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The explosive growth of content requests from mobile users is stretching the capability of current mobile networking technologies to satisfy users’ demands with acceptable quality of service. An effective approach to address this challenge, which has not yet been thoroughly studied, is to offload network traffic by caching popular content at the edges (e.g., mobile devices and base stations) of mobile networks, thus reducing the massive duplication of content downloads. In this paper, we address the system modeling, large-scale optimization, and framework design of hierarchical edge caching in device-to-device aided mobile networks. In particular, taking into account the analysis of social behavior and preference of mobile users, heterogeneous cache sizes, and the derived system topology, we investigate the maximum capacity of the network infrastructure in terms of offloading network traffic, reducing system costs, and supporting content requests from mobile users locally. Our proposed framework has a low complexity and can be applied in practical engineering implementation. Trace-based simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

The evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and their adoption in new generation intelligent systems has generated a huge demand for wireless bandwidth. This bandwidth problem is further exacerbated by another characteristics of IoT applications, i.e., IoT devices are usually deployed in massive number, thus leading to an awkward scenario that many bandwidth-hungry devices are chasing after the very limited wireless bandwidth within a small geographic area. As such, cognitive radio has received much attention of the research community as an important means for addressing the bandwidth needs of IoT applications. When enabling IoT devices with cognitive functionalities including spectrum sensing, dynamic spectrum accessing, circumstantial perceiving, and self-learning, one will also need to fully study other critical issues such as standardization, privacy protection, and heterogeneous coexistence. In this article, we investigate the structural frameworks and potential applications of cognitive IoT. We further discuss the spectrum-based functionalities and heterogeneity for cognitive IoT. Security and privacy issues involved in cognitive IoT are also investigated. Finally, we present the key challenges and future direction of research on cognitive-radio-based IoT networks.

Background: Nuclear factor of activated T cells, cytoplasmic 1 (NFATc1) as a key transcription factor contributes to osteoclast differentiation and bone resorption. However, the post-transcriptional mechanisms of microRNAs (miRNAs) targeted to NFATc1 have not been completely clarified in postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO). In our study, we aimed to investigate the role of miR-193-3p in ovariectomy (OVX)-induced bone loss by regulating the NFATc1 pathway. Methods: Female C57BL/6J mice underwent sham or OVX operation. Injection of Agomir-Control or Agomir-miR-193-3p was performed in OVX mice. Serum, urine and tibia were collected for experimental measurements, including biochemical markers, RT-qPCR and western blotting assays. Results: We identified NFATc1 as a direct target of miR-193-3p. Up-regulation of NFATc1 and down-regulation of miR-193-3p were found in the tibia of OVX mice. Gain-of-function of miR-193-3p resulted in the reduction of NFATc1 mRNA and protein expression in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, injection of Agomir-miR-193-3p markedly ameliorated OVX-induced Ca(2+) dyshomeostasis and bone loss by inhibiting the expression of NFATc1 and its downstream targets of osteoclast-specific genes, Ctsk, TRAP and Car2. Conclusion: Overexpression of miR-193-3p had an osteoprotective effect in OVX mice by suppressing NFATc1 pathways.

Anion exchange membranes (AEMs) are the cores of electrodialysis (ED) desalination devices, which have attracted wide attention in recent years. However, the influence of the ions distribution of AEMs on ED performances has not been well explored, which is strongly instructive to design the ED AEMs. Here we synthesized two kinds of side-chain-ionic AEMs QPAES-a and QPAES-b, and main-chain-ionic AEM QPAES-c. To uncover the relationship between the AEMs structures and properties, these AEMs were characterized with 1H NMR and FTIR, and evaluated in terms of ion exchange capacity, water uptake, swelling ratio, λ, conductivity and transport number. Especially, we used NaCl aqueous solution to simulate seawater to investigate the ED performances of the synthesized AEMs by 180 min of ED processes. To distinguish our AEMs, the ED performance of commercial TWEDAI was similarly tested for comparison. The results confirmed that the ED performance with a lowest final conductivity of 430 μS·cm−1 of the main-chain-ionic QPAES-c is much better than that of TWEDAI and the side-chain-ionic AEMs. The ED performance stability tests convinced that QPAES-c had ED lifetime comparable to that of TWEDAI. These results show that the main-chain-ionic AEMs have their potential as ED AEMs.

Due to the complexity, diversity, or even small size of train bottom parts, the current object detection algorithm cannot identify it accurately. We propose a new method to solve the above problem. This method changes the computational way of loss based on Darknet-yolov3 for specific train bottom parts and improves the situation that the object detection network has low accuracy in detecting. IoU(Intersection over Union) can be directly used as a regression loss. However, IoU has a plateau making it infeasible to optimize in the case of nonoverlapping bounding boxes. We put forward XIoU to calculate the loss function. XIoU calculates the case when IoU is equal to zero and increases the amount of prediction sample for regression loss. The test set used the No.2 camera pictures provided by railway administration. Compared with Mobile-Net, Yolov3 and Yolov3-giou, the experimental results showed that the training results of XIoU were 10% higher than Mobile-Net and Yolov3 on mAP, and 0.2% higher than Yolov3-giou.

With the rapid development of Internet of Things(IoT), concurrent multi-band digital predistortion(DPD) forthe nonlinear power amplifier become an effective way to save spectrum and power resources. Traditional DPD method for multi-band increases the number of feedback loops to sample bands at different carrier frequencies, greatly increasing the hardware cost. To simplify the IoT system structure, a single feedbackpath with an under-sampling technique for multi-band digital predistortion has been proposed, but linear performance will deteriorate if too much peak power information is lost after under-sampling. To solve those problems, a novel architecture for tri-band digital predistortion is proposed. In the single feedback structure, twosampling signals are obtained by using two time synchronization ADCs with co-prime under-sampling factors. Theoriginal signals can be reconstructed with recover algorithm to calculate the tri-band predistortion coefficients. The proposed method performs well both in the aspect of hardware complexity and linearization capability. The experimental results show that the proposed method still achieves sufficient performance at a very small sampling rate.

The appropriate composite ratio of cationic polymer and gene is fundamental but paramount determinant for efficient gene condensation. In this study, we proposed to construct a novel strategy to comprehensively understand gene condensation situation by using the pyrene (Py) modified polyethylenimine as fluorescent self-reporter, owing to the unique monomer and excimer fluorescence of Py groups highly depending on their intermolecular interval. Constant with the traditional measurements for polymer-gene complex including gel retardation analysis, DLS, ζ-potential, and TEM, the typical curve of fluorescence intensity ratio at I380/I490 was verified to easily have an insight into the gene condensing process, and further recommend the appropriate range of N/P ratio (the ratios of moles of the amine groups of cationic polymers to those of the phosphate ones of DNA) for enhancing gene delivery. Thus, the facilely fabricated fluorescigenic cationic polymer based on an unique excimer-monomer switch could be used as an novel fluorescent self-reporter for comprehensively discerning the gene condensation, which may provide a feasible way to improving the optimal gene encapsulation for efficient and safe gene delivery.

In a pricing-based spectrum trading market, an interesting issue is to study how secondary users make their selections in a rational manner when there are available spectrum of different qualities in the market. In this case, primary systems inherently require a precise pricing strategy to maximize their profits especially when the secondary users selection preferences are not uniform nor predictable during the dynamic access. In this paper, we propose a novel spectrum pricing mechanism for primary systems by taking into account the selection preferences of heterogeneous secondary users and quality diversity of leased spectrum caused by different interference levels and channel fading characteristics. Our work mainly focuses on exploring the optimal pricing solution in the case that the selection preference of secondary buyers is stochastic. In the proposed system model, the spectrum to be leased is divided into a series of uniform subchannels of various qualities for spectrum trading. We analyze the impact of secondary users' preference on spectrum trading and propose an iterative algorithm for spectrum pricing by introducing the Hotelling model to describe the relationship between the spectrum diversity and the primary system's utility. Proofs of the integrability of the utility function and existence of Nash equilibrium used in the proposed algorithm are provided. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed pricing method in improving the primary system's profits. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Accepted version

This paper investigates joint user association (UA) and user scheduling (US) for load balancing over the downlink of a wireless heterogeneous network by formulating a network-wide utility maximization problem. In order to efficiently solve the problem, we first approximate the nonconvex throughput achieved with US to a concave function, and demonstrate that the gap for such an approximation approaches zero when the number of users is sufficiently large. Then, by exploiting a distributed convex optimization technique known as alternating direction method of multipliers , a joint UA and US algorithm, which can be implemented on each user’s side and base station (BS)’s side separately, is proposed to obtain the single-BS association and resource allocation solutions. A remarkable feature of the proposed algorithm is that apart from load balancing, multiuser diversity is exploited in the association process to further improve system performance. We also extend the algorithm design to multi-BS association, whereby a user is associated with multiple BSs. The simulation results show the superior performance of the proposed algorithms and underscore the significant benefits of jointly exploiting multiuser diversity and load balancing.

Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is the most potent neuroprotective agent tested in cellular and animal models of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, CNS delivery of GDNF is restricted by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Using total body irradiation as transplant preconditioning, we previously reported that hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation (HSCT)-based macrophage-mediated gene therapy could deliver GDNF to the brain to prevent degeneration of nigrostriatal dopamine (DA) neurons in an acute murine neurotoxicity model. Here, we validate this therapeutic approach in a chronic progressive PD model – the MitoPark mouse, with head shielding to avoid inducing neuroinflammation and compromising BBB integrity. Bone marrow HSCs were transduced ex vivo with a lentiviral vector expressing macrophage promoter-driven GDNF and transplanted into MitoPark mice exhibiting well developed PD-like impairments. Transgene-expressing macrophages infiltrated the midbrains of MitoPark mice, but not normal littermates, and delivered GDNF locally. Macrophage GDNF delivery markedly improved both motor and non-motor symptoms, and dramatically mitigated the loss of both DA neurons in the substantia nigra and tyrosine hydroxylase-positive axonal terminals in the striatum. Our data support further development of this HSCT-based macrophage-mediated GDNF delivery approach in order to address the unmet need for a disease-modifying therapy for PD.

Platelets are traditionally considered to be essential components of primary hemostasis. Recent investigations have revealed that platelets can be activated in patients with sepsis and are implicated in the development of sepsis and sepsis-induced-acute kidney injury (SAKI). In the present study, ticagrelor was used to induce a mouse model of SAKI by cecal ligation and puncture. It was found that ticagrelor could inhibit platelet activity, decrease the levels of interleukin-1β and serum creatinine, reduce infiltration of neutrophils in renal tissue, and attenuate cell apoptosis in the kidney. The results suggested that ticagrelor could protect renal function by inhibiting inflammation, recruitment of neutrophils into the kidney, and cell apoptosis in renal tissue. Thus, the findings might provide new strategies for preventing SAKI.

The severe dissolution of the cathode catalyst, caused by an undesired oxygen reduction reaction at the anode during startup and shutdown, is a fatal challenge to practical applications of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. To address this important issue, according to the distinct structure-sensitivity between the σ-type bond in H2 and the π-type bond in O2, we design a HD-Pt/TiN material by highly dispersing Pt on the TiN surface to inhibit the unwanted oxygen reduction reaction. The highly dispersed Pt/TiN catalyst exhibits excellent selectivity toward hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction reactions. With a Pt loading of 0.88 wt %, our catalyst shows excellent hydrogen oxidation reaction activity, close to that of commercial 20 wt % Pt/C catalyst, and much lower oxygen reduction reaction activity than the commercial 20 wt % Pt/C catalyst. The lack of well-ordered Pt facets is responsible for the excellent selectivity of the HD-Pt/TiN materials toward hydrogen oxidation and oxygen reduction reac...

Herein, a new sandwich-type electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor was established on the dual-roles of tetragonal rutile TiO2 mesocrystals (TRM) to realize the sensitive detection of zearalenone (ZEA). On the one hand, the poly (amidoamine) dendrimers (PAAD)-functionalized TRM, combining the advantages of hyper-branched of PAAD and the high nanoporosity, large surface area of TRM, was served as the sensing matrix to immobilize enough capturing antibody, realizing the signal amplification. On the other hand, TRM was applied as an effective probe platform to absorb Ru (bpy)32+ and simultaneously immobilize the secondary antibody (Ab2). Here, based on the superior properties of TRM and the new bridge of 4-Mercaptophenylboronic acid (4-MPBA) for the high affinity of Ab2 and TRM, a strong and stable ECL emission was realized. Additionally, cysteamine first emerging as a blocker was proved to sensitize the ECL response of Ru (bpy)32+, which further amplified the ECL signal, avoiding addition of exogenous coreactants into testing solution. Finally, the sandwich-type ECL immunosensor enabled the real samples detection of ZEA with a lower detection limit and wider linear range.

Recently, for satisfying users’ various mobile Internet service requests for data exchange anytime and anywhere even in their moving vehicles, the generated mobile data traffic has been rapidly increasing and has become a serious burden on current cellular networks. To partially address such a serve challenge, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) have emerged as an effective approach for enhancing vehicular services and applications by equipping vehicles with wireless and processing capabilities. In this paper, we survey the recent advances in the data offloading techniques through VANETs. Particularly, based on the communication patterns among vehicles and infrastructures, we classify these techniques into three categories, i.e., data offloading through vehicle-to-vehicle communications, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, and vehicle-to-everything communications. Besides, we present a detailed taxonomy of the related techniques by discussing the pros and cons for various offloading techniques for different problems in VANETs. Finally, some opening research issues and challenges are outlined to provide guidelines for future research work.

Recently, due to the increasing popularity of enjoying various multimedia services on mobile devices (e.g., smartphones, ipads, and electronic tablets), the generated mobile data traffic has been explosively growing and has become a serve burden on mobile network operators. To address such a serious challenge in mobile networks, an effective approach is to manage data traffic by using complementary technologies (e.g., small cell network, WiFi network, and so on) to achieve mobile data offloading. In this paper, we discuss the recent advances in the techniques of mobile data offloading. Particularly, based on the initiator diversity of data offloading, we classify the existing mobile data offloading technologies into four categories, i.e., data offloading through small cell networks, data offloading through WiFi networks, data offloading through opportunistic mobile networks, and data offloading through heterogeneous networks. Besides, we show a detailed taxonomy of the related mobile data offloading technologies by discussing the pros and cons for various offloading technologies for different problems in mobile networks. Finally, we outline some opening research issues and challenges, which can provide guidelines for future research work.

Flaxseed oil is a rich source of n-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid which has been identified as having significant cardioprotective effects. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of partial replacement of lard with flaxseed oil on atherosclerosis and investigate the underlying mechanisms. Apolipoprotein-E knockout mice were given a normal chow diet, a lard based western-type high-fat diet (WTD), or a WTD with partial replacement of lard with 10% flaxseed oil (w/w) for 16 weeks, respectively. Results demonstrated that partial replacing of lard with flaxseed oil significantly ameliorated atherosclerosis, as well as improved lipid abnormalities, oxidative stress, and inflammation. These data were associated with modification effects on expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism (SREBP-2, HMGCR, SREBP-1c, and ACC), oxidative stress (NADPH oxidase), and inflammation (TNF-α, IL-6, MCP-1, and VCAM-1). Our data providing evidence that flaxseed oil could be a promising functional food in cardiovascular health promotion.

The cortical-thalamostriatal pathway constitutes the cortico-basal ganglia circuit and plays a critical role in the control of movement. Emerging evidence shows that center median/parafascicular (CM/Pf) neurons are lost in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with motor deficits and CM/Pf neurons send massive and topographically organized projections to specific regions of the dorsal striatum, but provide only minor inputs to the cerebral cortex. However, anatomical connectivity in the cortical-thalamostriatal pathway are poorly understood at present. In the present study, we used a neural tracing method with adeno-associated virus (AAV) to monitor the cortical-thalamostriatal connectivity in rats. We found that parafascicular nucleus (PF) not only project directly to the striatum but send minor inputs to the cortical regions. It was manifested by green fluorescent protein (GFP) expressing fibers observed in dorsolateral striatum (DLS) and the primary motor cortex (M1) after adeno-associated virus serotype 2/9 (AAV2/9)-GFP injection into PF and GFP expressing cells observed in PF after injection AAV2/retro-GFP into M1. And the PF also receive projections from the DLS and it was demonstrated by GFP expressing fibers in PF after AAV2/9-GFP injection into DLS and GFP expressing cells in DLS after injection AAV2/retro-GFP into PF. Histological and behavioral analysis revealed that AAV vector transduction cause damage in neurons on the injection sites and also damage motor activity of rats suggesting caution in clinical application.

Acute ischemic stroke damages the regional brain blood vessel (BV) network. Acute recovery of basic blood flows, which is carried out by the earliest regenerated BVs, are critical to improve clinical outcomes and minimize lethality. Although the late-regenerated BVs form via growing along the meninge-derived ingrown lymphatic vessels (iLVs), mechanisms underlying the early, acute BV regeneration remain elusive. Using zebrafish cerebrovascular injury models, we show that the earliest regenerated BVs come from lymphatic transdifferentiation, a hitherto unappreciated process in vertebrates. Mechanistically, the LV-to-BV transdifferentiation occurs exclusively in the stand-alone iLVs through Notch activation. In the track iLVs adhered by late-regenerated BVs, transdifferentiation never occurs because the BV-expressing EphrinB2a paracellularly activates the iLV-expressing EphB4a to inhibit Notch activation. Suppression of LV-to-BV transdifferentiation blocks acute BV regeneration and becomes lethal. These results demonstrate that acute BV regeneration occurs via lymphatic transdifferentiation, suggesting this process and key regulatory molecules EphrinB2a/EphB4a/Notch as new postischemic therapeutic targets.

In this work, AEMs based on poly(arylene ether sulfone)s skeletons were tailored with three kinds of hydrophobic components: biphenol (BP) with conjugate double benzene rings , bisphenol A (BPA) containing isolated double benzene rings and fluorene-9-bisphenol (FBP) with Cardo ring skeleton of four benzene rings. A series of quaternized poly(arylene ether sulfone)s (QPAES) membranes were fabricated successfully including QPAES-BP, QPAES-BPA and QPAES-FBP. The obtained membranes were applied in diffusion dialysis (DD) process of simulated waste acid (1.0 mol L-1 HCl and 0.2 mol L-1 FeCl2) to figure out the influence of hydrophobic structures on DD performance. The dialysis coefficients ( U H + ) were in the range from 12.13 × 10-3 m h-1 to 13.28 × 10-3 m h-1, while the separation factors (S) were in the range from 67.33 to 126.37. The resultant membranes show much better performance compared with the commercial TWDDA1 membrane ( U H + = 8.5 × 10-3 m h-1, S = 18.5). Interestingly, the membrane structures and properties revealed that the rigid aromatic component induced low water swelling, strong mechanical property and microphase separation, the nature of the structure offers high U H + as well as high S. The results show that the fabricated membranes are potential candidates for the acid recovery in diffusion dialysis, especially the QPAES-BP membrane tuned with rigid linear conjugated hydrophobic component.

Objective We have reported the presence of discogenic visceral pain secondary to anterior herniation of the lumbar disc. The aim of this study was to observe the inflammatory response of the sympathetic trunk to an autologous degenerative nucleus pulposus (NP) injection under fluoroscopy. Methods A total of 72 rats were used. In 24 rats, the autologous NP suspension was injected into the right sympathetic trunk. Next, food intake and body weight of each rat were monitored for 14 days. Fourteen days after the injection, the right lumbar sympathetic trunk was harvested for histological assessment, and protein levels of IL-1 β, IL-6, and TNF-α were quantified via ELISA. Results In the NP-treated group, endoneural hyperemia and intensive infiltration of inflammatory cells could be identified in sections of the sympathetic trunk by the hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain. Meanwhile, elevated concentrations of IL-1 β, IL-6, and TNF-α were determined in the sympathetic trunk of the NP group as compared to that of the naïve and control groups, which indicated the development of an inflammatory response. Furthermore, food intake and body weight of rats in the NP group decreased significantly. Conclusions The results indicated that an inflammatory response in the sympathetic trunk can be caused by anterior herniation of the lumbar disc, which can generate a sympathetic inflammatory pain response.

To deal with the explosive growth in multimedia service requests in mobile networks, caching contents at the cells (base stations) is regarded as an effective emerging technique to reduce the duplicated transmissions of content downloads, while heterogeneous networks (HetNets) are regarded as an effective technique to increase the network capacity. Yet, the combination of content caching and HetNets for future networks (i.e., 5G) is still not well explored. In this paper, we propose an efficient collaborative multi-tier caching framework in Het-Nets. In particular, based on patterns of user requests, link capacities, heterogenous cache sizes, and the derived system topology, we focus on exploring the maximum capacity of the network infrastructure so as to offload the network traffic and support users’ content requests locally. Due to the NP-hardness of the complex multi-tier caching problem, we approximately decompose it into some subproblems that focus on the caching cooperation at different tiers by utilizing the derived system topology. Our proposed framework is low-complexity and distributed, and can be used for practical engineering implementation. Trace-based simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Hexyl-modified series-connected bipyridine and 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) di-cations functionalized anion exchange membranes (QPPO-DP and QPPO-DABCO respectively) for electrodialysis (ED) were prepared via reactions of brominated poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) and the self-designed quaternization agents containing mono-ionic bipyridine and DABCO moieties. These agents are precursors to the combinations of different di-cations and hydrophobic side chains. QPPO-DP (thickness: 95 μm) and QPPO-DABCO (thickness: 70 μm) with similar functionalization degrees were characterized in terms of ion exchange capacity (IEC), water uptake (WU), swelling ratio (SR), thermal and mechanical stabilities, morphology, area resistance ( R m ), transport number ( t - ) and limiting current density. QPPO-DP and QPPO-DABCO give IECs of 2.27 and 2.63 mmol g−1 respectively owing to the different unit masses of the di-cations. The conjugated aromatic bicyclic structure of bipyridine di-cations offers QPPO-DP higher WU than that of QPPO-DABCO. The relatively weaker hydrophilicity of DABCO di-cations ensures QPPO-DABCO moderate WU, superior R m and t - (2.77 Ω cm2 and 0.949). Thus, QPPO-DABCO displays more excellent ED performances than those of commercial AMX under the same ED conditions, including current efficiency of 89.58%, salt flux of 81.39 mg m−2 s−1 and reasonable energy consumption of 1.76 kWh kg−1 NaCl, revealing its potential in ED application.

We developed a series of anti-fouling anion exchange membranes (AEMs) by in-situ interpenetration of an ionomer of N-methylimidazole ionizing poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (IM-QPPO) to lateralized gradient cross-linked hydrogel of Ca-Na alginate (CA). The CA surfaces repel negative-charged organic pollutants because of their inherent hydrophilicity and electronegative property. SEM and EDX characterizations reveal that the micron-sized anti-fouling CA layers are bonded firmly with the ionomer bulk by the interpenetration. The anti-fouling AEMs have qualified basic properties of thermal stability, water uptake and swelling ratio, area resistance and permselectivity for electrodialysis (ED) processes. IM-QPPO-0.10CA with optimal interpenetrating structure exhibits the highest current efficiency (η) of 88.88% and the lowest energy consumption (EC) of 2.53 kWh kg−1 NaCl among the group, which are comparable to those of commercial AMX (η = 89.38%, EC = 2.20 kWh kg−1 NaCl). IM-QPPO-0.10CA shows the strongest anti-fouling ability, which is confirmed by the lowest ascent speed of transmembrane voltage and no irreversible membrane-structure damages during the fouling tests. Moreover, the fouled IM-QPPO-0.10CA recovers 99.60% of the origin η value with an EC increase of 0.10 kWh kg−1 NaCl after immersion in NaCl solution. The properties of IM-QPPO-0.10CA are promising for the application of anti-fouling ED AEMs.

Computational ghost imaging is difficult to apply under low sampling rate. We propose high-speed computational ghost imaging based on an auto-encoder network to reconstruct images with high quality under low sampling rate. The auto-encoder convolutional neural network is designed, and the object images can be reconstructed accurately without labeled images. Experimental results show that our method can greatly improve the peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity of the test samples, which are up to 18 and 0.7, respectively, under low sampling rate. Our method only needs 1/10 of traditional deep learning samples to achieve fast and high-quality image reconstruction, and the network also has a certain generalization to the gray-scale images.

Two experiments were conducted to determine the performance and ileal amino acid digestibility in growing male broilers fed diets containing solid-state fermented canola meal (SSFCM) and enzyme-supplemented canola meal (CM). In experiment 1 (performance trial), a total of 300-day-old Ross 308 male broiler chicks were allotted to six dietary treatments with five replicate pens of 10 birds each. Diet 1 was based on corn-soybean meal (SBM) as reference, diets 2 and 3 contained 300 g/kg CM and 300 g/kg SSFCM, respectively. Diet 4 contained 300 g/kg CM + phytase (PHY). Diet 5 contained 300 g/kg CM + xylanase (XYL). Diet 6 contained 300 g/kg CM + PHY + XYL. PHY at 500 FTU/kg and XYL at 1000 U/kg were added to the respective diets. During the experimental period (1–21 d), birds fed SBM and SSFCM diets recorded improved FI (p

Several types of salts coexist in biomass and eutectic melting often occurs during combustion. The effect of eutectic melting on evaporation of salts is not well understood. The objective of this study is to investigate the interaction of two typical salts–potassium chloride (KCl) and potassium sulphate (K2SO4)–and the effect of eutectic melting on evaporation of KCl. Firstly, different potassium and their respective amounts in agro-stalks and their ashes were analyzed using X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), and simultaneous thermogravimetric analyzer (STA). Then, the melting and evaporation behaviors of potassium salts were investigated using STA and evaporation rates of KCl in mixtures of KCl + K2SO4 as well as in agro-stalks ashes were calculated. Results show that KCl and K2SO4 (K3Na(SO4)2) are the main species of potassium, accountings for about 13% of agro-stalks ashes formed at low temperature. The evaporation rate of KCl is significantly inhibited by K2SO4 via decreasing vapor pressure of KCl due to eutectic melting. Its evaporation rate is approximately proportional to partial pressure of KCl in mixture of KCl + K2SO4, and the calculation using this partial pressure agrees well with experiment.

Cervical cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer mortality in women worldwide. High-risk human papillomavirus infection is a major cause of cervical cancer. A previous study revealed the role of different oncogenes and tumor suppressors in cervical cancer initiation and progression. However, the complicated genetic network regulating cervical cancer remains largely unknown. The present study reported transcriptome sequencing analysis of three cervical squamous cell cancer tissues and paired normal cervical tissues. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that 2,519 genes were differently expressed between cervical cancer tissues and their corresponding normal tissues. Among these, 236 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were statistically significant, including many DEGs that were novel in cervical cancer, including gastrulation brain homeobox 2,5-hydroxytryptamine receptor 1D and endothelin 3. These 236 significant DEGs were highly enriched in 28 functional gene ontology categories. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis suggested involvement of these DEGs in multiple pathways. The present study provides a transcriptome landscape of cervical cancer in Chinese patients and an improved understanding of the genetic regulatory network in cervical cancer tumorigenesis.

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud providers sell their resources as different types of virtual machines (VMs) called instances. Any resource is limited in capacity, so is the resource in cloud. Pricing models can be used as a tool for cloud providers not only to cover their costs and realize a profit but also to encourage cloud tenants to use cloud resources efficiently and achieve high utilization. In this paper, we propose a new pricing methodology that encourages cloud tenants, whose requested VMs can be allocated easily and fairly, to use more cloud service by offering them lower prices, while discouraging cloud tenants, whose requested VMs are difficult to allocate, from using cloud service by charging them higher prices, while enhancing the revenue that a cloud provider receives. We perform a case study with a multiresource allocation fairness algorithm, i.e., the dominant resource sharing algorithm. Then, we further conduct case studies with two ways of price calculation: the total unit price redistribution and total revenue redistribution. Evaluation results show that the proposed pricing model with total unit price redistribution and total revenue redistribution can increase the overall revenue of cloud providers by up to 11.60% and 11.18%, respectively.

Core-shell structured Ru@Pd/C catalysts for the electrooxidation of formic acid are synthesized by an organic colloid method associated with a pulse electrodeposition process. The catalysts are characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrocatalytic activity of the catalysts is evaluated by cyclic voltammetry, CO stripping and chronoamperometry technologies. The core-shell structure is revealed by both materials characterization and electrochemical methods, including STEM and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), the binding energy difference of the XPS spectra and the potential shift of the CO stripping peaks. Such core-shell structured Ru@Pd/C catalysts show excellent activity towards the anodic oxidation of formic acid. The mass activity reaches 5.06 A mg−1Pd and 0.53 A mg−1metal which are ∼10.1 and 1.1 times that of commercial Pd/C. The encouraging performance of Ru@Pd/C is ascribed to the distinct dispersion of the Ru cores and the resulting Ru@Pd nanoparticles as well as the synergy between the core and shell that not only significantly enhances the ability to oxidize the formic acid but also improves the tolerance to CO.

A series of hydroxide conductive polymers QTBMs carrying dense aromatic side-chain quaternary ammonium groups has been synthesized by using a new monomer of 3,3′-di(3″,5″-dimethylphenyl)-4,4′-difluorodiphenyl sulfone and other commercial monomers via polycondensation reaction, and subsequent bromination, quaternization and alkalization. The chemical structures of the ionomers were confirmed by 1H- and 13C-NMR spectroscopy. Water uptake, swelling ratio, hydroxide conductivity, the number of bonded water per ammonium group (λ), volumetric ion exchange capacity (IECVwet), mechanical and thermal properties, and chemical stability were systematically evaluated for the series of QTBMs membranes. QTBMs showed IECs ranging from 1.02 meq·g−1 to 2.11 meq·g−1; in particular, QTBM-60 membrane with the highest IEC (2.11 meq·g−1) had very high hydroxide ion conductivity of 131.9 mS·cm−1 at 80 °C, which was attributed to the well assembled nano-channels with distinct phase separation evidenced by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). It was found that the hydrated QTBMs membranes were mechanically stable with moderate water uptakes and swelling ratios, high chemical stability under the harsh alkaline conditions. This work provides a facile way to prepare anion exchange membranes (AEMs) with high performances for the application in alkaline fuel cells.

A series of ZIF-derived Fe–N codoped carbon materials with a well-defined morphology, high surface area, tunable sizes and porous nanoframe structure was successfully prepared by synthesizing Fe-doped ZIF-8 through the assembly of Zn2+ ions with 2-methylimidazole in the presence of iron(III) acetylacetonate, followed by pyrolysis at a high temperature and in an Ar atmosphere. The prepared optimum catalyst materials exhibited excellent activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and outstanding durability in both acidic and alkaline solutions. We found that Fe doping during the ZIF-8 synthesis stage was crucial to achieve the materials’ well-defined morphology, tunable size, good particle dispersion, and high performance. XPS revealed that Fe doping greatly enhanced the fractions of graphitic-N and pyridinic-N and decreased the fraction of oxidized-N. We suggest that the porosity and high surface area of the nanoframe structure originated from the metal–organic frameworks, the high dispersion of Fe in...

In this paper, we consider the robust transceiver optimization for a single-carrier frequency-domain equalization (SC-FDE)-based multihop half-duplex decode-and-forward (DF) relay system under imperfect channel state information (CSI). The goal is to maximize the system achievable bit rate (ABR) and to minimize the end-to-end bit error rate (BER) subject to a joint node power constraint. Due to the lack of analytical tractable expressions for ABR and BER under imperfect CSI, we resort to lower bounds of the hopwise ABRs and BERs and reformulate the original problem by using two approximated objective functions based on these lower bounds. For the reformulated problems, we show that the optimal equalization filters take the form of robust Wiener filters. Subsequently, we propose two efficient decentralized algorithms to obtain the optimal solutions for the resulting power-allocation problems. Numerical results are provided to confirm the ABR and BER performance of the proposed robust relaying schemes.

In recent years, demands for rich multimedia services over mobile networks have been soaring at a tremendous pace. Traditional dedicated networking equipment may not be able to efficiently support the phenomenal growth of the traffic load and user demand dynamics while consuming an unnecessarily large amount of energy resources. Recently, mobile content caching, whereby popular contents are cached inside the mobile front-haul and back-haul networks so that demands for these contents from users in proximity can be easily accommodated without redundant transmissions from the remote sources, has emerged as an efficient technique for multimedia content delivery. Mobile content caching is particularly suitable for fifth generation (5G) mobile systems that are being designed to incorporate advanced cloud computing technologies and network function virtualization techniques. Therefore, in this paper, we first propose the concept of “Caching-as-a-Service” (CaaS) based on cloud-based radio access networks, and virtualized evolved packet core, which provides the capability to cache anything at anytime, anywhere in the cloud-based 5G mobile systems to satisfy user demands from any service location with high elasticity and adaptivity, and to empower third-party service providers with flexible controllability and programmability. Then, we study the potential techniques related to the virtualization of caching, and discuss the technical details of virtualization and optimization of CaaS in 5G mobile networks. Some novel schemes for CaaS are proposed to target different mobile applications and services. We also explore new opportunities and challenges for further research.

Optical Network on Chip (ONoC) architecture is emerging as a promising candidate in multiprocessor systems-on-chip (MPSoC) because of ultrahigh communication bandwidth, low latency and power consumption. The topology and layout of ONoC has a great impact on the network performance. Waveguide crossing in the topology would influence power consumption and crosstalk noise, which could influence the size of ONoC directly. In this paper, a screwy torus topology (STorus) and a new optical router are proposed. We divide an optical network into two subnets, and connect them with gateway. The diameter of STorus is half of Torus-based ONoC and almost a quarter of Mesh-based ONoC. To reduce the number of crossing, waveguide hierarchy has been employed. The simulation results show that the new topology can improve throughput by 59.1% compared with traditional mesh under hotspot traffic, and 52.3% compared with traditional mesh under uniform traffic.

Due to environmental concerns of rising energy consumption caused by explosive growth in the demands of wireless multimedia services, energy efficiency has become an important consideration in the design of future wireless communication systems. In this paper, we investigate and propose an energy-efficient scheme of joint antenna-subcarrier-power allocation for min-rate guaranteed services in the downlink multiuser orthogonal frequency division multiplexing distributed antenna systems (OFDM-DASs) with limited backhaul capacity. Our aim is to maximize the energy efficiency in an OFDM-DAS based on the constraints of users’ Quality of Service, subcarrier reuse, backhaul capacity, and remote antenna units’ transmit power. By exploring the properties of the complex nonconvex energy efficiency optimization problem, we transform the problem into an equivalent problem based on fractional programming, and then, use the alternating direction multiplier method to decompose the problem into a series of simpler subproblems, where their optimal or suboptimal solutions can be easily achieved. We propose the corresponding low-complexity methods to solve the subproblems and, then, the whole problem. The numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed low-complexity energy-efficient scheme and illustrate the fundamental tradeoff among energy consumption, spectral efficiency, and energy efficiency.

// Xiuhua Li 1,2 , Yongbing Cao 1 , Xiaojian Gong 1 and Hongjiao Li 2 1 School of Pharmacology, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, P. R. China 2 Department of Stomatology,ChanghaiHospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, P. R. China Correspondence to: Hongjiao Li, email: // Xiaojian Gong, email: // Keywords : HNC; lncRNAs; function; mechanism; clinical application Received : October 05, 2016 Accepted : October 19, 2016 Published : October 27, 2016 Abstract Head and neck cancers (HNCs) include a series of malignant tumors arising in epithelial tissues, typically oral cancer, laryngeal cancer, nasopharynx cancer and thyroid cancer. HNCs are important contributors to cancer incidence and mortality, leading to approximately 225,100 new patients and 77,500 deaths in China every year. Determination of the mechanisms of HNC carcinogenesis and progression is an urgent priority in HNC treatment. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are noncoding RNAs longer than 200 bps. lncRNAs have been reported to participate in a broad scope of biological processes, and lncRNA dysregulation leads to diverse human diseases, including cancer. In this review, we focus on lncRNAs that are dysregulated in HNCs, summarize the latest findings regarding the function and molecular mechanisms of lncRNAs in HNC carcinogenesis and progression, and discuss the clinical application of lncRNAs in HNC diagnosis, prognosis and therapy.

English Curriculum Standards enacted by the Ministry of Education in 2001 advocates the task-based language teaching model, which meets the basic requirements of Higher Vocational English teaching. This paper starts with the theory of task-based teaching model and its significance in college English teaching. Through an example of task-based teaching of “Back to Nature”, a text from Book 3 of Practical English, the paper explores the effects and limitations of task-based language teaching and further gives specific recommendations on how to improve the task-based English teaching practice.

Content requests from mobile users are explosively increasing due to the growing popularity of mobile social activities. However, current mobile network infrastructure cannot effectively support the generated massive mobile data traffic while maintaining consistent and acceptable network performances. To deal with such a serious challenge, caching popular content at the edges of mobile networks has been recognized as a promising solution. In this paper, we introduce the content caching technique in Fog-Cloud based radio access networks for offering joint Fog-enabled and Cloud-enabled data services. Then we propose a collaborative hierarchical Fog-Cloud caching framework based on predicting content popularity with the Auto Regressive model. Our objective is to explore the maximum capacity of the considered network infrastructure by effectively offloading network traffic. Trace-driven evaluations demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed caching mechanism in terms of traffic offload.

This paper considers content delivery of the cache-enabled small cell networks (C-SCNs), where users with the same request form a multicast group and are served by a cluster of small-cell base stations (SBSs) under the coordination of the central processor. The performance of such a coordination is severely limited by the fronthaul link, which may be saturated and degrade quality of service (QoS). To improve user QoS, we propose a latency driven scheme by jointly optimizing fronthaul bandwidth allocation, multicast beamforming, and BS clustering. Accordingly, with min-max fairness among multicast groups, a latency minimization problem is formulated under the constraints of fronthaul bandwidth and transmission power. The resultant problem is a mixed-integer nonlinear program, which is NP-hard. To address such a complex problem, a quadratic penalty-based algorithm is proposed by using a reformulation of binary constraint. Meanwhile, we present the necessary condition for an optimal solution, which shows that fronthaul bandwidth allocation is inherently adaptive to cached contents and patterns of BS cooperation. Finally, simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce latency under different caching strategies.

Traditional centralized token exchange (CEX) is criticized for its security and privacy issues, since crypto currency users are required to surrender their private keys to the exchange. In contrast, decentralized token exchange (DEX) solves this issue by introducing additional trading gas fee and latency to the system. Hybrid decentralized token exchange (HEX) has been proposed to combine the advantages of CEX and DEX. However, existing HEX is still suffering from two issues. The first issue is that it is unfriendly for a trader who needs to exchange tokens frequently within a certain period of time, due to the fact that it is time-consuming and expensive. The second issue is the potential network congestion in Ethereum caused by excessive simultaneous transactions from the exchange. In this paper, we propose a payment channel based HEX, which extends existing solutions by adding a new payment channel layer to benefit frequent traders and alleviate network congestion.

An ultrasensitive competitive-type electrochemiluminescence immunoassay for the mycotoxin zearalenone is described. The method is based on the use of (a) a mimotope peptide that was selected from a phage displayed peptide library and used to substitute ZEN for designing the competitive assay; (b) NiFe

To satisfy rapidly increasing multimedia service requests from mobile users, content caching at the network edges (e.g., base stations) has been regarded as a promising technique in future mobile networks. In this paper, by virtue of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) with respect to solving complicated control problems, we propose a framework on Double Deep Q-Network for cooperative edge caching in mobile networks. Particularly, we aim at minimizing the long-term average content fetching delay of mobile users without requiring any priori knowledge of content popularity distribution. Trace-driven simulation results show that our proposed framework outperforms some existing caching algorithms, including Least Recently Used (LRU), Least Frequently Used (LFU) and First-In First-Out (FIFO) caching strategies by 7%, 11% and 9% improvements, respectively. Besides, our proposed work is further shown that only average 4% performance loss exists compared to an omniscient oracle algorithm.

To examine the expression profile of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) on lung endothelial or epithelial cells, and to determine the specific role of PD-L1 in mouse model of indirect acute lung injury (i-ALI).Eighty male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into two parts (both n = 40). The effects of different administration routes on the expression of PD-L1 were observed. The mice in each part were randomly divided into sham, i-ALI, i-ALI+small interfering RNA (siRNA) random sequence control, and i-ALI+PD-L1 siRNA which could specifically inhibit PD-L1 expression groups, with 10 mice in each group. i-ALI was reproduced in a mouse model of hemorrhagic shock in combination with a subsequent cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). In sham group, only bilateral femoral arteries were ligated without catheterization or bleeding, and only cecum was separated but perforation was not ligated. Intravenous or intratracheal delivery of PD-L1 siRNA was performed 2 hours following the resuscitation to suppress the expression of PD-L1 on lung endothelial or epithelial cells. The mice in i-ALI+siRNA random sequence control group were given siRNA random sequence without inhibition effect on PD-L1 expression, and those in sham group and i-ALI group were given 100 μL phosphate buffered saline (PBS). The mice were sacrificed at 24 hours after CLP, and samples of blood, lung tissue and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were harvested. Expressions of PD-L1 were determined with flow cytometry. Cytokines and chemokines in plasma, lung tissue and BALF were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The protein concentration in plasma and BALF and the activity of myeloperoxidase (MPO) in lung tissue were quantitatively measured. The pathological changes in lung tissue were observed under light microscope.(1) Compared with sham group, PD-L1 expression on lung endothelial or epithelial cells were significantly elevated in i-ALI group [endothelial cells: (27.88±1.53)% vs. (19.64±1.03)%, epithelial cells: (58.70±8.21)% vs. (29.23±3.94)%, both P0.05]. (2) Mice received intravenous delivery of liposomal-encapsulated siRNA had significantly lower expression of PD-L1 on lung endothelial cells as compared with that of i-ALI group [(21.37±0.76)% vs. (27.88±1.53)%, P0.05]. Intratracheal delivery of naked PD-L1 siRNA mainly inhibited the PD-L1 expression on epithelial cell as compared with that of i-ALI group [(31.23±4.71) % vs. (58.70±8.21) %, P0.05]. The expression of PD-L1 in pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells or pulmonary epithelial cells of i-ALI mice was not affected by siRNA random sequence. (3) PD-L1 silencing on pulmonary endothelial cells induced by intravenous delivery of PD-L1 siRNA led to a lower protein ratio of BALF/plasma [(4.48±0.35)×10PD-L1 silencing on endothelial cells but not epithelial cells protected mice against hemorrhagic shock-sepsis induced i-ALI.

Recent years have witnessed an exponential growth of mobile data traffic, which may lead to a serious traffic burn on the wireless networks and considerable power consumption. Network densification and edge caching are effective approaches to addressing these challenges. In this study, we investigate joint long-term cache allocation and short-term content delivery in cloud small cell networks (C-SCNs), where multiple smallcell BSs (SBSs) are connected to the central processor via fronthaul and can store popular contents so as to reduce the duplicated transmissions in networks. Accordingly, a long-term power minimization problem is formulated by jointly optimizing multicast beamforming, BS clustering, and cache allocation under quality of service (QoS) and storage constraints. The resultant mixed timescale design problem is an anticausal problem because the optimal cache allocation depends on the future file requests. To handle it, a two-stage optimization scheme is proposed by utilizing historical knowledge of users' requests and channel state information. Specifically, the online content delivery design is tackled with a penalty-based approach, and the periodic cache updating is optimized with a distributed alternating method. Simulation results indicate that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms conventional schemes and performs extremely close to a genie-aided lower bound in the low caching region., Comment: ICC 2019

Protein sources are the second most important component in poultry diets. Due to the fluctuation in price of soybean meal (SBM) and persistent increase in feed prices, nutritionists have been exploring alternative protein sources. Replacement of SBM with alternative protein sources in poultry diets could reduce human-livestock competition for soybean and support the production of more animal protein. However, the use of alternative protein sources is limited to low inclusion due to the presence of anti-nutritional factors (ANF) such as glucosinolates (rapeseed meal), gossypol (cottonseed meal), non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) in lupin flour, high fibre (palm kernel cake), total phenolic contents and phytic acid (canola meal) known to impair animal performance, nutrient digestibility and feed utilization. As a processing technique, solid-state fermentation (SSF) has been researched for a long time in the food industry. An important objective of SSF is the production of enzymes, organic acids and other metabolites of economic importance. In recent times, SSF has been employed to enhance nutrient bioavailability, inhibit gut pathogenic bacteria and reduce ANF in plant protein sources resulting in improved nutrient digestibility, thereby improving performance and gut health of broiler chickens. Unlike pigs, there is still a dearth of information on feeding solid-state fermented feed ingredients to broiler chickens. This review aims to describe the nutritional value of the solid-state fermented products of rapeseed meal, canola meal, cottonseed meal, palm kernel cake and lupin flour on performance and intestinal health of broiler chickens. Keywords: Anti-nutritional factor, Broiler chicken, Nutritional value, Protein source, Solid-state fermentation

A seismic detection algorithm based on Generalized S-transform (GS) filtering and Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) de-nosing is proposed in this paper. The algorithm is compared with the traditional method which using the energy ratio method (STA/LTA) after a single filtering, it can effective improve the detection characteristic value of seismic signal in the case of low signal-to-noise ratio, so as to improve the detection probability of the signal effectively. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively improve the detection eigenvalue of seismic signals when using the low signal-to-noise ratio.