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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex brain neurodevelopmental disorder related to brain activity and genetics. Most of the ASD diagnostic models perform feature selection at the group level without considering individualized information. Evidence has shown the unique topology of the individual brain has a fundamental impact on brain diseases. Thus, a data-constructing method fusing individual topological information and a corresponding classification model is crucial in ASD diagnosis and biomarker discovery. In this work, we trained an attention-based graph neural network (GNN) to perform the ASD diagnosis with the fusion of graph data. The results achieved an accuracy of 79.78%. Moreover, we found the model paid high attention to brain regions mainly involved in the social-brain circuit, default-mode network, and sensory perception network. Furthermore, by analyzing the covariation between functional magnetic resonance imaging data and gene expression, current studies detected several ASD-related genes (i.e. MUTYH, AADAT, and MAP2), and further revealed their links to image biomarkers. Our work demonstrated that the ASD diagnostic framework based on graph data and attention-based GNN could be an effective tool for ASD diagnosis. The identified functional features with high attention values may serve as imaging biomarkers for ASD.

Gait recognition is one of the crucial methods in identity recognition, which has a wide range of applications in many fields, such as smart home, smart office, and health monitoring. The camera is the most mainstream traditional solution. But the camera is difficult to maintain stable performance in the dark, low light, and bad weather conditions. In addition, privacy leakage is also one of the important issues that people worry about. In contrast, as the latest research progress in gait recognition, millimeter wave radar can not only protect people’s privacy, but also maintain normal perception performance in dark conditions. In this paper, we propose a system for gait recognition named MTPGait using spatio-temporal information via millimeter wave radar. We specially design a neural network that can extract multiscale spatio-temporal features along space and time dimensions of 3D point cloud concisely and efficiently. We use LSTM to design the context flow of local and global time and space, fusing local and global spatio-temporal features. In addition, we construct and release a millimeter wave radar 3D point cloud data set, which consists of 960-minute gait data of 40 volunteers. Using the data set, we evaluate the system and compare it with four state-of-the-art algorithms. The experimental results show that MTPGait is able to achieve 96.7% recognition accuracy in a single-person scene on fixed route and 90.2% recognition accuracy when two people coexist, while none of the existing methods is more than 90% recognition accuracy in either scenario.

“Immune normalization” has emerged as a new paradigm in immunotherapy, which is proposed in cancer patients instead of conventional “immune-enhancement” therapy. Immune normalization may also be implemented in cancer prevention of “sub-healthy” individuals. We established in vitro cultured mixed-natural killer (NKM) cells to achieve immune normalization. The in vitro cytotoxicity of NKM cells was tenfold higher than that of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). The cytotoxicity of NKM cells was negatively correlated with the proportion of T-helper cells (cluster of differentiation: CD3+CD4+ T), and positively correlated with the proportion of NK cells (especially CD56brightCD16bright NK cells). Then, we defined “sub-healthy individuals” after measuring Programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) expression in PBMCs from 95 donors aged > 50 years. Furthermore, we evaluated the potential clinical application of NKM-cell therapy in 11 patients with malignant lymphoma, one patient with pancreatic cancer, and four sub-healthy individuals. NKM-cell therapy elicited good tolerance and side-effects were not found. In sub-healthy individuals, the proportion of CD3+PD-1+ T cells and CD3+CD8+PD-1+ T cells was reduced significantly after NKM-cell treatment. We demonstrated that a new method using NKM cells was safe and efficacious as adjuvant treatment for cancer patients as well as therapy for sub-healthy individuals. Normalization of the peripheral immune system through NKM-cell therapy could expand its scope of application in different disorders.

Soil moisture influences plant growth and hydrological processes. Studying the response characteristics of soil moisture to winter rainfall under different vegetation types in humid karst areas is important for optimizing the restoration patterns in these areas. To this end, we monitored the soil moisture content of arable, grassland, shrub, and forest areas in the karst of Guanling County, Guizhou Province, China, at 10-min intervals. The rainfall threshold for the soil moisture response was the smallest in grassland areas. Under different vegetation types, the soil moisture increase tended to be maximized in light-rainfall events and minimized in medium-rainfall events. Moreover, the increase in soil moisture in the profile under the different vegetation types generally decreased with increasing soil depth during light and rainstorm events, but the opposite variation pattern was observed during moderate-rainfall events. In different rainfall events, the soil moisture recharge and soil moisture decrease were greatest in grassland areas. Among the vegetation types, shrubs maintained the highest mean soil moisture content in winter, with a higher recharge and a smaller decrease in soil moisture. This suggests that shrubs can better maintain their soil moisture content in winter than other vegetation types, which has implications for the selection of regional vegetation restoration patterns.

Socioeconomic factors are important parameters that affect vegetation changes in karst areas. Previous studies primarily focused on ecological engineering when analyzing the impact of human activities on vegetation restoration, whereas the impact of socioeconomic factors has been less studied. Using the methods of structural equation modeling and geographically weighted regression, this study quantitatively analyzed the interactive effects of socioeconomic factors on vegetation changes in karst areas using counties as the research unit. The results showed that both the enhanced vegetation index and net primary productivity in the humid karst areas of China showed an increasing trend between 2000 and 2020. Among the socioeconomic factors, non-agricultural economy and rural economy had a positive effect on vegetation change, with maximum path coefficients of the structural equation model of 0.79 and 0.64, respectively; whereas population pressure had a negative impact with a minimum path coefficient of –0.80. Over time, the positive impact of rural economy on vegetation restoration showed an increasing trend, and the path coefficient increased from –0.92 to 0.64; in turn, non-agricultural economy and population pressure showed a decreasing trend. Moreover, because they were affected by the heterogeneity of the karst mountain environment, the impact of various socioeconomic factors on vegetation restoration had obvious spatial non-stationarity. The results of this study will promote our understanding of the mechanism underlying vegetation change in humid karst areas and provide scientific reference for ensuring the sustainability of the ecological effects in these areas.

Analyzing the vegetation dynamics and its response to driving factors provides a vital reference for understanding regional ecological processes and ecosystem services. However, this issue has been poorly understood in karst areas. Taking Guizhou Province as a case study, based on the Normalized-Difference Vegetation Index of the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies and on meteorological data sets during 1982–2015, we evaluated vegetation dynamics and its response to climatic factors and human activities. We used several methods: the Mann-Kendall test, rescaled range analysis, partial correlation analysis, and residual analysis. The results are as follows: 1) the mean annual Normalized-Difference Vegetation Index was 0.46 and exhibited a significant increasing trend with a variation rate of 0.01/10a during 1982–2015 in Guizhou Province. The vegetation cover showed was spatially heterogeneous: High vegetation cover was distributed mainly in the center and western margin of the study area, while the other parts of the study area mainly distributed with low vegetation cover, although the vegetation cover was higher in the nonkarst areas than in the karst areas; 2) in general, the climate was getting warmer and drier in Guizhou Province during 1982–2015. Vegetation cover was positively correlated with temperature and negatively correlated with precipitation. Compared to precipitation, temperature was the dominant climatic factor impacting vegetation dynamics; 3) large-scale ecological restoration projects have obviously increased vegetation cover in Guizhou Province in recent years. The contribution of human activities to vegetation changes was 76%, while the contribution of climatic factors was 24%. In summary, compared to natural forces such as climatic factors and geographic parameters, human activities were the main factor driving the vegetation dynamics in Guizhou Province.

Understanding the response process of the soil moisture of different vegetation types to rainfall in karst regions in winter is of great significance to the implementation of various ecological restoration projects. However, at present, the related research is mainly focused on nonwinter seasons, so there is less winter research. Therefore, in this study, in Guanling County, Anshun City, southwestern Guizhou Province, four types of vegetation, grassland, arable land, shrubland, and forestland, were selected as sample plots, and the degree、time and speed responses of the soil moisture of the vegetation types to rainfall were calculated using the time series data of the soil moisture of different vegetation types. The results showed that among the four kinds of vegetation in karst regions in winter, the response degree of the grassland soil moisture to rainfall was largest, response duration was longest, and response speed was fastest. Also, the increment of the soil moisture in the adjacent arable land soil layers significantly changed. In addition, in light rain events, only the soil moisture of the grassland and arable land responded. Overall, in this study, quantitative indices were used to illustrate the response process of soil moisture to rainfall for different vegetation types under the humid climate type of the mid-subtropical zone in pure limestone slope lands, thus enriching relevant knowledge systems and providing more scientific bases for the implementation of ecological restoration projects in karst areas.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, which brings enormous burdens to the families of patients and society. However, due to the lack of representation of variance for diseases and the absence of biomarkers for diagnosis, the early detection and intervention of ASD are remarkably challenging. In this study, we proposed a self-attention deep learning framework based on the transformer model on structural MR images from the ABIDE consortium to classify ASD patients from normal controls and simultaneously identify the structural biomarkers. In our work, the individual structural covariance networks are used to perform ASD/NC classification via a self-attention deep learning framework, instead of the original structural MR data, to take full advantage of the coordination patterns of morphological features between brain regions. The self-attention deep learning framework based on the transformer model can extract both local and global information from the input data, making it more suitable for the brain network data than the CNN- structural model. Meanwhile, the potential diagnosis structural biomarkers are identified by the self-attention coefficients map. The experimental results showed that our proposed method outperforms most of the current methods for classifying ASD patients with the ABIDE data and achieves a classification accuracy of 72.5% across different sites. Furthermore, the potential diagnosis biomarkers were found mainly located in the prefrontal cortex, temporal cortex, and cerebellum, which may be treated as the early biomarkers for the ASD diagnosis. Our study demonstrated that the self-attention deep learning framework is an effective way to diagnose ASD and establish the potential biomarkers for ASD.

Background: Immune normalization has emerged as a new paradigm in immunotherapy, which is proposed in cancer patients instead of the traditional immune enhancement therapy. The immune normalization strategy may also be implemented in cancer prevention of sub-healthy individuals.Methods: We established in vitro cultured mixed-Natural Killer cells (NKM), which could be used to achieve immune normalization. We defined the sub-healthy individuals after analyzing the PD-1 ratio in PBMCs from 95 donors over 50 years of age.Results: NKM were composed by approximately 20% NK cells (CD3-CD16+ or CD56+), 30% NKT-like cells (CD3+CD16+ or CD56+) and other T cells. The in vitro cytotoxicity of NKM was ten times higher than the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). NKM cytotoxicity was negatively correlated with the ratio of regulatory T cells (CD3+CD4+ T), and positively correlated with the ratio of NK cells, especially CD56brightCD16bright NK cells. We found the sub-healthy individuals displayed significantly higher ratio of CD3+PD-1+ T cells in PBMC (Ratio > 4%) and higher ratio of CD3+CD8+PD-1+ T cells in CD3+CD8+ T cells (Ratio > 10%) than the healthy controls. Then, we evaluated the potential clinical application of NKM therapy in one pancreatic cancer patient and four sub-healthy individuals.Conclusions: NKM therapy showed good tolerance and no side effects were found. In sub-healthy individuals, the ratio of CD3+PD-1+ T cells and CD3+CD8+PD-1+ T cells was significantly reduced after NKM treatment, which indicated that NKM therapy could potentially be used for cancer prevention and health care, thereby achieving the immune normalization.Trial registration: International Research Center for Regenerative Medicine, BIH-2018-1001. 01 August 2018, BOAO International Hospital.International Research Center for Regenerative Medicine, BIH-2018-1002. 01 August 2018, BOAO International Hospital.

As a functionally unique subset of T cells, regulatory T cells (Treg) suppress tumor immune responses effectively through a variety of mechanisms and play an important role in tumorigenesis and tumor progression. There is growing evidence to suggest that Treg participates in the formation and development of hepatic tumor, especially the HCC. Elucidation of the mechanisms for involvement of Treg in HCC progression may provide new ideas for liver cancer therapy through a point of view regarding immunology.

To explore the effect of calcium ionophore (CI) A23187 plus IFN-γ on dendritic cells (DC) from healthy human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNC).PBMNC from healthy donors were treated with GM-CSF plus IL-4, A23187, and A23187 plus IFN-γ, respectively. After culture for 72 h, the change of cellular morphology was observed under light microscope and electron microscope. Surface markers on DC were analyzed by flow cytometry. MTT colorimetry was used to detect the proliferation of allogeneic T cells. Plasma concentrations of IL-12 and IFN-γ were measured by ELISA.PBMNC treated with A23187 plus IFN-γ for 72 h presented DC with typical morphology effectively. The surface markers CD40, CD83, and CD86 were obviously increased in group A23187 plus IFN-γ (P0.01), but decreased in CD1a (P0.01). In addition, it evidently stimulated the proliferation of allogeneic T cells. The levels of IL-12 and IFN-γ were significantly increased compared with other groups (P0.01).A23187 plus IFN-γ can effectively enhance marked transformation of PBMNC into DC.

To determine whether the temperature-sensitive rat retinal pigment epithelial cell line (RPE-J) express mRNA transcripts for apolipoprotein(apo) and microsomal triglyceride transfer protein (MTP) and whether it can synthesize and secrete neutral lipids.RPE-J cells were cultured in plastic tissue culture flasks and on Transwell filters. RT-PCR was used to check mRNA expression. Phagocytosis was checked by adding FITC-labeled beads and measuring the intensity of the fluorescence. Lipids were extracted from cultured cells that were fed photoreceptor outer segments (OS) for 24h; thin layer chromatography and enzymatic fluorimetry were used to assay lipid content. Cells were supplemented with [3H]-oleate (5000 dpm/nmole) bound to 1.5% fatty acid free bovine serum albumin in order to permit detection of the new synthesis and secretion of neutral lipids.RPE-J cells express mRNA for apoA-I, apoA-II, apoB, apoC-I, II, III, and apo E, as well as MTP. RPE-J cells can phagocytose OS and beads. OS-fed RPE-J cells, relative to untreated cells, have 5.8 times more triglyceride, 2.6 times more phospholipid, 1.5 times more unesterified cholesterol, and 0.3 times more esterified cholesterol. Radiolabeled neutral lipid is detected in cells and medium. All lipids increase in cells with time but only phospholipid increases in the medium with time.RPE cells express genes encoding apolipoproteins and MTP. Following the ingestion of OS, RPE-J cells contain abundant lipid. Following the ingestion of long-chain fatty acids, RPE-J cells can synthesize neutral lipids. Future experiments will determine if RPE-J cells secrete lipoprotein particles containing these proteins.

To study the molecular mechanism of trabecular meshwork cells apoptosis induced by dexamethasone and the protection of pilocarpine.Determining mRNA expression with reverse transcription-polymerase chain protein expression with Western blots and the percentage of reaction (RT-PCR), apoptotic cells with fluorescent microscopy.Dexamethasone up-regulated Fas proteins and affected Bax, caspase-8 and caspase-9 proteins in an action of first decrease then increase. Pre -treatment with pilocarpine decreased the four proteins expression, which were increased by dexamethasone. Pilocarpine self could decrease pro-apoptotic factors Bax, caspase-8 and caspase-9 proteins expression.Fas/FasL pathway participated in apoptotic process induced by dexamethasone in trabecular meshwork cells and the process was probably related with both caspase-8 and caspase-9 pathways. Pilocarpine protected the cells against apoptosis through down-regulating Fas, Bax, caspase-8 and caspase-9 proteins expression.

To study whether muscarinic receptor agonists can protect cultured bovine trabecular meshwork cells against apoptosis induced by dexamethasone.The third to fifth passages of bovine trabecular meshwork cells were grown to confluence and incubated for 1-14 days in growth media with dexamethasone or pretreatment of pilocarpine or carbachol. The cultures were evaluated for apoptosis by phase-contrast microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, DNA laddering and flow cytometric analysis.Dexamethasone (0.24-0.96 mmol.L-1) induced apoptosis of trabecular meshwork cells in a dose and time-dependent manner. Before 0.48 mmol.L-1 dexamethasone-treatment, 1.84 mmol.L-1 of pilocarpine or 2.74 mmol.L-1 of carbachol added could significantly reduce apoptotic percentage.Muscarinic receptor agonists can protect cultured bovine trabecular meshwork cells against apoptosis induced by dexamethasone.

To investigate apoptosis of bovine trabecular meshwork cells induced by dexamethasone.In the incubation method of system in vitro, dexamethasone (1 - 500 mg/L) was added into the syncretic culture solution of the third to fifth generation of bovine trabecular meshwork cells. After 1 - 14 days, the culture solution was observed by phase-contrast microscopy, fluorescence microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and was studied by DNA laddering and flow cytometric analysis.Dexamethasone (125 - 500 mg/L) induced apoptosis of trabecular meshwork cells in a dose-time-dependent manner.Apoptosis of cultured bovine trabecular meshwork cells can be induced by dexamethasone, which may be one of the pathogenic mechanisms of steroid-induced glaucoma.

In order to study the effect of cross-flow directions of an internal coolant on film cooling performance, the discharge coefficients and film cooling effectiveness with one inlet and double outlet hole injections were simulated. The numerical results show that two different cross-flow directions of the coolant cause the same decrease in the discharge coefficients as that in the case of supplying coolant by a plenum. The different proportion of the mass flow out of the two outlets of the film hole results in different values of the film cooling effectiveness for three different cases of coolant supplies. The film cooling effectiveness is the highest for the case of supplying coolant by the plenum. At a lower blowing ratio of 1.0, the film cooling effectiveness with coolant injection from the right entrance of the passage is higher than that from the left entrance of the passage. At a higher blowing ratio of 2.0, the opposite result is found.