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Bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) contributes to airway inflammation and mucus hypersecretion in chronic airway inflammatory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and cystic fibrosis (CF). Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are extracellular meshworks composed of DNA fibers and antimicrobial proteins. Although NET formation has been detected in COPD and CF patients, how NETs contribute to these diseases is poorly understood. This study was performed to clarify the effects and mechanisms of action of NETs in airway inflammation and mucus hypersecretion. We created a murine model of LPS-induced airway inflammation and mucus hypersecretion, and found that LPS-induced NET formation was degraded by aerosolized DNase I treatment in mice. Degradation of NETs by aerosolized DNase I reduced LPS-induced airway inflammation and mucus hypersecretion in mice, this reduction correlated with suppression of TLR4/NF-κB signaling pathway. More importantly, NETs promoted LPS-induced production of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α in macrophages. These results suggest NET degradation using aerosolized DNase I is a potential new therapeutic strategy for treating COPD and CF.

To investigate the brittle creep failure process of rock material, the time-dependent properties of brittle rocks under the impact of homogeneity are analyzed by the numerical simulation method, RFPA-Creep (2D). Deformation is more palpable for more homogeneous rock material under the uniaxial creep loading condition. At a low stress level, diffusion creep may occur and transition to dislocation creep with increasing applied stress. The law for increasing creep strain with the homogeneity index under a constant confined condition is similar to the uniaxial case, and dislocation creep tends to happen with increasing confining pressure for the same homogeneity index. The dilatancy index reaches its maximum at a high stress level when rock approaches failure, and the evolution of the dilatancy index with the homogeneity index under the same confining pressure is similar to the uniaxial case and is more marked than that under the unconfined condition. Both uniaxial and triaxial creep failure originate from the ductile damage accumulation inside rock. The dominant shear-type failure is exhibited by uniaxial creep and the conventional compression case presents the splitting-based failure mode. Under confining pressure, the creep failure pattern is prone to shear, which is more notable for the rock with higher homogeneity.

// Ling Li 1, 2 , Ji-Ye Yin 1, 2 , Fa-Zhong He 1, 2 , Ma-Sha Huang 1, 2 , Tao Zhu 1, 2 , Yuan-Feng Gao 1, 2 , Yi-Xin Chen 1, 2 , Dong-Bo Zhou 3 , Xiang Chen 4 , Lun-Quan Sun 5 , Wei Zhang 1, 2 , Hong-Hao Zhou 1, 2 and Zhao-Qian Liu 1, 2 1 Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, P. R. China 2 Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Hunan Key Laboratory of Pharmacogenetics, Central South University, Changsha 410078, P. R. China 3 Department of Gerontology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, P. R. China 4 Department of Dermatology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, P. R. China 5 Center for Molecular Medicine, Xiangya Hospital, Key Laboratory of Molecular Radiation Oncology of Hunan Province, Central South University, Changsha 410008, P. R. China Correspondence to: Zhao-Qian Liu, email: liuzhaoqian63@126.com Keywords: lung squamous cell carcinoma; long noncoding RNA SFTA1P; hnRNP-U- GADD45A; apoptosis; cisplatin chemosensitivity Received: July 28, 2017 Accepted: August 24, 2017 Published: October 27, 2017 ABSTRACT Chemotherapeutic insensitivity remains one of the major obstacles in clinical treatment of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). Recently, increasing evidence has suggested that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) promote tumorigenesis in many cancer types. However, the potential biological roles and regulatory mechanisms of lncRNAs in response to cisplatin treatment are poorly understood. Here, we found that lncRNA SFTA1P (surfactant associated 1, pseudogene), highly expressed in lung, was down-regulated in LSCC tissues and could be induced upon cisplatin treatment in LSCC cells. Elevated SFTA1P induced apoptosis and enhanced the sensitivity to cisplatin of LSCC cells. We further identified that hnRNP-U (heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein U) was down-regulated in LSCCs and positively correlated with patients’ poor prognosis as well as SFTA1P. Mechanistic studies revealed that SFTA1P could up-regulate hnRNP-U expression. In addition, we identified that hnRNP-U enhanced cisplatin-induced apoptosis through up-regulation of GADD45A, high expression of which was correlated with good prognosis in LSCC patients. Our findings demonstrated that SFTA1P might serve as a useful biomarker for LSCC diagnosis and a predictor for cisplatin chemotherapy response in patients with LSCC.

Yong Zou,1 Xi Chen,1 Jie Liu,2 Dong bo Zhou,1 Xiao Kuang,1 Jian Xiao,1 Qiao Yu,1 Xiaoxiao Lu,1 Wei Li,1 Bin Xie,1 Qiong Chen1 1Department of Geriatrics, Respiratory Medicine, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, 2Department of Emergency, The First People’s Hospital of Changsha, Changsha, People’s Republic of China Abstract: COPD is a chronic airway inflammatory disease characterized mainly by neutrophil airway infiltrations. Interleukin (IL)-1β and IL-17 are the key mediators of neutrophilic airway inflammation in COPD. This study was undertaken to evaluate the serum IL-1β and IL-17 levels and associations between these two key mediators with clinical parameters in COPD patients. Serum samples were collected from 60 COPD subjects during the acute exacerbation of COPD, 60 subjects with stable COPD and 40 healthy control subjects. Commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits were used to measure the serum IL-1β and IL-17 concentrations. The association between serum IL-1β and IL-17 with FEV1% predicted, C-reactive protein, neutrophil percentage and smoking status (pack-years) was assessed in the COPD patients. We found that serum IL-1β and IL-17 levels in acute exacerbation of COPD subjects were significantly higher than that in stable COPD or control subjects and were positively correlated to serum C-reactive protein levels, neutrophil % and smoking status (pack-years) but negatively correlated with FEV1% predicted in COPD patients. More importantly, serum IL-1β levels were markedly positively associated with serum IL-17 levels in patients with COPD (P=0.741, P

The 3D model of a large chamber, which is designed for vacuum electron beam welding machine, is established. Then using Ansys software analyzes the vacuum chamber under the condition of vacuum. According to the analysis, the strength of chamber is checked and the structure is optimized. The results support the design of large chamber used for vacuum electron beam welding machine, also provide a theoretical basis for further studying how the deformation of vacuum chamber influence the internal bench accuracy.

In the Martial Arts arena contest of robot, Humanoid robot should recognize the target timely and accurately. So robot vision technology becomes a key of the contest. In this paper, target recognition algorithms based on color information are analyzed. According to the results, an improved algorithm based on Table Lookup method is proposed, which aimed to provide more rapidity of computing in real-time control system on the robot. It is shown in illustrative experiment that average 50% time was saved in computing when using the new algorithm instead of traditional algorithms.

The digital filter is one of the most significant applications of digital signal processing (DSP). The design process is very complex involving the model approximation, parameter selection, computer simulation and a series of work. This paper introduces an efficient design method for the digital filter (IIR and FIR) based on the Signal Processing Toolbox of MATLAB, which makes design easy, fast and greatly reduces the amount of design work, and then proves it by practical examples.

Chamber deformation in vacuum electron beam welding machine directly affects the processing precision of whole equipment.In order to further improve performance of the welding machine,by the use of the computer simulation software, the Chamber structure in some type of vacuum electron beam welding machine,was optimized designed. And the optimized results were verified in a actual vacuum chamber. The results of deformation measurement show that the vacuum chamber optimization design is successful.

A target localization method based on color recogni-tion and connected component analysis is presented in this paper. The raw image is converted to HSI color space through a lookup table and binarized, then followed by a line-by-line scan to find all the connected domains. By setting appropriate threshold for the size of each connected domain, most pseudo targets can be omitted and coordinates of the target could be calculated in the mean time. The main advantage of this method is the absence of extra filtering process, therefore real-time performance of the whole system is greatly improved. Another merit is we introduce the frame difference concept to avoid manually presetting the upper and lower bound for binarization. Thirdly, the localization step is combined with target enumeration, further simplified the implementation. Experiments on our ARM system demonstrate its capability of tracing multiple targets under a mean frame rate of 15FPS, which satisfied the requirement of real-time video processing on embedded robot systems.

CdTe quantum dots (QDs) were used as a highly selective probe for the detection of prion protein. Orange-emitting precipitates appeared within 30s of the addition of recombination prion protein (rPrP) to a solution of green-emitting CdTe QDs. This allowed colorimetric qualitative and semi-quantitative detection of rPrP. The decrease in fluorescence intensity of the supernatant could be used for quantitative detection of rPrP. The fluorescence intensity of the supernatant was inversely proportional to the rPrP concentration from 8 to 200 nmol L(-1) (R(2)=0.9897). Transmission electron microscopy results showed that fibrils existed in the precipitates and these were partly transformed to amyloid plaques after the addition of rPrP.

In this paper, a novel method so-called bioluminescence inhibition assay with luminous bacteria (Photobacterium phosphoreum) was introduced to evaluate the toxicity of quantum dots. The bioassay was based on measuring the decrease of the light emitted by luminous bacteria. With obvious advantages of simplicity, rapidity and sensitivity, it can dramatically improve the efficiency of probing the toxicity of QDs. Based on this method, we systemically explored the effect of the composition and surface modification on QDs' toxicity. The experiment of composition effect was performed using three kinds of QDs, namely CdSe, CdTe and ZnS-AgInS(2) QDs with the same stabilizer - dihydrolipoic acid. As for the effect of different stabilizers, mercaptoacetic acid, l-cysteine and dihydrolipoic acid stabilized CdSe were researched, respectively. Our results demonstrated that both the composition and surface modification were the important factors affecting the toxicity of QDs. In addition, a concentration dependence of toxicity was also found.

Herein, we prepared water-soluble fluorescent carbon dots with diameter about 1.5 nm from cheap commercial lampblack. These fluorescent carbon nanoparticles are stable toward photobleaching and stable in water for more than half a year without fluorescence decrease. In order to improve its fluorescence properties, we passivated these nanoparticles with bisamino-terminated polyethylene glycol (PEG(1500 N)). Therefore, both fluorescence quantum yield and lifetime increased after this progress. In addition, the passivated carbon dots were more inert to solvent than the bare one and showed different responses to pH change.

Electrostatic interactions of calf thymus DNA (ct-DNA) with a positive charged polymer were investigated based on measurements of enhanced resonance light scattering (RLS) signals, and were proved by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The optimal pH value was 7.0 in a phosphate-buffered saline solution (PBS) and the maximum RLS peak located at 344.8 nm. The RLS signal enhancement (DeltaI(RLS)) could be linearly correlated with the concentration of ct-DNA in the range of 0.0900 to 2.70 microg mL(-1), and the detection limit (S/N = 3) was 17.0 ng mL(-1). The binding ratio and the binding constant between DNA and polymer were also provided.

Face detection technology is an important branch of digital video processing technology. This chapter proposed a face detection technology based on haar features and AdaBoost algorithm. In this chapter, haar features, integral image, AdaBoost algorithm, and cascade classifier were introduced, features were extracted by haar features, and integral image and AdaBoost algorithm were used to select suitable haar features for facial features; classifier was the classifier finally constructed and used to face detection. It was found out that the common features (a small amount of haar features) play an important role in face detection. To verify this method, experiments on both static pictures and video stream were conducted. Experimental results showed that the model of haar features and AdaBoost algorithm face detection technology had high detection accuracy with more hardware cost while a small number of common features would reduce hardware cost and had greater significance in real-time face detection.