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Apoptosis is an outstanding determinant of glucocorticoid (GC)-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) have been demonstrated to be associated with apoptosis in diseases models. However, the role of hUC-MSCs in GC-induced ONFH via regulating apoptosis still needs further study.In the present study, a GC-induced ONFH model was built in vivo through a consecutive injection with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and methylprednisolone. The necrosis and apoptosis of the femoral head was evaluated by histological and Terminal-deoxynucleoitidyl Transferase Mediated Nick End Labeling (TUNEL) assay. The level of collagen and TRAP positive cells were determined by Masson and TRAP staining, respectively. M1 macrophage polarization was assessed using immunofluorescence assay. The level of proinflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, Interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-6 of femoral head was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. The protein expression of AKT, mTOR, p-AKT and p-mTOR was detected using western blot assay. The results showed that hUC-MSCs treatment prominently promoted the GC-induced the decrease of the collagen level and the increase of TRAP positive cells. Besides, hUC-MSCs treatment decreased necrosis and apoptosis, macrophage polarization, the level of TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6, the protein expression of p-AKT and p-mTOR, and the radio of p-AKT to AKT and p-mTOR to mTOR of femoral head in vivo.Therefore, the present study revealed that hUC-MSCs improved the necrosis and osteocyte apoptosis in GC-induced ONFH model through reducing the macrophage polarization, which was associated with the inhibition of AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.

Sandy soil has poor water-holding performance, making it difficult for plants to survive, which worsens the deterioration of the ecological environment. Therefore, borax cross-linked Gleditsia microphylla galactomannan hydrogel (GMGH) was prepared, and its practicability as a water-retaining agent was analyzed. GMGH exhibited fast self-healing performance (150 s, ≈100%) and a high swelling index (88.70 g/g in pH 9). The feasibility of improving the water absorption and retention properties of sandy soil was explored by mixing different proportions (0.1, 0.3, 0.5 wt % sandy soil) of GMGH and sandy soil. The results showed that sandy soil had a more porous structure after adding 0.5 wt % GMGH, and its water absorption index increased from 15.68 to 38.12%. In an artificial climate box, the water-holding time of the sandy soil was extended from 3 to 23.5 days, and the cycles of water absorption and retention were more than 10 times. Therefore, GMGH has broad application prospects as a potential water-retaining agent for desertification control.

Sandy soil has poor water-holding performance, making it difficult for plants to survive, which worsens the deterioration of the ecological environment. Therefore, borax cross-linked

Polysaccharides-based hydrogel has many advantages such as biocompatibility, self-repair property, and biodegradability. It has been widely applied in various fields and has attracted great attention of researchers. The natural polysaccharides involved in this review include fenugreek gum, guar gum, locust bean gum, gellan gum, sodium alginate, agarose, and konjac glucomannan etc. Borax is a highly effective crosslinking agent for cis-ortho-hydroxyl polysaccharides. This paper focused on the synthesis mechanism, functional additives, characteristics, and applications of borax crosslinked cis-ortho-hydroxyl polysaccharides hydrogels (BHs). Moreover, the factors affecting BHs performance such as temperature, pH, and media were analyzed. Its mechanical and self-repair properties are enhanced by the dynamic and reversible borate/di-diol, which play a significant role in sensors, biomedicine, and tissue engineering. This review summarizes the research progress of BHs for the first time. Additionally, hoping to contribute to the development of this field, the review analyzes the correlation of performance through the SPSS 26 software.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) comprises the interface between blood, brain and cerebrospinal fluid. Its primary function, which is mainly carried out by tight junctions, is to stabilize the tightly controlled microenvironment of the brain. To study the development and maintenance of the BBB, as well as various roles their intrinsic mechanisms that play in neurological disorders, suitable measurements are required to demonstrate integrity and functional changes at the interfaces between the blood and brain tissue. Markers and plasma proteins with different molecular weight (MW) are used to measure the permeability of BBB. In addition, the expression changes of tight-junction proteins form the basic structure of BBB, and imaging modalities are available to study the disruption of BBB. In the present review, above mentioned methods are depicted in details, together with the pros and cons as well as the differences between these methods, which maybe benefit research studies focused on the detection of BBB breakdown.

The impairment of angiogenesis is an outstanding pathogenic characteristic of glucocorticoid (GC)-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) have been used in several diseases models, which were reported to be involved in the angiogenesis. However, whether hUC-MSCs suppress the GC-induced ONFH via promoting angiogenesis is still unclear. hUC-MSCs were isolated from the Wharton's jelly using the explant culture method. A GC-induced ONFH model was established in vitro and in vivo. The angiogenesis, proliferation and migration ability of HMECs were determined using the tube-forming, CCK-8, transwell and scratching assays in vitro. The protective role of hUC-MSCs in GC-induced ONFH was evaluated using micro-CT scanning and histological, immunohistochemical (IHC) and Quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assays in vivo. The results showed that hUC-MSCs treatment improved the tube-forming, proliferation and migration ability of HMECs in vitro. Moreover, hUC-MSCs treatment enhanced the integrity of trabecular bone of the femoral head, and the tube-forming ability in vivo. hUC-MSCs prevent the femoral head against necrosis and damage caused by GCs though promoting angiogenesis.

Hydrogels are the focus of extensive research due to their potential applications in various fields including tissue engineering, drug delivery, soft actuators, and sensors, etc. However, insufficient functionality and weak mechanical properties limit their practical applications. Herein, we developed a simple approach to fabricate strong, tough and self-healable hydrogels by introducing sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) into poly (acrylic acid) (PAA)–Fe3+ hydrogels as well as by simply soaking the gels in sodium chloride (NaCl) solution. During the deformation process, the synergetic interactions of –COO−/Fe3+ physically ionic networks as well as PAA covalent networks can homogeneously distribute stress, and more importantly, high degree of network densities, and chain entanglements introduced by soaking treatment could act as “sacrificial bonds” to dissipate energy effectively. As a result, the resulting optimal PAA/CMC1.0–Fe3+–S samples with water content of approximately 37.7 wt% possessed remarkable mechanical properties, with elastic modulus of 0.41 MPa, fracture tensile stress of 4.42 MPa, superior to that of PAA–Fe3+ and PAA/CMC1.0–Fe3+ hydrogels. Additionally, the noncovalent ionic interactions of PAA/CMC1.0–Fe3+ hydrogels serve as dynamic but stable associations, leading to effective self-healing efficiency (over 85%) after damage, with recovered fracture stress of 3.75 MPa as well as an elongation at break of about 750%. We expect this facile strategy may enrich the avenue in exploration of high-strength, tough and self-healing cellulosic hydrogels.

Novel rare-earth free green-emitting phosphor Na2ZnSiO4:Mn2+ was prepared by conventional high temperature solid state reaction method in the carbon reducing atmosphere at 900 °C. The crystal structure was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the structure information was refined by the Rietveld method. The luminescence properties of Na2ZnSiO4:Mn2+ phosphors as a function of Mn2+ concentrations were investigated. The excitation band peaking at ∼359, 383, 427, 449, and 467 nm are attributed to ground level 6A1(6S) to excited levels 4E(4D), 4T2(4D), [4A(4G), 4E(4G)], 4T2(4G), and 4T1(4G) transitions of Mn2+ ion, respectively, which indicates that Na2ZnSiO4:Mn2+ phosphor may be excited by (near) ultraviolet and blue region light-emitting diode chip. The narrow emission band peaks at ∼515 nm generated by 4T1(4G)→6A1(6S) transition of the Mn2+ can exhibit strong green emission. The luminescence mechanism was explained by the Tanabe-Sugano diagram. The optimum Mn2+ doping concentration was 0.5 mol%. The critical distance between Mn2+ was calculated to be 33.7 A. The concentration quenching mechanism can be interpreted by the dipole-dipole interaction of Mn2+ ions. With the Mn2+ doping concentration increasing in the range of 0.2–0.8 mol%, the lifetime of this phosphor decreased from 7.51 to 7.39 ms. These phosphors also possessed good thermal stability at high temperature, and the emission intensity at 125 °C was about 74.9% of that at 25 °C. The present work suggests that Na2ZnSiO4:Mn2+ phosphor is a kind of potential green-emitting phosphor to provide a bright green component in the red/green/blue tri-color system w-LEDs.

Novel red-emitting Eu3+-doped Na2ZnSiO4 phosphors were synthesized by a conventional high temperature solid reaction. The crystal structure was confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the morphology was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The luminescence properties of Na2-xZn1-xSiO4:xEu3+ (NZS:xEu) phosphors were investigated by photoluminescence excitation (PLE), emission (PL) spectra and decay curves. The phosphors exhibit abnormal intense red emission which located at 702 nm due to the 5D0→7F4 transition of Eu3+ under the excitation of 393 nm and it makes the CIE chromaticity coordinates of the phosphors to fall in a red region. This phenomenon may be explained by the highly polarizable chemical circumstance. The optimum Eu3+ doping concentration of NZS:xEu is determined to be x = 0.08. The critical distance between Eu3+ was calculated to be 13.36 A. The concentration quenching mechanism can be interpreted by the quadrupole–quadrupole interaction of Eu3+ ions. The decay curves show double exponential behavior for all concentrations of Eu3+ ions and the lifetimes varied from 0.67 to 1.3 ms when the Eu3+ doping concentration increased in the range of 4–12 mol%. The quantum yield (QY) of Na2ZnSiO4:0.08Eu3+ phosphor is calculated to be as high as 88.76%. The present work suggests that Na2ZnSiO4:Eu3+ phosphor is a promising candidate as a red component for NUV LEDs application.

On the basis of the crystalline structural information that the matrix material has excellent physical-chemical stabilization, green-emitting Na2(Mg1-xCax)SiO4:Mn2+ (NMCS:Mn2+) phosphors were synthesized by a traditional solid-state method and systematically optimized, and their photoluminescence properties were studied. The luminescence properties of NMCS:Mn2+ phosphors as a function of Ca2+ concentrations were investigated. The structure of the as-prepared phosphors was identified by the X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the luminescent properties were characterized by the luminescence spectra, decay curve and CIE chromaticity coordinates. The emission peaks at 520 nm generated by 4T1(4G)→6A1(6S) transition of the Mn2+ doped NMCS phosphors can provide a green component in the tri-color system. The emission intensity would be enhanced greatly by Ca2+-substitution and it can be observed that these emission peaks would shift to shorter wavelengths (blue-shift) with the increasing of Ca2+ content. The large enhancement of emission intensity and the shift of emission peaks due to Ca2+ substitution may provide a reference in the research of new type and more efficient phosphors for NUV-LEDs.

Deep matching models aim to facilitate search engines retrieving more relevant documents by mapping queries and documents into semantic vectors in the first-stage retrieval. When leveraging BERT as the deep matching model, the attention score across two words are solely built upon local contextualized word embeddings. It lacks prior global knowledge to distinguish the importance of different words, which has been proved to play a critical role in information retrieval tasks. In addition to this, BERT only performs attention across sub-words tokens which weakens whole word attention representation. We propose a novel Global Weighted Self-Attention (GLOW) network for web document search. GLOW fuses global corpus statistics into the deep matching model. By adding prior weights into attention generation from global information, like BM25, GLOW successfully learns weighted attention scores jointly with query matrix $Q$ and key matrix $K$. We also present an efficient whole word weight sharing solution to bring prior whole word knowledge into sub-words level attention. It aids Transformer to learn whole word level attention. To make our models applicable to complicated web search scenarios, we introduce combined fields representation to accommodate documents with multiple fields even with variable number of instances. We demonstrate GLOW is more efficient to capture the topical and semantic representation both in queries and documents. Intrinsic evaluation and experiments conducted on public data sets reveal GLOW to be a general framework for document retrieve task. It significantly outperforms BERT and other competitive baselines by a large margin while retaining the same model complexity with BERT., 8pages,2figures

In this work, we prepare guar gum-based supramolecular hydrogel through the formation of borate/didiol bonds. This dynamic and reversible noncovalent borate/didiol interaction is critical for the multifunctional properties of supramolecular hydrogel. The FT-IR and XRD analysis verified the existence of boronate ester interactions between borax and guar gum. Moreover, the viscoelastic and mechanical behaviors of the hydrogels with different guar gum concentrations showed that the storage modulus and compressive stress were highest at guar gum concentration of 2 wt %. Besides, due to the dynamic and reservable properties of boronate ester, these guar gum-based hydrogels had excellent self-healing property, outstanding reformable and injectable capability. In addition, hydrogels also exhibited reversible gel-sol transformations by the application of physicochemical stimuli such as thermal and pH value. The coupling of these multifunctional properties made from low-cost, environment friendly, and readily available materials could have potential applications in many biomedical areas in the future. We expect that this simple strategy of fabricating the self-healing guar gum hydrogels with multistimuli responsive properties may enrich the avenue in the exploration of multifunctional guar gum based hydrogels to expand their potential applications in various fields.

Despite a number of studies have emphasized the extensive role of microRNA (miRNA) in the development of multiple cancers, the role of miR-30a-5p in the progression of osteosarcoma (OS) and the underlying mechanism are still limited. We detected the expression level of MiR-30a-5p and forkhead box D1 (FOXD1) in Clinical OS specimens and found that miR-30a-5p was significantly decreased while FOXD1 was markedly increased. Dual luciferase assay confirmed that FOXD1 was directly regulated by miR-30a-5p. In vitro assay showed that inhibitior of FOXD1 suppressed cell proliferation, migration and invasion in MG63 and U2OS cells, while overexpression of FOXD1 promoted OS cell proliferation and migration. In vivo assay further showed the inhibition of tumor growth after knockdown of FOXD1. These results suggested that FOXD1 might play key roles in OS development and progression, and was negatively regulated by miR-30a-5p in OS.

In order to explore a novel type of agricultural water-retaining agent, borax crosslinked fenugreek galactomannan-borax hydrogel (FGB) was synthesized. The hydrogel was characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, FT-IR, XRD, and SEM. The largest swelling index of FGB (115) was higher than that of guar gum hydrogel (70) at pH 9. The water absorption capacity of sandy soil was studied by mixing the hydrogel with soil, then FGB was evaluated as a latent water retention agent. Results showed that the swelling index of sandy soil increased from 16.28% to 35.53% with 0.5 wt.% hydrogel added. The water retention time increased from 2 to 11.5 days at 20 °C and 60 % humidity. Furthermore, more than ten cycles of water absorption and water loss of soil-FGB were carried out at 50 °C at a relatively stable water retention capacity. This low-cost, environmentally friendly hydrogel has great application potential in agriculture for soil water conservation.

// Jing Nie 1 , Yan Zhang 2 , Xiang Li 1 , Meixia Chen 2 , Chuanjie Liu 1 , Weidong Han 1, 2 1 Department of Immunology, Institute of Basic Medical Science, PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China 2 Department of Biological Therapy, PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100853, China Correspondence to: Weidong Han, email: hanwdrsw@sina.com Jing Nie, email: nnjj2002@163.com Keywords: T cell receptor repertoire, pharmacometabonomics, decitabine, epigenetic therapy, solid tumor Received: December 28, 2015 Accepted: April 28, 2016 Published: May 13, 2016 ABSTRACT Purpose: Decitabine, a promising epi-immunotherapeutic agent has shown clinical responses in solid tumor patients, while the anti-tumor mechanisms were unclear. We aimed to investigate the immunomodulatory effect of decitabine in peripheral T cells. Experimental design: We applied next-generation sequencing to investigate the complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) of the TCRβ gene, the diversity of which acts as the prerequisite for the host immune system to recognize the universal foreign antigens. We collected the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 4 patients, at baseline and after 2 cycles of low-dose decitabine therapy. Results: An increase of the unique productive sequences of the CDR3 of TCRβ was observed in all of the 4 patients after decitabine treatment, which was characterized by a lower abundance of expanded clones and increased TCR diversity compared with before decitabine treatment. Further analysis showed a tendency for CD4 T cells with an increased CD4/CD8 ratio in response to decitabine therapy. In addition, the genome-wide expression alterations confirmed the effects of decitabine on immune reconstitution, and the increase of TCR excision circles (TRECs) was validated. Conclusions: The low-dose DNMT inhibitor decitabine broadens the peripheral T cell repertoire, providing a novel role for the epigenetic modifying agent in anti-tumor immune enhancement.

Anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor-modified T (CAR-T-19) cells have emerged as a powerful targeted immunotherapy for B-cell lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a remarkable clinical response in recent trials. Nonetheless, few data are available on the subsequent clinical monitoring and treatment of the patients, especially those with disease recurrence after CAR-T-19 cell infusion. Here, we analyzed three patients who survived after our phase I clinical trial and who were studied by means of biomarkers reflecting persistence of CAR-T-19 cells in vivo and predictive factors directing further treatment. One patient achieved 9-week sustained complete remission and subsequently received an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant. Another patient who showed relapse after 20 weeks without detectable leukemia in the cerebrospinal fluid after CAR-T-19 cell treatment was able to achieve a morphological remission under the influence of stand-alone low-dose chemotherapeutic agents. The third patient gradually developed extensive extramedullary involvement in tissues with scarce immune- cell infiltration during a long period of hematopoietic remission after CAR-T-19 cell therapy. Long-term and discontinuous increases in serum cytokines (mainly interleukin 6 and C-reactive protein) were identified in two patients (Nos. 1 and 6) even though only a low copy number of CAR molecules could be detected in their peripheral blood. This finding was suggestive of persistent functional activity of CAR-T-19 cells. Combined analyses of laboratory biomarkers with their clinical manifestations before and after salvage treatment showed that the persistent immunosurveillance mediated by CAR-T-19 cells would inevitably potentiate the leukemia-killing effectiveness of subsequent chemotherapy in patients who showed relapse after CAR-T-19-induced remission.

The key of spectrum color reproduction is to study the spectral information of original images, and reconstruct the spectral curve of the target color. The accuracy of reconstructed spectra is influenced by many factors. In order to study the influence factors of reconstruction accuracy, two kinds of color cards Munsell Color Matt and Color Checker Classic were selected as the spectral reflectance data samples, two kinds of linear dimension reduction models of PCA were established and different number basis vectors were selected to separately reconstruct the spectrum. Then the influence of the different models and the basis vector numbers on the reconstruction accuracy was evaluated. The experimental results showed that the accuracy by model one was better than that of model two in RMSE GFC and color difference. In two kinds of color cards, when the number of basis vectors obtained by model one reached 6, the color difference was less than 1, the RMSE was less than 0.01; the GFC was up to 0.999. So the optimal scheme of reconstructing spectral images is to select spectral dimension reduction model one and 6 basis vectors.

Paper characteristics are important determinants to print quality, especially the optical characteristics of paper to color reproduction. In order to analyze the correlation between characteristic details and results, a simulation experiment was conducted. Five kinds of paper in three major categories were selected and three major optical characteristics, including whiteness, opacity, and chromaticity, were detected. Then a standard digital test format was printed with digital inkjet printer to optimize the output color quality. The tone reproduction and color gamut accuracy were analyzed by comparing the tonal gradation of primary color, secondary color and tertiary color. And the color gamut was created by Verify module in EFI software and was compared by pairwise comparison analysis. Finally, the primary relationships between paper optical characteristics and tone reproduction were summarized tentatively. The experimental results show that paper whiteness and chromaticity have a significant effect on tone reproduction, yet the effect of opacity is not obvious. This study provides good foundation to further mechanism study in the future work.