modulating the expression of several target genes. As an endogenous signaling protein, HIF-1α contributes to in neuroprotection, erythropoiesis, and apoptosis modulation. The purpose of this study was to examine the role played by HIF-1α in regulating neurological injury evoked by intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) through its downstream product, namely vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). In particular, we examined the effects of diabetic hyperglycemia on HIF-1α response in the processing of ICH. Methods: ELISA was used to measure HIF-1α and VEGF; and Western Blot analysis to examine the protein expression of VEGFR-2 and Caspase-3. Neurological Severity Score and brain water content were used to indicate neurological function and brain edema. Results: HIF-1α and VEGF were significantly increased in the brain after induction of ICH in non-diabetic control rats and diabetic rats; however, the amplified levels of HIF-1α and VEGF were attenuated in diabetic rats (Pvs. non-diabetic rats) as compared with non-diabetic rats. Also, the protein expression of VEGF receptor subtype 2 was significantly less in the brain of diabetic rats (Pvs. non-diabetic rats). Further, cerebral infusion of HIF-1 activator stabilized VEGF levels, attenuated Caspase-3 and improved neurological deficits induced by ICH and the effects are smaller in diabetic animals. Conclusion: HIF-1α activated by ICH likely plays a beneficial role via VEGF mechanisms and response of HIF-1α is largely impaired in diabetes. This has pharmacological implications to target specific HIF-1α and VEGF pathway for neuronal dysfunction and vulnerability related to ICH.

Abstract To study the propagation characteristics of acoustic emission signals in Zelkova schneideriana under different boundary conditions, three types of boundary conditions were generated by applying aluminum plates and sound-absorbing cotton on the surface of Zelkova schneideriana specimens. Firstly, the sudden and continuous acoustic emission (AE) sources were simulated by PLB (pencil–lead break) tests and signal generator on the specimen surface, and the AE signals were collected by 5 sensors equally spaced on the surface of the specimen, and the sampling frequency was set to 500 kHz. Then, the detailed signals of different frequency bands were obtained by wavelet decomposition, and TDOA (the time difference of arrival) and correlation analysis method were used to calculate the time difference of longitudinal wave and surface transverse wave and the corresponding propagation velocity, respectively. Finally, the pulse trains with different energy levels generated by the signal generator were used as AE sources to study the attenuation law of AE signal energy with distance under different boundary conditions. The results show that the boundary changes can lead to a significant increase in the surface transverse wave velocity, and have no significant effect on the longitudinal wave velocity. At the same time, the energy attenuation of surface and longitudinal waves is faster after the aluminum plate and sound-absorbing cotton are affixed, and the distance of longitudinal waves attenuation to 90% is reduced from 186 to 139 mm, and the distance of surface transverse waves propagation is reduced from 312 to 226 mm.

In bioinformatics, exon skipping (ES) event prediction is an essential part of alternative splicing (AS) event analysis. Although many methods have been developed to predict ES events, a solution has yet to be found. In this study, given the limitations of machine learning algorithms with RNA-Seq data or genome sequences, a new feature, called RS (RNA-seq and sequence) features, was constructed. These features include RNA-Seq features derived from the RNA-Seq data and sequence features derived from genome sequences. We propose a novel Rotation Forest classifier to predict ES events with the RS features (RotaF-RSES). To validate the efficacy of RotaF-RSES, a dataset from two human tissues was used, and RotaF-RSES achieved an accuracy of 98.4%, a specificity of 99.2%, a sensitivity of 94.1%, and an area under the curve (AUC) of 98.6%. When compared to the other available methods, the results indicate that RotaF-RSES is efficient and can predict ES events with RS features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract There were no ideal markers to predict the development of radiation pneumonitis (RP). We want to investigate the value of variations of lymphocytes and T lymphocyte subsets in predicting RP after radiotherapy (RT) of lung cancer based on previous clinical findings. A total of 182 lung cancer patients who received RT were retrospectively analyzed. Circulating lymphocytes and T lymphocyte subsets were measured before, during, and after RT. Patients were evaluated from the start of RT to 6 months post‐RT. A mice model with acute radiation‐induced lung injury was established and circulating lymphocytes were measured weekly until 8 weeks after irradiation. Univariate and multivariate analyses were adopted to identify risk factors of RP. Lymphocyte levels significantly decreased (P

Background: Reliable prediction of protein-protein interaction sites is an important goal in the field of bioinformatics. Many computational methods have been explored for the large-scale prediction of protein-protein interaction sites based on various data types, including protein sequence, structural and genomic data. Although much progress has been achieved in recent years, the problem has not yet been satisfactorily solved. Results: In this work, we presented an efficient approach that uses ensemble learning algorithm with weighted feature descriptor (EL-WFD) to predict protein-protein interaction sites. Moreover, weighted feature descriptor was designed to describe the distance influence of neighboring residues on interaction sites. The results on two dataset (Hetero and Homo), show that the proposed method yields a satisfactory accuracy with 83.8 % recall and 96.3 % precision on the Hetero dataset and 84.2 % recall and 96.3 % precision on the Homo dataset, respectively. In both datasets, our method tend to obtain high Mathews correlation coefficient compared with state-of-the-art technique random forest method. The experimental results show that the EL-WFD method is quite effective in predicting protein-protein interaction sites. The novel weighted feature descriptor was proved to be promising in discovering interaction sites. Overall, the proposed method can be considered as a new powerful tool for predicting protein-protein interaction sites with excellence performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the effect of frequency on the attenuation characteristics of acoustic emission signals in wood, in this paper, two types of hard wood and soft wood were studied separately, and the energy attenuation model of the propagation process of AE sources with different frequencies was established. First, using the piezoelectric inverse effect of the AE sensor, an arbitrary waveform generator was used to generate frequency-tunable pulses in the range of 1 kHz to 150 kHz as the AE source, where the AE source energy could be regulated by the output voltage level. Then, five AE sensors were placed at equal intervals of 100 mm on the surface of the specimen to collect AE signals, and the sampling frequency was set to 500 kHz. Finally, the energy value of AE signal of each sensor was calculated based on the AC principle, and the energy attenuation model was established by exponential fitting. The results showed that both the amplitude and energy of the AE signals of different frequencies showed negative exponential decay with the increase of propagation distance, and, at the same frequency, the change of AE source energy level had no significant effect on its attenuation rate. Compared with hard wood, the energy attenuation of the AE signal of soft wood was more sensitive to the change of frequency, and, at the same frequency, the attenuation rate of soft wood was smaller than that of hard wood.

Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) is associated with increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and brain edema, which lead to the deterioration of patient prognosis. Resveratrol serves a neuroprotective role in I/R injury, and this role may be associated with its anti-oxidative effects. However, resveratrol's mechanism of action in cerebral I/R injury remains to be fully understood. In order to investigate the effect of resveratrol in cerebral I/R-induced injury, male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to four groups: The sham-operation group, the I/R group and the edaravone and resveratrol groups (I/R + E and I/R + R groups). Infarct volume was evaluated by 2,3,5-tripenyltetrazolium chloride staining, brain edema was evaluated by the water content in the reperfused brain and malondialdehyde (MDA) was measured by the thiobarbituric acid method. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels were measured using the Total Superoxide Dismutase Assay kit. Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) levels in the hippocampus and cortex were measured by ELISA, and aquaporin 4 (AQP4) expression was measured by immunohistochemical staining and western blot analysis. The results demonstrated that resveratrol reduced the infarct volume and the incidence of brain edema and reduced neurological deficits. These outcomes were accompanied by reduced levels of MDA, iNOS and AQP4, and increased SOD levels in cerebral I/R injury. In conclusion, resveratrol protected against cerebral I/R injury by ameliorating oxidative stress and reducing AQP4 expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and PurposeTo directly reveal the change in genome mutation, RNA transcript of tumor cells, and tumor microenvironment (TME) after stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in paired human lung tumor specimens.Materials and MethodsPaired tumor samples were collected from 10 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) or lung metastatic carcinoma within a week before and after SBRT. DNA and RNA of tumor tissues was extracted from the paired samples. Whole-exome and RNA sequencing assays were performed by next-generation sequencing. Gene mutation, genomic expression, T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire, and profiling of tumor-infiltrating immune cells were analyzed through bioinformatics analysis in paired tumor samples. CD8+ T-cell infiltration and PD-L1 expressions were detected by immunostaining in tumor tissues.ResultsThe diversity of TCR repertoire and PD-L1 expression increased significantly in the TME, and the most enriched term of the gene ontology analysis was the immune response gene after receiving SBRT. SBRT induced neo-mutation of genes in tumor cells but did not increase tumor mutation burden in tumor tissues. TME displayed complex immune cell changes and infiltration and expression of immune-regulating factors such as C-X-C motif chemokine (CXCL) 10, CXCL16, interferons (IFNs), and IFN receptors. CD8+ T-cells in tumor tissues did not improve significantly after SBRT while the infiltrating TH1 and TH2 cells decreased remarkably.ConclusionSBRT improved the TCR repertoire diversity and PD-L1 expression in the TME and induced neo-mutation of genes in tumor cells but did not increase CD8+ T-cell infiltration and IFN expression in the tumor tissue within a week.

Abstract Background Gliomas are the most common primary tumors in central nervous system. The prognosis of the patients with glioma is poor regardless of the development of therapeutic strategies. Its aggressive behavior mainly depends on the potent ability of proliferation. The transcription factor EGR1 (early growth response 1) is a member of a zinc finger transcription factor family which plays an essential role in cell growth and proliferation. Methods EGR1 expression levels in 39 glioma tissues and 10 normal brain tissues were tested by RT-qPCR and Western-blotting. The effects of EGR1 on U251 cells, U251 stem-like cells (GSCs), and U87 cells proliferation were assessed using in vitro and in vivo cell proliferation assays. The specific binding between EGR1 and CCND1 promoter was confirmed by CHIP assay. EGF was used to improve EGR1 expression in this assay. Results EGR1 expression levels in human gliomas are decreased compared with normal brain tissues, however, the patients with low EGR1 expression level showed significantly enhanced patient survival in all glioma patients. EGR1 silencing inhibited proliferation and induced G1 phase arrest in glioma cells. EGR1 contributed to proliferation by directly raising CCND1. Meanwhile, EGR1 overexpression induced by EGF was able to promote the proliferation of glioma cells. Conclusions Our results show that stable knockdown EGR1 would inhibit glioma proliferation. The results suggest EGR1 showing lower expression in cancer tissues compared with normal tissues maybe still play an important role in tumor proliferation.