Search

The thermal conductivities of both suspended and supported few-layer graphene (FLG) were investigated via molecular dynamics simulations. The results indicate that the thermal conductivity of a suspended FLG sample decreases by 3.9% from 511.2 W m ^−1 K ^−1 upon an increase in the number of layers from 1 to 20 layers, whereas it increases by 5.5% to 486.8 W m ^−1 K ^−1 in the case of supported FLG specimens on a smooth crystalline silicon surface. Both trends converge when the number of layers is higher than five. The effects of the substrate roughness on the supported FLG samples were also investigated. The results show that their thermal conductivity on a rough silicon surface is lower than that on a smooth silicon surface. In order to demonstrate the importance of interfacial coupling on the phonon transport properties, the coupling strength parameter was enhanced by a factor of 3 or 10 to see the influence on the thermal conductivity. The simulations show that the thermal conductivity decreases with an increasing coupling strength. Lastly, the phonon dispersion of a two-layer graphene specimen was calculated by varying the interlayer coupling strength. The calculations show that the coupling strength is mainly influenced by the out-of-plane phonon dispersion relation. The frequency of flexural acoustic (ZA’) phonons around the center of the first Brillouin zone increases significantly from 2.14 to 6.78 THz when the interlayer coupling strength is enhanced by a factor of 10. This may decrease the phonon group velocity and provide more scattering channels, and thus reduce the thermal conductivity.

Relying on the experimental data, by using the theory of error control and function approximation to establish new wet and dry bulb coefficientÂ(v, ta). Through searching method and Iterative approximation, it finds an approximation function whose figure is closer to "experimental data" than previous one did. Hence, it increases the measurement accuracy of relative humidity by the wet and dry bulb method under the condition of the relative humidity in the range of 10℃≤t≤70℃, air flow rate 0.1m/s≤v≤4m/s, and relative humidity 30%≤U≤90%.

Activation of TLR7 and TLR9 by endogenous RNA- or DNA-containing ligands, respectively, can lead to hyper-activation of immune cells, including macrophages and DCs, subsequently contributes to the pathogenesis of SLE. CD180, a TLR-like protein, is specifically involved in the development and activation of immune cells. Our previous study and others have reported that CD180-negative B cells are dramatically increased in SLE patients and responsible for the production of auto-antibodies. However, the mode of CD180 expression on macrophages and DCs in SLE remains unclear and the role of CD180 on regulating TLR7- and TLR9-mediated activation of macrophages and DCs are largely unknown. In the present study, we found that the percentages of CD180-negative macrophages and DCs were both increased in SLE patients and lupus-prone MRL/lpr mice compared with healthy donors and wild-type mice, respectively. Notably, ligation of CD180 significantly inhibited the activation of TLR7 and TLR9 signaling pathways in macrophages and DCs through the Lyn-SHP-1/2 axis. What's more, injection of anti-CD180 Ab could markedly ameliorate the lupus-symptoms of imiquimod-treated mice and lupus-prone MRL/lpr mice through inhibiting the activation of macrophages and DCs. Collectively, our results highlight a critical role of CD180 in regulating TLR7- and TLR9-mediated activation of macrophages and DCs, hinting that CD180 can be regarded as a potential therapeutic target for SLE treatment.

The traditional routing protocols for delay tolerant networks (DTN) usually take the strategy of spreading multiple copies of one message to the networks. When one copy reaches destination, the transmission of other copies not only waste the bandwidth but also deprive other messages of the opportunities for transmission. This paper brings up a mechanism to eliminate the redundant copies. By adding an acknowledge field to the packet header to delete redundant copies, it can degrade the network overhead while improve the delivery ratio. Simulation results confirm that the proposed method can improve the performance of epidemic and Spray and Wait routing protocol.

Oilseed rape straw (ORS) is a kind of biorefractory waste widely existing in the rural area of China, which is highly suitable to mix with kitchen waste (KW) and duck droppings (DD) in two-phase anaerobic digestion (AD). This research introduced the importance of KW and DD addition to improve the biogas production and biodegradation of ORS. A set of comparative experiments were conducted on two-phase mono- and co-digestion with organic load of 60 g VS/L. The total methane yield (TMY) and the biodegradation of ORS of co-digestions were obviously improving, and the synergistic effect found in the two-phase co-digestions. The optimum mixing ratio of ORS, KW and DD was 50:40:10, and the corresponding TMY and VS degradation rate of ORS were 374.5 mL/g VS and 49.7%, respectively. Addition of KW and DD maintained the pH within the optimal range for the hydrolyzing-acidification, improved the phase separation and buffering capacity of AD system.

Up to 10% of cytosolic proteins are dependent on the mammalian heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) for folding. However, the interactors of its endoplasmic reticulum (ER) paralogue (gp96, Grp94 and HSP90b1) has not been systematically identified. By combining genetic and biochemical approaches, we have comprehensively mapped the interactome of gp96 in macrophages and B cells. A total of 511 proteins were reduced in gp96 knockdown cells, compared to levels observed in wild type cells. By immunoprecipitation, we found that 201 proteins associated with gp96. Gene Ontology analysis indicated that these proteins are involved in metabolism, transport, translation, protein folding, development, localization, response to stress and cellular component biogenesis. While known gp96 clients such as integrins, Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and Wnt co-receptor LRP6, were confirmed, cell surface HSP receptor CD91, TLR4 pathway protein CD180, WDR1, GANAB and CAPZB were identified as potentially novel substrates of gp96. Taken together, our study establishes gp96 as a critical chaperone to integrate innate immunity, Wnt signaling and organ development.

With the rapid development of marine IoT (Internet of Things), ocean MDTN (Mobile Delay Tolerant Network) has become a research hot spot. Long-term trajectory prediction is a key issue in MDTN. There are no long-term fine-grained trajectory prediction methods proposed for ocean vessels because a vessel’s mobility pattern lacks map topology support and can be easily influenced by the fish moratorium, sunshine duration, etc. A traditional on-land trajectory prediction algorithm cannot be directly utilized in this field because trajectory characteristics of ocean vessels are far different from that on land. To address the problem above, we propose a novel long-term trajectory prediction algorithm for ocean vessels, called L-VTP, by utilizing multiple sailing related parameters and K-order multivariate Markov Chain. L-VTP utilizes multiple sailing related parameters to build multiple state-transition matrices for trajectory prediction based on quantitative uncertainty analysis of trajectories. Trajectories’ sparsity of ocean vessels results in a critical state missing problem of a high-order state-transition matrix. L-VTP automatically traverses other matrices in a specific sequence in terms of quantitative uncertainty results to overcome this problem. Furthermore, the different mobility models of the same vessel during the day and the night are also exploited to improve the prediction accuracy. Privacy issues have been taken into consideration in this paper. A quantitative model considering Markov order, training metadata and privacy leak degree is proposed to help the participant make the trade-off based on their customized requirements. We have performed extensive experiments on two years of real-world trajectory data that include more than two thousand vessels. The experiment results demonstrate that L-VTP can realize fine-grained long-term trajectory prediction with the consideration of privacy issues. The average error of 4.5-hour fine-grained prediction is less than 500 m. In addition, the proposed method can be extended to 10-hour prediction with an average error of 2.16 km, which is also far less than the communication range of ocean vessel communication devices.

Cobalt-rich manganese crusts (CRCs) are important as a potential mineral source that could occur throughout the Pacific on seamounts, ridges, and plateaus. We built a prototype parametric acoustic probe to complete the task of in-situ thickness measurements to estimate the volumetric distribution of deep-sea mineral. The prototype is designed with dual-channels for receiving the primary and secondary signal, which lays a foundation for improving the thickness extraction algorithm. Considering that the signal quality is degraded by the system interference and ambient noise, some improvements to the algorithm are proposed by including the wavelet-based envelope extraction method and the adaptive estimation strategy based on the dual-channel information. Additionally, wavelet regression is applied to reduce the measuring noise assuming that the CRCs have local thickness invariability. The algorithm is suitable for the CRCs with the structure of the multilayers at the top surface and one single layer at the bottom surface. A laboratory experiment is performed to validate the effectiveness of the algorithm. The experiments carried out on the China Ocean 51th voyage in the Western Pacific Ocean on Aug 30, 2018, are described and the data obtained by using the sit-on-bottom stationary measurement are processed to validate the design of the prototype.

Photovoltaic (PV) power is attracting more and more concerns. Power output prediction, as a necessary technical requirement of PV plants, closely relates to the rationality of power grid dispatch. If the accuracy of power prediction in PV plants can be further enhanced by forecasting, stability of power grid will be improved. Therefore, a 1-h-ahead power output forecasting based on long-short-term memory (LSTM) networks is proposed. The forecasting output of the model is based on the time series of 1-h-ahead numerical weather prediction to reveal the spatio-temporal characteristic. The comprehensive meteorological conditions, including different types of season and weather conditions, were considered in the model, and parameters of LSTM models were investigated simultaneously. Analysis of prediction result reveals that the proposed model leads to a superior prediction performance compared with traditional PV output power predictions. The accuracy of output power prediction is enhanced by 3.46−13.46%.

Bactrocera minax (Enderlein) (Diptera: Tephritidae) is an important citrus pest in Asia with a non-uniform distribution. In some locations, it had been reported to occur but was either eradicated or disappeared itself. To understand species dispersal of B. minax, we collected and analyzed 359 individuals from 18 localities in China. One mitochondrial DNA gene fragment (nad4) was used to investigate the genetic diversity and population genetic structure of B. minax. The populations were divided by phylogenetic analyses and statistical parsimony haplotype networks into three branches: a Central China (CC) branch, a Western China (WC) branch, and a Southern China (SC) branch. A total of 93 variable sites (15.6% of the 595 bp alignment) and 91 unique haplotypes were observed in the 359 individuals scored from the nad4 gene of the 18 B. minax populations. This indicated that B. minax had a high level of genetic diversity. These populations also showed a discrete distribution in both the scatter plots of genetic versus geographical distance for pairwise population comparisons and the median-joining network of haplotypes, which revealed the strong genetic structure of B. minax.

This study was aimed to determine the extent of association between network-level pavement condition and seasonal and annual weather variations. Pavement condition data recorded in the Texas Department of Transportation’s Pavement Management Information System (PMIS) database between 2000 and 2008 was highlighted. Meteorological data collected at different districts across the whole state were used in the explanatory variables. Dynamic panel data analysis was used in the deterioration models to quantify the effects of temperature and precipitation variations on pavement conditions. Based on the statistical implication from the model estimation results, significant correlations were identified between pavement conditions, the average monthly rainfall, and the average monthly temperature recorded 1 to 23 months prior to pavement condition inspection.

Sleeping scheme is one of the key means of saving energy for wireless sensor network. However, existing MAC protocols for underwater sensor network (UWSN) mainly focus on maximizing throughput but ignore sleeping schemes. Moreover, in existing sleeping schemes nodes wake up rapidly, which will loss the life of hardware, waste en-ergy to open/close circuits, and increase collision probability. So, a tree topology based sleeping algorithm for UWSN was proposed, which utilizes the special characteristics of underwater acoustic channel. This algorithm could reduce wakeup frequency, prolong sleeping time and keep the end to end delay from being affected by sleeping time. This algo-rithm has no collision and no channel reservation and its usability and capability have been verified by simulation meth-ods.

Vibration and dynamic stress caused by the interaction between the fluid and the structure can affect the reliability of pumps. This study presents an investigation of internal flow field and the structure response of residual heat removal pump using a combined calculation for turbulent flow, and the structure response of rotor was first defined using a two-way coupling method. For the calculation, the flow field is based on the shear stress transport k–ω turbulence model and the structure response is determined using an elastic structural dynamic equation. The results show that the domain frequencies of pressure fluctuations of monitors on the outlet of impeller are the integer multiples of rotating shaft frequency ( f n ) and the amplitude of the relatively large pressure fluctuation peak is the lowest under the design flow rate operating condition. Meanwhile, the time-average radial force value at the design flow rate condition is the smallest and the hydraulic force magnitude at the maximum operating flow rate condition is the largest, and phase difference can be clearly seen among the results obtained under different flow rates. Furthermore, the relatively large stress of rotor for all operating conditions is the biggest at shaft shoulder where the bearing is installed, and it increases with flow rate.

Grp94 and Hsp90 are the ER and cytoplasmic paralog members, respectively, of the hsp90 family of molecular chaperones. The structural and biochemical differences between Hsp90 and Grp94 that allow each paralog to efficiently chaperone its particular set of clients are poorly understood. The two paralogs exhibit a high degree of sequence similarity, yet also display significant differences in their quaternary conformations and ATPase activity. In order to identify the structural elements that distinguish Grp94 from Hsp90, we characterized the similarities and differences between the two proteins by testing the ability of Hsp90/Grp94 chimeras to functionally substitute for the wild-type chaperones in vivo. We show that the N-terminal domain or the combination of the second lobe of the Middle domain plus the C-terminal domain of Grp94 can functionally substitute for their yeast Hsp90 counterparts but that the equivalent Hsp90 domains cannot functionally replace their counterparts in Grp94. These results also identify the interface between the Middle and C-terminal domains as an important structural unit within the Hsp90 family.

Interactions between C-C chemokine receptor types 2 (CCR2) and 5 (CCR5) and their ligands, including CCL2 and CCL5, mediate fibrogenesis by promoting monocyte/macrophage recruitment and tissue infiltration, as well as hepatic stellate cell activation. Cenicriviroc (CVC) is an oral, dual CCR2/CCR5 antagonist with nanomolar potency against both receptors. CVC's anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic effects were evaluated in a range of preclinical models of inflammation and fibrosis.Monocyte/macrophage recruitment was assessed in vivo in a mouse model of thioglycollate-induced peritonitis. CCL2-induced chemotaxis was evaluated ex vivo on mouse monocytes. CVC's antifibrotic effects were evaluated in a thioacetamide-induced rat model of liver fibrosis and mouse models of diet-induced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and renal fibrosis. Study assessments included body and liver/kidney weight, liver function test, liver/kidney morphology and collagen deposition, fibrogenic gene and protein expression, and pharmacokinetic analyses.CVC significantly reduced monocyte/macrophage recruitment in vivo at doses ≥20 mg/kg/day (p < 0.05). At these doses, CVC showed antifibrotic effects, with significant reductions in collagen deposition (p < 0.05), and collagen type 1 protein and mRNA expression across the three animal models of fibrosis. In the NASH model, CVC significantly reduced the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease activity score (p < 0.05 vs. controls). CVC treatment had no notable effect on body or liver/kidney weight.CVC displayed potent anti-inflammatory and antifibrotic activity in a range of animal fibrosis models, supporting human testing for fibrotic diseases. Further experimental studies are needed to clarify the underlying mechanisms of CVC's antifibrotic effects. A Phase 2b study in adults with NASH and liver fibrosis is fully enrolled (CENTAUR Study 652-2-203; NCT02217475).

Aimed at underwater acoustic sensor networks(UWSN),a novel sender based conflict model with the schemes of allocating continuous time was presented,including local conflict graph(LCG)and a distribute algorithm to generate LCG.Moreover,CT-TDMA,an efficient TDMA protocol based on the conflict model was also proposed,which used heuristic priority rules to allocate transmitting moments for all nodes.CT-TDMA exploits the diversity of propagation delay of different links in UWSN to decrease the idle time between packets at the same receiving node,which helps in improving the throughput.And a heuristic schedule algorithm is applied to shorten the process of allocating continuous time for each node.Simulation results show that,compared with traditional TDMA protocols such as ST-MAC,network throughput of CT-TDMA has increased 20% and end to end delay has decreased 18%;compared to the theoretically optimal scheme with global knowledge,CT-TDMA has achieved 80% network throughput and the end to end delay is only 12% longer.

TDMA protocols have attracted a lot of attention for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWSNs), because of the unique characteristics of acoustic signal propagation such as great energy consumption in transmission, long propagation delay and long communication range. Previous TDMA protocols all allocated transmission time to nodes based on discrete time slots. This paper proposes an efficient continuous time scheduling TDMA protocol (ECS) for UWSNs, including the continuous time based and sender oriented conflict analysis model, the transmission moment allocation algorithm and the distributed topology maintenance algorithm. Simulation results confirm that ECS improves network throughput by 20% on average, compared to existing MAC protocols.

Underwater acoustic sensor networks (UWA-SNs) are envisioned to perform monitoring tasks over the large portion of the world covered by oceans. Due to economics and the large area of the ocean, UWA-SNs are mainly sparsely deployed networks nowadays. The limited battery resources is a big challenge for the deployment of such long-term sensor networks. Unbalanced battery energy consumption will lead to early energy depletion of nodes, which partitions the whole networks and impairs the integrity of the monitoring datasets or even results in the collapse of the entire networks. On the contrary, balanced energy dissipation of nodes can prolong the lifetime of such networks. In this paper, we focus on the energy balance dissipation problem of two types of sparsely deployed UWA-SNs: underwater moored monitoring systems and sparsely deployed two-dimensional UWA-SNs. We first analyze the reasons of unbalanced energy consumption in such networks, then we propose two energy balanced strategies to maximize the lifetime of networks both in shallow and deep water. Finally, we evaluate our methods by simulations and the results show that the two strategies can achieve balanced energy consumption per node while at the same time prolong the networks lifetime.

Beta (1-3)-D-glucans were identified almost 40 years ago as biological response modifiers that stimulated tumor rejection. In vitro studies have shown that beta-glucans bind to a lectin domain within complement receptor type 3 (CR3), or to, more recently described dectin-1 a beta-glucan specific receptor, acting mainly on phagocytic cells. In this study, we assessed the intracellular cytokine profiles of peripheral blood lymphocytes from mice bearing mammary tumors receiving i.v. anti-tumor mAbs combined or not with whole glucan particle suspension given orally (WGP, 400 microg every 24 hours). The proportions of T cells producing IL-4 and IFNgamma were determined by flow cytometry. The proportion of T cells producing IL-4 was significantly higher in tumor-bearing mice not receiving beta-glucan-enhanced therapy. Conversely, T cells from mice undergoing beta-glucan-enhanced therapy showed increased production of the Th1 cytokine IFNgamma. The switch from a Th2 to a Th1 response after WGP therapy was possibly mediated by intestinal mucosal macrophages releasing IL-12.

The hydraulic performances as well as the cavitation phenomena in a scaled residual heat removal pump were investigated by experimental and numerical methods, respectively. In particular, a 3D numerical model of cavitation was adopted to simulate the internal cavitating flow through the model pump. The hydraulic performances of the model pump predicted by numerical simulations were in good agreement with the corresponding experimental data. The main generation and evolution of attached cavitation throughout the blade channels at different cavitating conditions have been investigated using the vapor fraction ISO surface and in-plane velocity vectors. Results show that the low static pressure at the impeller inlet is the main reason for leading edge cavitation by correlation analysis of static pressure on the midspan of impeller. Cavitation proved to occur over a wide range of flow rates, producing a characteristic creeping shape of the head-drop curve and developing in the form of nonaxisymmetric cavities at design flow rate. Moreover, the occurrence of these cavities, attached to the suction surface of blades, was found to depend on the NPSHA value. Numerical and experimental results in this paper can provide better understanding of the origin of leading edge cavitation in residual heat removal pumps.

Leucine-rich-repeat-containing G-protein-coupled receptor 5 (lgr5) is a candidate marker for colorectal cancer stem cells (CSC). In the current study, we investigated the methylation status within thelgr5 promoter and evaluated its relationship with CSC differentiation, prognosis for colorectal cancer, and its clinicopathological features.The methylation status within Lgr5 promoter was detected with a methylation-specific PCR in six colorectal cancer cell lines as well as 169 primary colorectal tumor tissues. Differentiation of CSC was examined with immunofluorescence and immunocytochemistry. Down-regulation of lgr5 was achieved with gene-specific siRNA. The associations between lgr5 methylation and the clinicopathological features as well as survival of patients were analyzed with statistical methods.The lgr5 promoter was methylated to different degrees for the six colorectal cell lines examined, with complete methylation observed in HCT116 cells in which the lgr5 expression was partially recovered following DAC treatment. The stem-cell sphere formation from HCT116 cells was accompanied by increasing methylation within the lgr5 promoter and decreasing expression of lgr5. Knocking down lgr5 by siRNA also led to stem-cell spheres formation. Among primary colorectal tumors, 40% (67/169) were positive for lgr5 methylation, while none of the normal colon tissues were positive for lgr5 methylation. Furthermore, lgr5 methylation significantly associated with higher tumor grade, and negative distant metastasis (p < 0.05), as well as better prognosis (p = 0.001) in patients with colorectal cancer.Our data suggests that lgr5 methylation, through the regulation of lgr5 expression and colorectal CSC differentiation, may constitute a novel prognostic marker for colorectal cancer patients.

Centrifugal charging pumps are important components of nuclear power plants and must be operated under multioperating conditions for the requirements of the system. In order to investigate the internal flow mechanism of the centrifugal charging pump during the transient transition process of charging operating from Q = 34 m 3 /h to Q = 110 m 3 /h, numerical simulation and experiment are implemented in this study. The relationship between flow rate and time is obtained from the experiment and worked as the boundary condition to accurately accomplish the numerical simulation during the transient process. External and internal characteristics under the variable operating conditions are analyzed through the transient simulation. The results show that the liquid viscosity, large scale vortexes exist in the flow passages in the beginning of the variable operating conditions, which indicates flow separation and the sudden changes in direction of velocity. As the flow rate increases gradually, the flow angles of the fluid in inlet accelerate correspondingly and the flow along the blade is more uniform, which leads to a decrease and movements of the vortexes. The contents of the current work can provide references for the design optimization and fluid control of the pump used in the transient process of variable operating conditions.

Data collection is an important procedure of ocean monitoring systems. Due to limited bandwidth and extreme high cost of satellite communication, the majority of data is unable to transmit via satellites. For the moment, there are no efficient data collection methods provided for data collection in underwater sensor networks. After collecting and analyzing GPS data of 40 ships for two months, we find the mobility pattern of ships. On the basis of the mobility pattern, we propose a new data collection strategy for underwater sensor networks through delay tolerant routing. Through simulations and real data analysis, we provide quantitative analysis of the proposed strategy, such as data collection ratio, complexity of the algorithm and energy consumption. Especially, the data collection ratio on real data analysis could reach 95%–100% in acceptable time, which is 30% more than the radio of the strategy that data stored as they come.

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) is a serious problem in China. While there have been some studies on the nationwide genotyping of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), there has been little detailed research in Beijing, the capital of China, which has a huge population. Here, M. tuberculosis clinical strains collected in Beijing during 2009 were genotyped by classical methods. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Our aim was to analyze the genetic diversity of M. tuberculosis strains within the Beijing metropolitan area. We characterized these strains using two standard methods, spoligotyping (n = 1585) and variable number of tandem repeat (VNTR) typing (n = 1053). We found that the most prominent genotype was Beijing family genotype. Other genotypes included the MANU, T and H families etc. Spoligotyping resulted in 137 type patterns, included 101 unclustered strains and 1484 strains clustered into 36 clusters. In VNTR typing analysis, we selected 12-locus (QUB-11b, MIRU10, Mtub21, MIRU 23, MIRU39, MIRU16, MIRU40, MIRU31, Mtub24, Mtub04, MIRU20, and QUB-4156c) and named it 12-locus (BJ) VNTR. VNTR resulted in 869 type patterns, included 796 unclustered strains and 257 strains clustered into 73 clusters. It has almost equal discriminatory power to the 24-locus VNTR. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our study provides a detailed characterization of the genotypic diversity of M. tuberculosis in Beijing. Combining spoligotyping and VNTR typing to study the genotyping of M. tuberculosis gave superior results than when these techniques were used separately. Our results indicated that Beijing family strains were still the most prevalent M. tuberculosis in Beijing. Moreover, VNTR typing analyzing of M. tuberculosis strains in Beijing was successfully accomplished using 12-locus (BJ) VNTR. This method used for strains genotyping from the Beijing metropolitan area was comparable. This study will not only provide TB researchers with valuable information for related studies, but also provides guidance for the prevention and control of TB in Beijing.

Galectin-3 protein is critical to the development of liver fibrosis because galectin-3 null mice have attenuated fibrosis after liver injury. Therefore, we examined the ability of novel complex carbohydrate galectin inhibitors to treat toxin-induced fibrosis and cirrhosis. Fibrosis was induced in rats by intraperitoneal injections with thioacetamide (TAA) and groups were treated with vehicle, GR-MD-02 (galactoarabino-rhamnogalaturonan) or GM-CT-01 (galactomannan). In initial experiments, 4 weeks of treatment with GR-MD-02 following completion of 8 weeks of TAA significantly reduced collagen content by almost 50% based on Sirius red staining. Rats were then exposed to more intense and longer TAA treatment, which included either GR-MD-02 or GM-CT-01 during weeks 8 through 11. TAA rats treated with vehicle developed extensive fibrosis and pathological stage 6 Ishak fibrosis, or cirrhosis. Treatment with either GR-MD-02 (90 mg/kg ip) or GM-CT-01 (180 mg/kg ip) given once weekly during weeks 8-11 led to marked reduction in fibrosis with reduction in portal and septal galectin-3 positive macrophages and reduction in portal pressure. Vehicle-treated animals had cirrhosis whereas in the treated animals the fibrosis stage was significantly reduced, with evidence of resolved or resolving cirrhosis and reduced portal inflammation and ballooning. In this model of toxin-induced liver fibrosis, treatment with two galectin protein inhibitors with different chemical compositions significantly reduced fibrosis, reversed cirrhosis, reduced galectin-3 expressing portal and septal macrophages, and reduced portal pressure. These findings suggest a potential role of these drugs in human liver fibrosis and cirrhosis.

The spatial separation of the transmitter and receiver in Bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar (BiSAR) makes it a promising and useful supplement to a classical Monostatic SAR system (MonoSAR). This paper proposes a novel integrated time and phase synchronization strategy for a multichannel spaceborne-stationary BiSAR system. Firstly, the time synchronization strategy is proposed, which includes Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF) generation under noisy conditions, multichannel calibration and the alignment of the recorded data with the orbital data. Furthermore, the phase synchronization strategy, which fully considers the deteriorative factors in the BiSAR configuration, is well studied. The contribution of the phase synchronization strategy includes two aspects: it not only compensates the phase error, but also improves the Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) of the obtained signals. Specifically, all direct signals on different PRF time can be reconstructed with the shift and phase compensation operation using a reference signal. Besides, since the parameters of the reference signal can be estimated only once using the selected practical direct signal and a priori information, the processing complexity is well reduced. Final imaging results with and without compensation for real data are presented to validate the proposed synchronization strategy.

Accelerometers have been widely embedded in most current mobile devices, enabling easy and intuitive operations. This paper proposes a Motion Gesture Recognition system (MGRA) based on accelerometer data only, which is entirely implemented on mobile devices and can provide users with real-time interactions. A robust and unique feature set is enumerated through the time domain, the frequency domain and singular value decomposition analysis using our motion gesture set containing 11,110 traces. The best feature vector for classification is selected, taking both static and mobile scenarios into consideration. MGRA exploits support vector machine as the classifier with the best feature vector. Evaluations confirm that MGRA can accommodate a broad set of gesture variations within each class, including execution time, amplitude and non-gestural movement. Extensive evaluations confirm that MGRA achieves higher accuracy under both static and mobile scenarios and costs less computation time and energy on an LG Nexus 5 than previous methods.

Patients coinfected with HIV-1 and HCV develop more rapid liver fibrosis than patients monoinfected with HCV. HIV RNA levels correlate with fibrosis progression implicating HIV directly in the fibrotic process. While activated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) express the 2 major HIV chemokine coreceptors, CXCR4 and CCR5, little is known about the pro-fibrogenic effects of the HIV-1 envelope protein, gp120, on HSCs. We therefore examined the in vitro impact of X4 gp120 on HSC activation, collagen I expression, and underlying signaling pathways and examined the in vivo expression of gp120 in HIV/HCV coinfected livers.Primary human HSCs and LX-2 cells, a human HSC line, were challenged with X4 gp120 and expression of fibrogenic markers assessed by qRT-PCR and Western blot +/- either CXCR4-targeted shRNA or anti-CXCR4 neutralizing antibody. Downstream intracellular signaling pathways were evaluated with Western blot and pre-treatment with specific pathway inhibitors. Gp120 immunostaining was performed on HIV/HCV coinfected liver biopsies.X4 gp 120 significantly increased expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin (a-SMA) and collagen I in HSCs which was blocked by pre-incubation with either CXCR4-targeted shRNA or anti-CXCR4 neutralizing antibody. Furthermore, X4 gp120 promoted Extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) 1/2 phosphorylation and pretreatment with an ERK inhibitor attenuated HSC activation and collagen I expression. Sinusoidal staining for gp120 was evident in HIV/HCV coinfected livers.X4 HIV-1 gp120 is pro-fibrogenic through its interactions with CXCR4 on activated HSCs. The availability of small molecule inhibitors to CXCR4 make this a potential anti-fibrotic target in HIV/HCV coinfected patients.

Behavior is among the most dynamic animal phenotypes, modulated by a variety of internal and external stimuli. Behavioral differences are associated with large-scale changes in gene expression, but little is known about how these changes are regulated. Here we show how a transcription factor (TF), ultraspiracle (usp; the insect homolog of the Retinoid X Receptor), working in complex transcriptional networks, can regulate behavioral plasticity and associated changes in gene expression. We first show that RNAi knockdown of USP in honey bee abdominal fat bodies delayed the transition from working in the hive (primarily "nursing" brood) to foraging outside. We then demonstrate through transcriptomics experiments that USP induced many maturation-related transcriptional changes in the fat bodies by mediating transcriptional responses to juvenile hormone. These maturation-related transcriptional responses to USP occurred without changes in USP's genomic binding sites, as revealed by ChIP-chip. Instead, behaviorally related gene expression is likely determined by combinatorial interactions between USP and other TFs whose cis-regulatory motifs were enriched at USP's binding sites. Many modules of JH- and maturation-related genes were co-regulated in both the fat body and brain, predicting that usp and cofactors influence shared transcriptional networks in both of these maturation-related tissues. Our findings demonstrate how "single gene effects" on behavioral plasticity can involve complex transcriptional networks, in both brain and peripheral tissues.

The differentiation of embryonic stem cells is initiated by a gradual loss of pluripotency-associated transcripts and induction of differentiation genes. Accordingly, the detection of differentially expressed genes at the early stages of differentiation could assist the identification of the causal genes that either promote or inhibit differentiation. The previous methods of identifying differentially expressed genes by comparing different cell types would inevitably include a large portion of genes that respond to, rather than regulate, the differentiation process. We demonstrate through the use of biological replicates and a novel statistical approach that the gene expression data obtained without prior separation of cell types are informative for detecting differentially expressed genes at the early stages of differentiation. Applying the proposed method to analyze the differentiation of murine embryonic stem cells, we identified and then experimentally verified Smarcad1 as a novel regulator of pluripotency and self-renewal. We formalized this statistical approach as a statistical test that is generally applicable to analyze other differentiation processes.