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To explore a method to identify the sensory and motor fascicles of the peripheral nerve to achieve accurate peripheral nerve functional fascicle suture. The peripheral nerve Sunderland V injury model, muscle branch of the femoral nerve and saphenous nerve were established in the bilateral femoral nerves of Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. The specific samples were grouped as follows: the main trunk of the femoral nerve was exposed bilaterally and cut with microscopic scissors in the main trunk of the femoral nerve to prepare a model of Sunderland V injury in the mixed fascicle of peripheral nerves; the muscle branch of the femoral nerve was exposed bilaterally and cut in the middle section of the muscle branch of the femoral nerve to prepare a model of Sunderland V injury in the motor fascicle of peripheral nerves; the saphenous nerve was exposed bilaterally and cut at 1 cm below the patella to prepare a model of Sunderland V injury to the sensory fascicle of the peripheral nerves. A carbon quantum dot (CD)-annexin V antibody complex was prepared and applied to the distal and proximal nerve stumps of the peripheral nerve Sunderland V injury model groups of SD rats. Under the excitation light source of a 380 nm uv lamp, fluorescence color development was observed under a fluorescence microscope after 5, 10, 15, and 20 min. At 5 min, sections of the bilateral femoral nerve trunk, muscular branches of the femoral nerve, and Sunderland V lesion of the saphenous nerve in SD rats were only dark in color under the microscope, and there was no difference in fluorescence. The intensity of the staining increased significantly for 10–20 min. The sensory fascicles and saphenous nerves of the femoral nerve trunk showed blue fluorescence under the CD-Annexin V antibody complex staining, while the motor fascicles and muscle branches of the femoral nerve trunk showed no fluorescence. Fluorescence intensity gradually decreased after 20 min of staining. There was no significant difference in the staining intensity at 5, 10, 15, and 20 min in each group. Our results suggest that the CD-Annexin antibody complex can be used to identify functional fascicles of peripheral nerves in SD rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few-shot learning aims to classify novel images based on a small number of labeled examples. While recent work has shown promise using local descriptors, existing methods generally classify local descriptors independently, which potentially can loss the spatial and other essential information for new tasks. Moreover, such works ignore the semantics expressed by local descriptors may be irrelevant to image semantics. In this paper, we propose two methods to address these challenges. Firstly, we design a novel Spatial Cross Attention Module to generate a spatial cross attention map between a query and a class representation to enhance the local descriptors that are most relevant to each task. Then, we employ dense classification loss, which supervises the learning of all local descriptors, to constrain the semantic consistency of local descriptors. Furthermore, we show that the feature extractor trained by our method can be extended to some new baseline methods to achieve better performance. Extensive experiments conducted on three widely used few-shot learning benchmark datasets indicate that our proposed method achieves the competitive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of myocardial hypertrophy in hypertension can lead to excessive activation of oxidative stress. Lipoamide (ALM) has significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. This study aimed to investigate the effects of ALM on hypertension-induced cardiac hypertrophy, as well as explore its underlying mechanisms. We evaluated the effects of ALM on spontaneously hypertensive rats and rat cardiomyocytes treated with Ang II. We found that ALM was not effective in lowering blood pressure in SHR, but it attenuated hypertension-mediated cardiac fibrosis, oxidative stress, inflammation, and hypertrophy in rats. After that, in cultured H9C2 cells stimulated with Ang II, ALM increased the expression of antioxidant proteins that were decreased in the Ang II group. ALM also alleviated cell hypertrophy and the accumulation of ROS, while LY294002 partially abrogated these effects. Collectively, these results demonstrate that ALM could alleviate oxidative stress in cardiac hypertrophy, potentially through the activation of the PI3K/Akt-mediated Nrf2 signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we devise and analyze a pressure-robust and superconvergent HDG method in stress-velocity formulation for the Stokes equations and the Navier–Stokes equations with strongly symmetric stress. The stress and velocity are approximated using piecewise polynomial space of order k and H (div ; Ω) -conforming space of order k + 1 , respectively, where k is the polynomial order. In contrast, the tangential trace of the velocity is approximated using piecewise polynomials of order k. Moreover, the characterization of the proposed schemes shows that the globally coupled unknowns are the normal trace and the tangential trace of velocity, and the piecewise constant approximation for the trace of the stress. The discrete H 1 -stability is established for the discrete solution. The proposed formulation yields divergence-free velocity, but causes difficulties for the derivation of the pressure-independent error estimate given that the pressure variable is not employed explicitly in the discrete formulation. This difficulty can be overcome by observing that the L 2 projection to the stress space has a nice commuting property. Moreover, superconvergence for velocity in discrete H 1 -norm is obtained, with regard to the degrees of freedom of the globally coupled unknowns. Then the convergence of the discrete solution to the weak solution for the Navier–Stokes equations via the compactness argument is rigorously analyzed under minimal regularity assumption. The strong convergence for velocity and stress is proved. Importantly, the strong convergence for velocity in discrete H 1 -norm is achieved. Several numerical experiments are carried out to confirm the proposed theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the variability of extinction risk and its potential drivers across different spatial extents is crucial to revealing the underlying processes of biodiversity loss and sustainability. However, in countries with high climatic and topographic heterogeneity, studies on extinction risk are often challenged by complexities associated with extent effects. Here, using 2.02 million fine-grained distribution records and a phylogeny including 27,185 species, we find that the extinction risk of flowering plants in China is spatially concentrated in southwestern China. Our analyses suggest that spatial extinction risks of flowering plants in China may be caused by multiple drivers and are extent dependent. Vegetation structure based on proportion of growth forms is likely the dominant extinction driver at the national extent, followed by climatic and evolutionary drivers. Finer extent analyses indicate that the potential dominant extinction drivers vary across zones and vegetation regions. Despite regional heterogeneity, we detect a geographical continuity potential in extinction drivers, with variation in West China dominated by vegetation structure, South China by climate, and North China by evolution. Our findings highlight that identification of potential extent-dependent drivers of extinction risk is crucial for targeted conservation practice in countries like China.Estimating extinction risk in regions with high climatic and topographic heterogeneity is challenging. Here, the authors use occurrence data and a phylogeny of 27,185 flowering plants in China, finding that potential causes of extinction are regionally complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: The working principles and limitations of current anode materials at low temperatures are elucidated. Advantages and emphases of various modification strategies, including structural design, morphology control, surface & interface modifications, and multiphase materials of low-temperature anode materials, are reviewed. Perspectives and challenges in developing novel low-temperature anode materials are discussed. The severe degradation of electrochemical performance for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) at low temperatures poses a significant challenge to their practical applications. Consequently, extensive efforts have been contributed to explore novel anode materials with high electronic conductivity and rapid Li+ diffusion kinetics for achieving favorable low-temperature performance of LIBs. Herein, we try to review the recent reports on the synthesis and characterizations of low-temperature anode materials. First, we summarize the underlying mechanisms responsible for the performance degradation of anode materials at subzero temperatures. Second, detailed discussions concerning the key pathways (boosting electronic conductivity, enhancing Li+ diffusion kinetics, and inhibiting lithium dendrite) for improving the low-temperature performance of anode materials are presented. Third, several commonly used low-temperature anode materials are briefly introduced. Fourth, recent progress in the engineering of these low-temperature anode materials is summarized in terms of structural design, morphology control, surface & interface modifications, and multiphase materials. Finally, the challenges that remain to be solved in the field of low-temperature anode materials are discussed. This review was organized to offer valuable insights and guidance for next-generation LIBs with excellent low-temperature electrochemical performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The consistency of bladder volume is very important in pelvic tumor radiotherapy, and portable bladder scanner is a promising device to measure bladder volume. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the bladder volume of patients with pelvic tumor treated with radiotherapy can be accurately measured using the Meike Palm Bladder Scanner PBSV3.2 manufactured in China and the accuracy of its measurement under different influencing factors. Methods: A total of 165 patients with pelvic tumor undergoing radiotherapy were prospectively collected. The bladder volume was measured with PBSV3.2 before simulated localization. CT simulated localization was performed when the bladder volume was 200-400ml. The bladder volume was measured with PBSV3.2 immediately after localization and recorded. The bladder volume was then delineated on CT simulation images and recorded. To compare the consistency of CT simulation bladder volume and bladder volume measured by PBSV3.2. To investigate the accuracy of PBSV3.2 in different sex, age, treatment purpose, and bladder volume. Results: There was a significant positive correlation with bladder volume on CT and PBSV3.2 (r = 0.874; p < 0.001). The mean difference between CT measured values and PBSV3.2 was (-0.14 ± 50.17) ml. The results of the different variables showed that the overall mean of PBSV3.2 and CT measurements were statistically different in the age ≥ 65 years, bladder volumes > 400ml and ≤ 400ml groups (p = 0.028, 0.002, 0.001). There was no statistical significance between the remaining variables. The volume difference between PBSV3.2 measurement and CT was 12.87ml in male patients, which was larger than that in female patients 3.27ml. Pearson correlation analysis showed that the correlation coefficient was 0.473 for bladder volume greater than 400ml and 0.868 for bladder volume less than 400ml; the correlation coefficient of the other variables ranged from 0.802 to 0.893. Conclusion: This is the first large-sample study to evaluate the accuracy of PBSV3.2 in a pelvic tumor radiotherapy population using the convenient bladder scanner PBSV3.2 made in China. PBSV3.2 provides an acceptable indicator for monitoring bladder volume in patients with pelvic radiotherapy. It is recommended to monitor bladder volume with PBSV3.2 when the planned bladder volume is 200-400ml. For male and patients ≥ 65 years old, at least two repeat measurements are required when using a bladder scanner and the volume should be corrected by using a modified feature to improve bladder volume consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congenital vertebral malformation, affecting 0.13–0.50 per 1000 live births, has an immense locus heterogeneity and complex genetic architecture. In this study, we analyze exome/genome sequencing data from 873 probands with congenital vertebral malformation and 3794 control individuals. Clinical interpretation identifies Mendelian etiologies in 12.0% of the probands and reveals a muscle-related disease mechanism. Gene-based burden test of ultra-rare variants identifies risk genes with large effect sizes (ITPR2, TBX6, TPO, H6PD, and SEC24B). To further investigate the biological relevance of the genetic association signals, we perform single-nucleus RNAseq on human embryonic spines. The burden test signals are enriched in the notochord at early developmental stages and myoblast/myocytes at late stages, highlighting their critical roles in the developing spine. Our work provides insights into the developmental biology of the human spine and the pathogenesis of spine malformation. Congenital vertebral malformation has a complex genetic architecture that isn't fully understood. Here, the authors explore the genetic architecture of congenital vertebral malformation through case-control rare variant genetic analyses and embryonic transcriptome analyses of the developing spine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pneumonia caused by novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infection in early December 2019, which was later named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization (WHO), rapidly spread across the world. China has made extraordinary efforts to this unprecedented pandemic, put its response and control at a very high level of infectious disease management (Category B but with measures for Category A), given top priority to the people and their lives, and balanced the pandemic control and socio-economic development. After more than three years' fighting against this disease, China downgraded the management of COVID-19 to Category B infectious disease on January 8, 2023 and the WHO declared the end of public health emergency on May 5, 2023. However, the ending of pandemic does not mean that the disease is no longer a health threat. Experiences against COVID-19 from China and the whole world should be learned to prepare well for the future public health emergencies. This article gives a systematic review of the trajectory of COVID-19 development in China, summarizes the critical policy arrangements and provides evidence for the adjustment during policy making process, so as to share experiences with international community and contribute to the global health for all humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph Neural Networks(GNNs) learn the node representation of multi-hops through stacking layers. However, deep GNNs often suffer from over-smoothing, which drives people to the road of model simplification. With the deepening of research, it is found that the representation of nodes is more related to feature smoothing. More and more simplified models show that the nonparametric feature smoothing scheme can not only reduce computational complexity but also improve performance. Because the features of nodes in GNNs propagate along the edges, the denoising of graph data mainly focuses on the modification of graph topology. Based on this, we propose a feature smoothing scheme on the topology modification graph named Topology-modified Feature Smoothing(TMFS). Experiments show that the smoothed features calculated by TMFS can improve the performance of GNNs. Graph data usually have high-dimension features. Some feature dimensions contribute more to node classification, while others may only be the personality features of specific nodes. However, the existing propagation schemes cause all dimensional features to propagate along the edge at the same time. Such schemes as dropedge and addedge cannot change this situation. This feature propagation method is very mechanized. To solve this problem, we divide the dimension of features according to commonality nature, and modify the graph topology respectively, to realize the Dimension-divided Feature Smoothing(DDFS) of personalized propagation. Our experiments show that the deep features obtained by DDFS can not only improve the performance of GNNs but also be more stable. Our feature smoothing scheme can be seen as a plug-and-play module. On the Cora dataset, the smoothed features of our DDFS have improved the accuracy of MLP by 27.88% and other GNNs by 2.29% at most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) mediate responses to various extracellular and intracellular cues. However, the large number of GPCR genes and their substantial functional redundancy make it challenging to systematically dissect GPCR functions in vivo. Here, we employ a CRISPR/Cas9-based approach, disrupting 1654 GPCR-encoding genes in 284 strains and mutating 152 neuropeptide-encoding genes in 38 strains in C. elegans. These two mutant libraries enable effective deorphanization of chemoreceptors, and characterization of receptors for neuropeptides in various cellular processes. Mutating a set of closely related GPCRs in a single strain permits the assignment of functions to GPCRs with functional redundancy. Our analyses identify a neuropeptide that interacts with three receptors in hypoxia-evoked locomotory responses, unveil a collection of regulators in pathogen-induced immune responses, and define receptors for the volatile food-related odorants. These results establish our GPCR and neuropeptide mutant libraries as valuable resources for the C. elegans community to expedite studies of GPCR signaling in multiple contexts. To overcome challenges posted by vast number of GPCR genes and redundancy, the authors disrupted nearly all GPCR-encoding genes in C. elegans, enabling effective examination of GPCR signaling and offering a valuable resource for the research community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grifola frondosa, an edible and medicinal resource, is widely used as functional foods worldwide. To explore bioactive compounds against α-glucosidase, human tumor cells and enterovirus 71 (EV71), eight compounds were isolated from G. frondosa by chromatographic column. Among the isolated compounds, heptadecanoic acid, uridine and adenosine exhibited potent inhibition activity against α-glucosidase, ergosterols and ergosterol-5,8-peroxide showed anti-proliferative activity on tumor cells, while ergosterol and methyl linoleate displayed inhibition against the replication of EV71. Also, to our knowledge, this is the first study to report that fatty acids isolated from G. frondosa show potent inhibition against α-glucosidase and EV71. Further molecular docking results revealed that the active compounds in G. frondosa form hydrogen bonding, hydrophobic interactive and π-stacking with the active sites on the surface of α-glucosidase, CASP3 and VP1 proteins, thus promoting the active compounds to combine with the target protein to form a stable complex, thus playing an antagonistic role. Our results could provide a new active compound and mode of action for G. frondosa to treat diabetes, cancer and EV71-infected patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Annual herbs are crucial components of sandy ecosystems and their community assembly in arid sandy dunes is an intuitive indicator of a degraded ecosystem's successful restoration. In sandy areas, biocrust and sand burial often co-occur, given the higher diversity and biomass of annual herbs where both factors co-occur than where either does alone. Yet our knowledge of the underlying mechanism is limited. Methods: A field survey was conducted to verify that the presence of biocrust and sand burial jointly promoted the assembly of herbs. And then controlled simulating experiments were conducted to investigate the individual and collective effects of three biocrusts (bare sand (control), cyanobacterial crust, and moss crust) and three depths (0 (control), 2.5, and 5 mm) of sand burial upon germination, growth of three annual herbs as well as the soil water and nutrition status in a revegetated area of the Tengger Desert. Results: Biocrust inhibited seed germination of the three annual herbs, but promoted their seedling growth. However, sand burial disrupted the inhibitory influence upon seed germination and strengthened the positive effects of biocrust on seedling growth of all species, by improving the availability of water and nutrients in upper soil. Conclusion: Mutual complementary effects of biocrust and sand burial promote the establishment, and overall recruitment success of annual herbs. This finding emphasizes the importance of buried disturbance of biocrust in plant community assembly processes, providing an approach to disentangle relationships between biocrust and vascular plants, and a new technique suggestion for ecological restoration in arid sandy areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TaiChi, a new multi-modality radiotherapy platform that integrates a linear accelerator, a focusing gamma system, and a kV imaging system within an enclosed O-ring gantry, was introduced into clinical application. This work aims to assess the technological characteristics and commissioning results of the TaiChi platform. The acceptance testing and commissioning were performed following the manufacturer's customer acceptance tests (CAT) and several AAPM Task Group (TG) reports/guidelines. Regarding the linear accelerator (linac), all applicable validation measurements recommended by the MPPG 5.a (basic photon beam model validation, intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT)/volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) validation, end-to-end(E2E) tests, and patient-specific quality assurance (QA)) were performed. For the focusing gamma system, the absorbed doses were measured using a PTW31014 ion chamber (IC) and PTW60016 diode detector. EBT3 films and a PTW60016 diode detector were employed to measure the relative output factors (ROFs). The E2E tests were performed using PTW31014 IC and EBT3 films. The coincidences between the imaging isocenter and the linac/gamma mechanical isocenter were investigated using EBT3 films. The image quality was evaluated regarding the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), spatial resolution, and uniformity. All tests included in the CAT met the manufacturer's specifications. All MPPG 5.a measurements complied with the tolerances. The confidence limits for IMRT/VMAT point dose and dose distribution measurements were achieved according to TG-119. The point dose differences were below 1.68% and gamma passing rates (3%/2 mm) were above 95.1% for the linac E2E tests. All plans of patient-specific QA had point dose differences below 1.79% and gamma passing rates above 96.1% using the 3%/2 mm criterion suggested by TG-218. For the focusing gamma system, the differences between the calculated and measured absorbed doses were below 1.86%. The ROFs calculated by the TPS were independently confirmed within 2% using EBT3 films and a PTW60016 detector. The point dose differences were below 2.57% and gamma passing rates were above 95.3% using the 2%/1 mm criterion for the E2E tests. The coincidences between the imaging isocenter and the linac/gamma mechanical isocenter were within 0.5 mm. The image quality parameters fully complied with the manufacturer's specifications regarding the CNR, spatial resolution, and uniformity. The multi-modality radiotherapy platform complies with the CAT and AAPM commissioning criteria. The commissioning results demonstrate that this platform performs well in mechanical and dosimetry accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers and a leading cause of death worldwide. Accurate prognosis prediction tools are urgently needed. While the use of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) as prognostic prediction tool has a clear potential. Methods: We established a comprehensive, negative enrichment-based strategy for CTCs analysis in patients with HCC, involving identification of epithelial CTCs (E-CTCs) and mesenchymal CTCs (M-CTCs) through specific biomarker. This strategy was performed in 127 HCC cases, 21 nonmalignant liver disease (NMLD) patients and 42 health control to analyze the relevance between CTCs and tumor recurrence. Results: The total CTC number and M-CTC percent were positively correlated with tumor malignancy and high recurrence risk. Individually, preoperative total CTC number and M-CTC percent could robustly distinguish relapse cases from those with no relapse, with sensitivity of 80.95% and 90.48%, specificity of 74.12% and 84.71%, respectively. Levels of preoperative total CTC number and M-CTC percent can both be regarded as independent risk factors for HCC with early recurrence (P = 0.0053, P < 0.0001), and are both significantly correlated with worse recurrence-free survival (RFS) (log rank P < 0.0001; HR 7.78, 95% CI = 3.59–16.87; log rank P < 0.0001; HR 24.4, 95% CI = 8.67–68.77). The levels of total CTC number and M-CTC number had higher effectiveness than alpha fetal protein (AFP) in HCC longitudinal supervision (77.78% vs 88.89% vs 22.22%). Conclusion: Preoperative and postoperative CTCs with higher effectiveness than AFP in prognosis prediction and recurrence supervision, indicating that CTCs could work as the biomarker for HCC clinical management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In applications based on a three-dimensional point cloud, massive point cloud data often brings processing difficulties. To deal with the problem, many point cloud sampling methods were proposed. But there are still some issues in these methods: (i) lack the consideration of geometric features and (ii) how to train the distribution of projected points by the observed coefficient effectively. This paper introduces a fine-tuned pointnet module, which extracts the geometric features of points and applies the offset-attention mechanism to enhance the feature expression ability. Furthermore, it corrects the positions of simplified points by a mutual supervision loss. The experimental results show our method can improve the effectiveness and robustness of the point cloud sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a priori and a posteriori error estimates of the tangential-displacement normal-normal-stress (TDNNS) method for linear elasticity problem with strongly symmetric stress tensors are proposed. The error estimator is established by decomposing the stress error into two components via the introduction of an auxiliary problem. The local efficiency of the error estimator is proved via bubble function techniques. Then, we derive a priori error estimates under minimal regularity. Classical methodologies rely on Galerkin orthogonality, which hinges on the well-defined trace variables on the inter-element boundaries. In order to circumvent the Galerkin orthogonality, an alternative methodology in the spirit of the medius analysis is established to prove the convergence error estimates for L 2 -error of stress, mesh-dependent energy error of displacement and L 2 -error of displacement. Several numerical experiments are presented to verify the performances of the proposed error estimator and confirm the convergence error estimates of the method especially for problems with low regularity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancements in instrumentations of next-generation synchrotron light sources, methodologies for small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)/wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) experiments have dramatically evolved. Such experiments have developed into dynamic and multiscale in situ characterizations, leaving prolonged exposure time as well as radiation-induced damage a serious concern. However, reduction on exposure time or dose may result in noisier images with a lower signal-to-noise ratio, requiring powerful denoising mechanisms for physical information retrieval. Here, we tackle the problem from an algorithmic perspective by proposing a small yet effective machine-learning model for experimental SAXS/WAXD image denoising, allowing more redundancy for exposure time or dose reduction. Compared with classic models developed for natural image scenarios, our model provides a bespoke denoising solution, demonstrating superior performance on highly textured SAXS/WAXD images. The model is versatile and can be applied to denoising in other synchrotron imaging experiments when data volume and image complexity is concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the finite-time synchronisation transmission of quantum signals between Jaynes-Cummings models is researched based on coupling technology. We first analyse the quantum properties of a Jaynes-Cummings model. Based on these, we achieve the finite-time synchronisation transmission of quantum signals between Jaynes-Cummings models and design the adaptive law of coupling coefficient. Finally, numerical simulations are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the analytical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the associations of plasma cystatin C with all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk and identified potential modifying factors affecting these associations in middle-aged and elderly people (≥ 50 years). This community-based prospective cohort study included 13,913 individuals aged ≥ 50 years from the Health and Retirement Study. Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate the associations between cystatin C concentrations and the risk of all-cause and cardiovascular and cancer mortality after adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle factors, self-reported medical history, and other potential confounding factors. During a total of 71,988 person-years of follow-up (median: 5.8 years; interquartile range 3.3–7.6 years), 1893 all-cause deaths were documented, including 714 cardiovascular-related and 406 cancer-related deaths. The comparisons of the groups with the highest (quartile 4) and lowest (quartile 1) cystatin C concentrations revealed that the adjusted hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were 1.92 (1.62–2.28) for all-cause mortality, 1.98 (1.48–2.65) for cardiovascular mortality, and 1.62 (1.13–2.32) for cancer mortality. The associations of cystatin C concentrations with all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality did not differ substantially when participants were stratified by sex, age, BMI, current smoking status, current alcohol consumption, and regular exercise (all P for interactions > 0.05). Our study indicates that an elevated plasma cystatin C concentration is associated with an increased risk of all-cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality both men and women among the middle-aged and elderly individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling flows in fractured porous media is important in applications. One main challenge in numerical simulation is that the flow is strongly influenced by the fractures, so that the solutions typically contain complex features, which require high computational grid resolutions. Instead of using uniformly fine mesh, a more computationally efficient adaptively refined mesh is desirable. In this paper we design and analyze a novel residual-type a posteriori error estimator for staggered DG methods on general polygonal meshes for Darcy flows in fractured porous media. The method can handle fairly general meshes and hanging nodes can be simply incorporated into the construction of the method, which is highly appreciated for adaptive mesh refinement. The reliability and efficiency of the error estmator are proved. The derivation of the reliability hinges on the stability of the continuous setting in the primal formulation. A conforming counterpart that is continuous within each bulk domain for the discrete bulk pressure is defined to facilitate the derivation of the reliability. Finally, several numerical experiments including multiple non-intersecting fractures are carried out to confirm the proposed theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The flexural wave propagation in a micro-beam mounted on viscoelastic foundation is considered in the present work. The mechanical behavior of the micro-beam is modeled by nonlocal strain gradient elasticity with the size-effects taken into account. The constraint is modeled by the Pasternak foundation with the rheology behavior modeled by fractional-order viscoelasticity. The main concerns are the dispersion and attenuation feature of five kinds of possible flexural waves derived from the governing equations of the presented micro-beam model. The influences of the nonlocal effects, strain gradient effects and the fractional-order viscoelastic effects are investigated by a parameter study in the numerical examples. This research is helpful for the design of micro-sensor, micro-actuator and energy-harvest devices in micro electric-mechanic system (MEMS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asymmetric mode transformation in waveguide is of great significance for on-chip integrated devices with one-way effect, while it is challenging to achieve asymmetric nonlinear-mode-conversion (NMC) due to the limitations imposed by phase-matching. In this work, we theoretically proposed a new scheme for realizing asymmetric NMC by combining frequency-doubling process and periodic PT symmetric modulation in an optical waveguide. By engineering the one-way momentum from PT symmetric modulation, we have demonstrated the unidirectional conversion from pump to second harmonic with desired guided modes. Our findings offer new opportunities for manipulating nonlinear optical fields with PT symmetry, which could further boost more exploration on on-chip nonlinear devices assisted by non-Hermitian optics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we propose and analyze a novel mixed DG scheme for stress-velocity formulation of the Stokes equations with arbitrary polynomial orders on simplicial meshes and the symmetry of stress is strongly imposed. The optimal convergence error estimates are proved for stress and velocity measured in L 2 errors. The primary difficulty is to prove L 2 error of stress, and standard techniques will lead to sub-optimal convergence error estimates. As such, some new ingredients are adopted to recover the optimal convergence rates. The proposed scheme is also extended to solve the Brinkman problem, aiming to get a uniformly robust scheme for both the Stokes and Darcy limits. Finally, several numerical experiments are carried out to verify the performances of the proposed scheme. In particular, the numerical results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is robust with respect to the values of the viscosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a novel clustering algorithm named CEABC (Comprehensively Enhanced Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm), enhanced by multiple operators including K-means, PSO and directed by Gbest mechanism is proposed, which can be used to solve clustering problem. In the initial stage, the algorithm uses K-means operator to generate the initial nectar source, which not only improves the quality of the initial nectar source, but also avoids the problem of low operating efficiency. In order to enhance the interaction between individuals, the concept of global optimum solution which can also be called Gbest is introduced, where the original one-dimensional information exchange is replaced by the full-dimensional information exchange among nectar sources, so that the information exchange volume of the whole swarm can be improved. In the phase of bee scouting, the above-mentioned global optimal solution is combined with PSO algorithm to generate a brand-new nectar source search method, which will enhance the ability of ABC algorithm to develop nectar sources. Meanwhile, the global optimal solution will continue to guide the bee scouting to generate new nectar sources so as to improve the overall quality of the nectar sources. Then, the experiment carried out on two sets of artificial data sets and four sets of UCI machine learning data sets which are the most representative verifies the clustering performance of the newly proposed CEABC algorithm. In addition, the experimental results are compared with standard ABC algorithm, several other newly proposed ABC-improved algorithms and classical clustering algorithms. Results clearly show that the novel ABC algorithm described in this paper has better accuracy and stability in solving clustering problems, which is a more effective clustering algorithm. We believe that clustering method for high-dimensional data can provide an effective method for data processing in materials, medical treatment, automatic driving and other application fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present and analyze a staggered discontinuous Galerkin method for Darcy flows in fractured porous media on fairly general meshes. A staggered discontinuous Galerkin method and a standard conforming finite element method with appropriate inclusion of interface conditions are exploited for the bulk region and the fracture, respectively. Our current analysis works on fairly general polygonal elements even in the presence of small edges. We prove the optimal convergence estimates in L 2 error for all the variables by exploiting the Ritz projection. Importantly, our error estimates are shown to be fully robust with respect to the heterogeneity and anisotropy of the permeability coefficients. Several numerical experiments including meshes with small edges and anisotropic meshes are carried out to confirm the theoretical findings. Finally, our method is applied in the framework of unfitted mesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time imaging of the tumour boundary is important during surgery to ensure that sufficient tumour tissue has been removed. However, the current fluorescence probes for bioimaging suffer from poor tumour specificity and narrow application of the imaging window used. Here, we report a bioactivated in vivo assembly (BIVA) nanotechnology, demonstrating a general optical probe with enhanced tumour accumulation and prolonged imaging window. The BIVA probe exhibits active targeting and assembly induced retention effect, which improves selectivity to tumours. The surface specific nanofiber assembly on the tumour surface increases the accumulation of probe at the boundary of the tumor. The blood circulation time of the BIVA probe is prolonged by 110 min compared to idocyanine green. The assembly induced metabolic stability broaden the difference between the tumor and background, obtaining a delayed imaging window between 8–96 h with better signal-to-background contrast (>9 folds). The fabricated BIVA probe permits precise imaging of small sized (<2 mm) orthotopic pancreatic tumors in vivo. The high specificity and sensitivity of the BIVA probe may further benefit the intraoperative imaging in a clinical setting. Fluorescence probes for detecting tumours during surgery can suffer from poor accumulation and short imaging windows. Here, the author develop fluorescence probes with multiple motifs that permit enhanced circulation times, tumour targeting and use the probes to image pancreatic cancer in mice [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All human being's ways of living, working and studying were significantly impacted by the Covid-19 in 2020. In China, the Ministry of Education reacted fast in ensuring that primary school students could learn online at home by promoting the Sky Class program from February 2020. Educators, parents, and students all faced the challenges of adapting to new online teaching and learning environments. In this small-scale case study, Sky Class's content and the participants' experiences, will be presented. Four primary school teachers and five primary school students and their parents participated in three-rounds of interviews sharing their perspectives and experiences of online learning. The study showed that the students gained more parental support and that they benefited from using multimedia functions, like replay, in their Sky Classes. However, the majority of participants reported that the students learnt less. By mapping the learning activities and themes from Sky Class against Cope and Kalantzis' e-learning ecologies, our study found that only ubiquitous learning and multimodal meaning were achieved. We suggest the reason may be that high cognitive learning was not achieved due to less teachers' supervision, lack of interaction, delayed feedback, shorter learning times and communication. In conclusion, innovative pedagogies, which can foster different types of learning from the e-learning ecologies may overcome the negative aspects reported about Sky Class. Further research is required for implementing online technology as a catalyst for educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human epidermal growth factor receptor (Her) family signaling has been linked to diverse cancers, which includes four members: Her1, Her2, Her3 and Her4 as well as a variety of homologous analogs; they share a similar kinase domain fold but exhibit different functions in the cell. Receptor-associated late transducer (RALT) is a natural feedback regulator of Her signaling. The protein binds at and disrupts the activation interface of Her kinase domains to inactivate the kinases. Considering that the kinase domains and active sites of all Her members are highly conserved, RALT would have a broad specificity and cross-reactivity over different Her kinases. Here, we created a systematic selectivity profile of seven RALT peptides against four Her kinases and thirteen other receptor tyrosine kinases (Rtks) by combining homology modeling, ligand grafting, affinity scoring and binding assay, aiming to give a molecular insight into the recognition specificity and promiscuity of RALT peptides across these Her/Rtk kinases. The created profile was analyzed at structural and energetic levels; most peptides have only a low or moderate selectivity that cannot effectively differentiate different kinases with a high recognition specificity, thus rendering a potential off-target effect. The off-target, on the one hand, may cause RALT-derived peptidic inhibitors with significant adverse reactions and, on the other hand, make these inhibitors as promising candidates for the new use of old drugs. To practice the latter, two RALT peptides Sgm1-p2 and Sgm2-p2 with high theoretical selectivity for a case Rtk kinase were identified in the profile, which were compared with cognate small-molecule inhibitors. Structural analysis revealed that Sgm1-p2 and Sgm2-p2 bind to the kinase in a spatially independent but functionally dependent manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preeclampsia (PE) is a serious complication of pregnancy. Exosomes are known to be upregulated in PE. In this study, we sought to investigate the effect of miR-486-5p from human placental microvascular endothelial cells, on the function of trophoblast cells. To investigate the function of human placental microvascular endothelial cell (HPVEC)-derived exosomes on trophoblast cells, HPVECs were treated with hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R). The separation efficiency of exosomes was determined by transmission electron microscopy, nanosight and Western blot. Cell Counting Kit-8, EdU staining, wound-healing, and transwell assay were performed to detect the effect of exosomally transferred miR-486-5p inhibitor on proliferation, migration and invasion of trophoblast cells. MiRDB and dual-luciferase report assay were used to find the target of miR-486-5p. Our data revealed that miR-486-5p was significantly upregulated in H/R-treated HPVEC-Exo, and miR-486-5p was enriched in HPVEC-Exo. miR-486-5p inhibitor carried by HPVEC-Exo significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of trophoblast cells. Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) was found to be the target of miR-486-5p, and IGF1 overexpression notably reversed the effect of miR-486-5p inhibitor from HPVEC-Exo on trophoblast cell function. In summary, H/R-treated HPVEC-derived exosomally expressing miR-486-5p inhibitor significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of trophoblast cells via downregulation of IGF1. The findings from the present study may be useful in the development of treatments for PE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blue mold decay is the one of most important postharvest disease of apples caused by the fungus, Penicillium expansum. This study aimed to investigate the biocontrol efficacy of the yeast, Wickerhamomyces anomalus, on postharvest blue mold decay of apples and the relative defense mechanisms. The results indicated that W. anomalus could significantly reduce the blue mold decay of apples, and the maximum inhibition was obtained when the concentration of W. anomalus was 1 × 108 cells ml−1. Furthermore, W. anomalus significantly reduced the fruit decay under ambient conditions, without generating any change in fruit quality. In vitro experiments showed that W. anomalus greatly inhibited the spore germination and germ tube elongation of P. expansum. Besides, its ease of adaptation, stable growth and potential colonization of in apple wounds or surfaces indicated that W. anomalus could compete with P. expansum for nutrients and space, leading to considerable inhibition blue mold decay. W. anomalus significantly induced the activities of polyphenol oxidase (PPO), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) in apples. Moreover, W. anomalus increased the contents of flavonoid and total phenols. All these results suggested that W. anomalus has potential biocontrol efficacy to control the postharvest blue mold decay of apples [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The orally available novel small molecule drug ZWF is under preclinical development for an anticancer purpose. The present study aimed to assess the viability of developing ZWF as a form of oral formulation for clinical application based on the principles of biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics. The crucial physicochemical properties of ZWF were determined by in vitro assays. The in situ gastrointestinal absorption characteristics and in vivo pharmacokinetic behaviors of ZWF in rats were characterized. The solubility of ZWF showed a highly pH-dependent profile, decreasing from 25,392.89 to 20.48 μg/mL as the solution pH increased from 1.0 to 5.8. In PBS with a pH of 1.0 to 5.8, the LogP value of ZWF ranged from −2.35 to 2.20 and was gradually increased as the pH value increased. ZWF was partially absorbed in the stomach, and the favorable absorption sites were the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. Pharmacokinetic studies showed that the AUC(0-t) and Cmax values of ZWF after its oral administration as a suspension prepared with 0.5% CMC-Na were increased by 18.97% and 40% than that with normal saline, providing a model oral formulation of ZWF with ideal bioavailability and system exposure in rats. From the perspective of oral absorption, ZWF possessed appealing qualities as a drug candidate and could be prepared as an oral preparation for clinical application. The present study has established a fundamental foundation for the development and quality evaluation of the ZWF oral formulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Main conclusion: The presence of Bacillus cereus plays a key role in clubroot suppression and improves plant biomass in pak choi. B. cereus is reported for the first time as a novel biocontrol agent against clubroot. Plasmodiophora brassicae Woronin causes a devastating infectious disease known as clubroot that is damaging to cruciferous vegetables. This study aimed to isolate beneficial bacteria from the rhizosphere soil of pak choi (Brassica campestris sp. chinensis) and to evaluate the ability of the isolate to reduce the severity of clubroot. Strains obtained from the rhizosphere of symptomless pak choi were first selected on the basis of their germination inhibition rate and effects on the viability of P. brassicae resting spores. Eight bacterial isolates had inhibitory effects against the resting spores of clubroot causing pathogen. However, MZ-12 showed the highest inhibitory effect at 73.4%. Inoculation with MZ-12 enhanced the plant biomass relative to plants grown without MZ-12 as well as P. brassicae infected plants. Furthermore, enhanced antioxidant enzymatic activities were observed in clubroot-infected plants during bacterial association. Co-inoculation of the plant with both P. brassicae and MZ-12 resulted in a 64% reduction of gall formation in comparison to plants inoculated with P. brassicae only. Three applications of MZ-12 to plants infected with P. brassicae at 7, 14 and 21 days after seeding (DAS) were more effective than one application and repressed root hair infection. According to 16S rDNA sequence analysis, strain MZ-12 was identified as had a 100% sequence similarity with type strain Bacillus cereus. The findings of the present study will facilitate further investigation into biological mechanisms of cruciferous clubroot control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although several trials have confirmed the treatment efficacy of induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) from endemic area of China, little is known about the best regime for induction chemotherapy in non-endemic region. This study compared the treatment effect of Gemcitabine and cisplatin (GP) versus docetaxel and cisplatin (TP) followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy in locoregionally advanced NPC from non-endemic area of China. Materials and methods: A total of 196 locoregionally advanced NPC patients were enrolled in this study, with 142 and 54 patients in TP and GP followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy groups. The primary endpoint was treatment response of induction chemotherapy. The secondary endpoints included disease-free survival. The Kaplan–Meier method was used to evaluate the efficacy between treatment groups. Results: The median follow-up time was 45.5 months (range: 6–60.5 months). During induction chemotherapy course, GP contributed higher treatment response rate than TP (68.1% vs. 47.1%, p = 0.007). Patients in GP group had better DFS and LRFS than those in TP group (3-year and 5-year DFS, 86.8% and 82.5% vs. 71.7% and 68%, p = 0.036; 3-year and 5-year LRFS, 96.2% and 96.2% vs. 90.5% and 82.8%, p = 0.03). No significant difference of adverse events was observed between two treatment groups in the whole course. Conclusion: This study suggested that GP followed by CCRT was better than TP followed by CCRT in improving survival outcomes of locoregionally advanced NPC patients from non-endemic area of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robust principal component analysis (RPCA) based methods via decomposition into low-rank plus sparse matrices offer a wide range of applications for image processing, video processing and 3D computer vision. Most of the time the observed imagery data is often arbitrarily corrupted by anything such as large sparse noise, small dense noise and other unknown fraction, which we call mixed noise in this paper. However, low rank matrix recovery by RPCA is born for the existence of large sparse noise, so its performance and applicability are limited in the presence of mixed noise. In this paper, a generalized robust principal component analysis with norm l 2 , 1 model is proposed to solve the problem of low-rank matrix recovery under mixed large sparse noise and small dense noise. The corrupted matrix is written as a combination that minimizes the nuclear norm, the 1-norm and the norm l 2 , 1 , which has high efficiency, flexibility and robustness for low rank matrix recovery from mixed noise. Then a novel and efficient algorithm called random permutation alternative direction of multiplier method is applied to solve the model. Experiments with simulations and real datasets demonstrate efficiency and robustness of this model and algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the effects of human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs) on the growth of gastric cancer cells in vivo and vitro and its mechanism. ASCs were isolated from abandoned adipose tissues, and the surface markers were identified by flow cytometry. In vitro experiments, HGC-27 cells cultured in ASCs-conditioned medium (CM) were assigned as the experimental group, while HGC-27 cells cultured in normal medium were as the control group. MTT and colony formation assays were performed to detect cell viability and colony formatting ability, respectively. Annexin-V/PI assay, Western blot, and caspase-3 enzyme activity assay were performed to detect cells apoptosis. The isolated ASCs could be differentiated into adipocytes and osteoblasts in vitro. Flow cytometry showed that CD73 and CD105 were positively expressed in HGC-27 cells. Compared with the mice injected HGC-27 cells only, the tumor formation in mice injected both ASCs and HGC-27 cells was significantly smaller (P < 0.05). The colony formation ability in experimental group was 40.09% smaller than control group (P < 0.05) and the cell apoptosis rate in experimental group was higher than the control group (P < 0.05). Furthermore, the expressions of cleaved PARP, cleaved caspase-3 proteins, and caspase-3 enzyme viability in experimental group were significantly higher than those of control group (P < 0.05). In conclusion, ASCs can effectively inhibit the growth of HGC-27 cells by inducing apoptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are widely considered critical for soil fertility in arid ecosystems. However, how microbial communities regulate the C and N cycles during BSC succession is not well understood. Methods: We utilized GeoChip 5.0 to analyze the functional potential of bacteria and fungi involved in the C and N cycles of BSCs along a 61-year revegetation chronosequence. Results: The normalized average signal intensities of different functional genes involved in C and N metabolism in 61-year-old BSCs were significantly different from those in younger BSCs and most functional gene subcategories and the corresponding dominant functional populations were derived from bacterial rather than fungal communities. Most C degradation genes (dominated by the starch-degrading gene amyA) were derived from Actinobacteria (mainly Streptomyces) in bacteria, but Ascomycota (mainly Aspergillus) was the key population for lignin degradation (dominated by the phenol oxidase gene) during BSC succession. N cycle genes involved in denitrification (such as narG, nirK/S, and nosZ) and N fixation (nifH) were mainly derived from Unclassified Bacteria, whereas genes involved in ammonification (ureC) were mainly derived from Streptomyces. Moreover, redundancy analysis showed that soil biogeochemical properties were closely related to bacterial and fungal functional gene structures during BSC succession. Conclusions: These findings indicate that bacteria play a crucial role in the regulation of C and N cycles during BSC succession in arid ecosystems, while fungi perform supplementary degradation of lignin, and these communities can successfully stimulate an increase in C and N metabolism in soil during the later successional stages of BSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To establish and validate a radiomics nomogram for prediction of induction chemotherapy (IC) response and survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients. Methods: One hundred twenty-three NPC patients (100 in training and 23 in validation cohort) with multi-MR images were enrolled. A radiomics nomogram was established by integrating the clinical data and radiomics signature generated by support vector machine. Results: The radiomics signature consisting of 19 selected features from the joint T1-weighted (T1-WI), T2-weighted (T2-WI), and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted MRI images (T1-C) showed good prognostic performance in terms of evaluating IC response in two cohorts. The radiomics nomogram established by integrating the radiomics signature with clinical data outperformed clinical nomogram alone (C-index in validation cohort, 0.863 vs 0.549; p < 0.01). Decision curve analysis demonstrated the clinical utility of the radiomics nomogram. Survival analysis showed that IC responders had significant better PFS (progression-free survival) than non-responders (3-year PFS 84.81% vs 39.75%, p < 0.001). Low-risk groups defined by radiomics signature had significant better PFS than high-risk groups (3-year PFS 76.24% vs 48.04%, p < 0.05). Conclusions: Multiparametric MRI-based radiomics could be helpful for personalized risk stratification and treatment in NPC patients receiving IC. Key Points: • MRI Radiomics can predict IC response and survival in non-endemic NPC. • Radiomics signature in combination with clinical data showed excellent predictive performance. • Radiomics signature could separate patients into two groups with different prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Penicillium digitatum is a mesophilic fungus belonging to the genus, Penicillium and a producer of citrinin. This mycotoxin is a secondary metabolite and its existence has been reported in several agricultural products. In this study, the effect of Rhodotorula mucilaginosa on the production of citrinin by P. digitatum and the degradation of citrinin in vitro was investigated. The effect of R. mucilaginosa was dependent on the type of media, yeast concentration, pH, and temperature. R. mucilaginosa degraded citrinin produced by P. digitatum and the toxin with a degradation rate of 91.67% and 91.61%, respectively compared to the control. The degradation of citrinin by R. mucilaginosa was significant in nutrient yeast dextrose broth compared to potato dextrose broth where it was fairly stable throughout the test period. The yeast concentration that showed better efficacy was 1 × 108 cells/mL with a degradation rate of 93.10% at 48 h. Numerically, degradation was highest at 28 °C with a pH 4.0 being the most favorable for citrinin degradation by R. mucilaginosa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant heat shock transcription factors (Hsfs) are important regulators of heat shock signal transduction pathway. There are 30 members of the Hsf family in maize, only two of which, ZmHsf06 and ZmHsf12, belong to subclass A1. Our previous work demonstrated that ZmHsf06-overexpressing Arabidopsis lines showed improved tolerance to heat and drought stresses. In this study, we isolated ZmHsf12 from young leaves of maize (Zea mays L.) using homologous cloning methods. The CDS (coding sequence) of ZmHsf12 is 1,494 bp and encodes a putative protein consisting of 497 amino acids which possesses domains such as DBD (DNA-binding domain), OD (oligomerization domain), NLS (nuclear localization signal), NES (nuclear export signal), and an AHA (activator) motif. The ZmHsf12-GFP fusion protein is localized to the cell nucleus. ZmHsf12 was expressed in many maize organs, and its expression was up-regulated by heat shock. Furthermore, we characterized the function of ZmHsf12 in yeast and Arabidopsis. Yeast cells overexpressing ZmHsf12 showed enhanced heat tolerance. ZmHsf12-overexpressing Arabidopsis seedlings displayed significant increases in both basal and acquired thermotolerance. Compared to WT seedlings, the ZmHsf12-overexpressing lines displayed both increased chlorophyll contents and higher survival rates. Also, the expression of AtHsps was increased higher in the ZmHsf12-overexpressing Arabidopsis lines after heat stress. The results of our study strongly suggested that ZmHsf12 may take part in plant response to heat stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, robust principal component analysis (RPCA) and low-rank matrix completion (LRMC), as two very important optimization problems with the view of recovering original low-rank matrix from sparsely and highly corrupted observations or a subset of its entries, have already been successfully adopted in image denoising, video processing, web search, biological information, etc. This paper proposes an efficient and effective algorithm, named the alternating direction and step size minimization (ADSM) algorithm, which employs the alternating direction minimization idea to solve the general relaxed model that can describe small noise (e.g., Gaussian noise). The coupling of sparse noise and small noise makes low-rank matrix recovery more challenging than that of RPCA. We make use of Taylor expansion, singular value decomposition and shrinkage operator as the alternating direction minimization method to deduce iterative direction matrices. A continuous technology is incorporated into ADSM to accelerate convergence. Similarly, the Taylor expansion and step size minimization (TESM) algorithm for LRMC is designed by the above way, but the alternating direction minimization idea needs to be ruled out since there is not a sparse matrix in it. Theoretically, it is proved that the two algorithms globally converge to their respective optimal points based on some conditions. The numerical results are reported, illustrating that ADSM and TESM are quite efficient and effective for recovering large-scale low-rank matrix problems at many cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of huge search space in drug design, machine learning has become a powerful method to predict the affinity between small molecular drug and targeting protein with the development of artificial intelligence technology. However, various machine learning algorithms including massive different parameters make the prediction framework choice to be quite difficult. In this work, we took a recent drug design competition (from XtalPi company on the DataCastle platform) as the typical case to find the optimized parameters for different machines learning algorithms and the most effective algorithm. After the parameter optimizations, we compared the typical machine learning methods as decision tree (XGBoost, LightGBM) and artificial neural network (MLP, CNN) with root-mean-square error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination (R2) evaluation. As a result, decision tree is more effective than the neural network as LightGBM>XGBoost>CNN>MLP in the affinity prediction of the specific drug design problem with ~160000 samples. For a much larger screening task in a more complicated drug design study, the sophisticated neural network model may go beyond the decision tree algorithm after generalization enhancing and overfitting reducing. The advanced machine learning methods could extract more information of protein-ligand bindings than traditional ones and improve the screen efficiency of drug design up to 200–1000 times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer cells exhibit altered and usually increased metabolic processes to meet their high biogenetic demands1,2. Under these conditions, ammonia is concomitantly produced by the increased metabolic processing. However, it is unclear how tumour cells dispose of excess ammonia and what outcomes might be caused by the accumulation of ammonia. Here we report that the tumour suppressor p53, the most frequently mutated gene in human tumours, regulates ammonia metabolism by repressing the urea cycle. Through transcriptional downregulation of CPS1, OTC and ARG1, p53 suppresses ureagenesis and elimination of ammonia in vitro and in vivo, leading to the inhibition of tumour growth. Conversely, downregulation of these genes reciprocally activates p53 by MDM2-mediated mechanism(s). Furthermore, the accumulation of ammonia causes a significant decline in mRNA translation of the polyamine biosynthetic rate-limiting enzyme ODC, thereby inhibiting the biosynthesis of polyamine and cell proliferation. Together, these findings link p53 to ureagenesis and ammonia metabolism, and further reveal a role for ammonia in controlling polyamine biosynthesis and cell proliferation. p53 regulates the metabolism of ammonia by repressing genes of the urea cycle that function to eliminate excess ammonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is caused by the narrowing of arteries that work to provide blood, nutrients, and oxygen to the myocardial tissue. The worldwide epidemic of IHD urgently requires innovative treatments despite the significant advances in medical, interventional, and surgical therapies for this disease. Angiogenesis is a physiological and pathophysiological process that initiates vascular growth from pre-existing blood vessels in response to a lack of oxygen. This process occurs naturally over time and has encouraged researchers and clinicians to investigate the outcomes of accelerating or enhancing this angiogenic response as an alternative IHD therapy. Therapeutic angiogenesis has been shown to revascularize ischemic heart tissue, reduce the progression of tissue infarction, and evade the need for invasive surgical procedures or tissue/organ transplants. Several approaches, including the use of proteins, genes, stem/progenitor cells, and various combinations, have been employed to promote angiogenesis. While clinical trials for these approaches are ongoing, microvesicles and exosomes have recently been investigated as a cell-free approach to stimulate angiogenesis and may circumvent limitations of using viable cells. This review summarizes the approaches to accomplish therapeutic angiogenesis for IHD by highlighting the advances and challenges that addresses the applicability of a potential pro-angiogenic medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionic liquids have developed and been applied in lubricant field since 2001. Nevertheless, it is little known about novel dicationic ionic liquids for tribology applications in the past several years. In this paper, a sequence of novel dicationic ionic liquids based on 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane cations (DABCO) and different anions have been designed and identified. The structures of ILs were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra, multinuclear (1H, 13C, 11B, 31P and 19F) magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. The effects of anion type on thermal properties, wettability, kinematic viscosity and tribological properties were studied. It is found that all of these dicationic ionic liquids as additives exhibit excellent anti-wear and friction-reducing properties in PEG synthetic base oil under boundary lubrication conditions for steel-to-steel contact, which offers great potential for the highly efficient lubricant additives. Simultaneously, novel 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane cation offers an exceptional chance for the research and development of dicationic ionic liquids in various applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]