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Simple Summary: The rumen is a digestive organ in ruminants that is affected by soluble carbohydrate (SCHO) levels in the diet. This study confirmed that as the proportion of SCHO to NDF in the diet increased, the rumen pH decreased, the LPS concentration increased, and the papilla height and area increased. When the ratio of SCHO to NDF was 2.0, the tight junctions were disrupted, inflammatory cytokines levels were increased, and NF-κB/MAPK was activated. Appropriate soluble carbohydrate (SCHO)-to-NDF ratios in the diet are essential for rumen health. The effects of different SCHO-to-NDF ratios (1.0, 1.5, and 2.0) on rumen barrier function and inflammation in Dumont lambs (n = 18, 6 replicates per treatment) was investigated. The SCHO:NDF ratio was altered by replacing the forage (Leynus chinensis) with corn grain. With an increase in the proportion of SCHO, the final body weight (FBW), average daily gain (ADG), soluble carbohydrate intake (SCHOI), and LPS level increased; and the neutral detergent fiber intake (NDFI), ruminal papillae height, papillae area, and pH decreased (p < 0.05, plin < 0.05). The medium CHO:NDF group had increased claudin-1 mRNA (p < 0.05, plin = 0.005, pquad = 0.003) and protein (p < 0.05, pquad < 0.001) levels; the high CHO:NDF group had increased occludin mRNA and protein (p < 0.05, plin = 0.001) levels. The level of the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 was significantly greater in the medium CHO:NDF group than in the high CHO:NDF group (p < 0.05, pquad < 0.001). With an increase in the ratio of SCHO, the mRNA level and concentration of the proinflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α linearly increased (p < 0.05, plin < 0.05), and those in the high CHO:NDF group were significantly greater than those in the low CHO:NDF group. The levels of phosphorylated p65 (plin = 0.003), IκB-α (plin < 0.001), and JNK (plin = 0.001) increased linearly, and those in the high CHO:NDF group were significantly greater than those in the other two groups (p < 0.05). Therefore, when the SCHO-to-NDF ratio was increased to 1.5, the rumen epithelium was not affected, but when the ratio was increased to 2.0, NF-κB and MAPK were activated in the rumen epithelium, leading to impaired barrier function and inflammation. The suitable NFC:NDF ratio for the short-term fattening of Dumont lambs was found to be 1.50. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractObjectiveMethodsResultsConclusionsTo investigate the role of 14-3-3β in acute asthma exacerbations in children and analyze the risk factors for asthma exacerbations.This study recruited 101 children with acute asthma exacerbations, 101 children with stable asthma, and 65 healthy children. Serum 14-3-3β was compared among the three groups. Factors such as asthma family history, skin prick test, serum-specific IgE test, coinfections, and clinical indicators (FeNO, FEV1, white blood cells, eosinophils, and serum IgE level) were compared between the asthma groups. Risk factors associated with acute asthma exacerbations were identified using multivariate logistic regression models. ROC curve was drawn to determine the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of 14-3-3β.Serum 14-3-3β was significantly greater in the acute asthma group than in the stable asthma and control groups. Serum 14-3-3β was higher in severe acute asthma group than in mild-moderate asthma group. There were no significant differences in serum 14-3-3β levels between stable asthma and control groups (p > .05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that serum 14-3-3β level, FeNO, coinfection, and FEV1 z-score significantly increased the odds of acute asthma exacerbations in children. The optimal 14-3-3β cutoff value (39.79 ng/mL), had a sensitivity of 69.3% and specificity of 94.1% for predicting acute asthma exacerbations.14-3-3β is elevated in children with acute exacerbations of asthma, and increases with exacerbation severity. 14-3-3β, FeNO, FEV1, and coinfection could be independent risk factors for predicting asthma exacerbations. The optimal 14-3-3β cutoff value for predicting asthma exacerbations was 39.79 ng/mL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the malignant progression of oral leukoplakia (OLK) to oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), the density of microvessels and expression of angiogenesis‐related molecules increases. Emerging evidence indicates that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) play an indispensable role in the tumor microenvironment. However, the role and mechanism of action of oral MSCs in inducing angiogenesis remain unclear. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the molecules and mechanisms that play a role in the tissue microenvironment. Methods: Exosomes were collected from normal oral mucosa (N‐Exo), OLK (OLK‐Exo), and OSCC (Ca‐Exo) MSCs, and their pro‐angiogenic capacity was evaluated in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and a subcutaneously implanted tumor model in nude mice. Quantitative proteomics analysis was used to compare the exosome‐derived proteins between N‐Exo, OLK‐Exo, and Ca‐Exo. Results: Compared with that of the N‐Exo and control, OLK‐Exo and Ca‐Exo treatment significantly promoted HUVEC migration, invasion, and tube‐formation capability. In the nude mice model, immunofluorescence of CD31 showed that OLK‐Exo and Ca‐Exo substantially improved neovascularization around the grafts. Quantitative proteomics analysis revealed that matrix metalloproteinase 1 (MMP1) levels were significantly higher in the OLK‐Exo and Ca‐Exo groups than in the N‐Exo groups. Silencing MMP1 expression reversed the functional promoting effect of OLK‐Exo and Ca‐Exo on HUVECs. Conclusion: Exosomes from OLK‐MSCs and Ca‐MSCs have a stronger pro‐angiogenic ability through high MMP1 content. This new finding provides insight into the intervention with the secretion of MSC‐derived exosomes, which may be an innovative strategy for carcinogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: miR-203 was first indicated in maintaining skin homeostasis and innate immunity. Aberrant expression of miR-203 was found associated with pathological progressions of immune disorders, cancers, as well as neurodegenerations. Recently, increasing data on miR-203 in regulating neuroinflammation and neuronal apoptosis has raised extensive concern about the biological function of this microRNA. Methods: Mouse model with ectopic miR-203 expression in the hippocampus was constructed by stereotactic injection of lentiviral expression vector of pre-miR-203. Association of miR-203 and mRNA of Akirin2, as well as the competition for miR-203 targeting between Akirin2 3ʹUTR and another recently characterized miR-203 target, 14-3-3θ, was verified using Dual-Luciferase Reporter Gene Assay and western blot. Microglia activation and pro-inflammatory cytokines expression in the hippocampus of mice overexpressing miR-203 was evaluated using immunohistochemistry analysis and western blot. Neuronal cell death was monitored using anti-caspase 8 in immunohistochemistry as well as TUNEL assay. Cognition of mice was assessed with a behavior test battery consisting of nesting behavior test, Barnes maze and fear conditioning test. Results: Akirin2, an activator of NF‐κB signaling, was identified as a direct target of miR-203. By also targeting 14-3-3θ, a negative regulator of NF‐κB signaling, miR-203 displayed an overall pro-inflammatory role both in vitro and in vivo. Promoted nuclear translocation of NF‐κB and increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines were observed in cultured BV2 cells transfected with miR-203 mimics. Microglia activation and upregulation of NF‐κB, IL-1β and IL-6 were observed in mouse hippocampus with overexpression of miR-203. In addition, promoted neuronal cell death in the hippocampus and impaired neuronal activities resulted in cognitive dysfunction of mice with ectopic miR-203 expression in the hippocampus. Conclusion: A pro-inflammatory and neurodisruptive role of miR-203 was addressed based on our data in this study. Given the identification of Akirin2 as a direct target of miR-203 and the competition with 14-3-3θ for miR-203 targeting, together with the findings of other signaling molecules in NF‐κB pathway as targets of miR-203, we proposed that miR-203 was a master modulator, fine-tunning neuroinflammation by juggling different components of NF‐κB signaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MiR-203 was identified as a hub of a potential regulatory miRNA network in central nervous system. Overexpressing of miR-203 in the frontal cortex of C57BL/6J wild type mouse induced neurodegeneration by increasing the apoptotic pathway and neuron death. AFF4, a transcription factor, was identified as a new bona fida protein target of miR-203 in CNS. The miRNA:mRNA interaction of miR-203 and AFF4 was verified using Dural-luciferase assay. Down-regulated expression of AFF4 was induced by overexpressing miR-203 both in vitro and in vivo. Open field test, Y maze and Morris water maze test were conducted for the behavioral assessment of the mice with stereotactic injection of lentiviral vector overexpressing miR-203 in the hippocampus. No anxiety-like behavior or impaired cognition was noticed in these mice. Consistent with the results of the behavioral assessment, the electron micrograph and Nissl staining revealed no significant change in the synaptic density and no neuron injuries in the hippocampus of mice overexpressing miR-203, respectively. Our results indicated that instead of promoting neurodegenerative phenotype, a more profound function should be ascribed to miR-203 in regulating neuron behavioral activities and cognition. Neuron-type specific functions of miR-203 are likely to be executed via its various downstream protein interactors. • We reported that AFF4, a transcription factor, was identified as a new bona fida protein target of miR-203 in CNS. • The miRNA:mRNA interaction of miR-203 and AFF4 was verified using Dural-luciferase assay. • Down-regulated expression of AFF4 was induced by overexpressing miR-203 both in vitro and in vivo. • Open field test, Y maze and Morris water maze test were conducted for the behavioral assessments of the mice with stereotactic injection of lentiviral vector overexpressing miR-203 in the hippocampus. • The electron micrograph and Nissl staining revealed no significant change in the synaptic density and no neuron injuries in the mice overexpressing miR-203 in the hippocampus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the English classroom teaching video denoising algorithm, it is not only necessary to consider whether the noise removal of the output video is thorough, but also to consider the actual operating efficiency and robustness of the algorithm. In the process of the thesis research, after reading a large number of internal and external documents on video denoising algorithms and analyzing the pros and cons of various denoising algorithms, this paper proposes a new video denoising algorithm, which uses the recently proposed grid flow motion model based on camera motion compensation to generate denoised video. Compared with the current advanced video denoising schemes, our method processes noisy frames faster and has good robustness. In addition, this article improves the algorithm framework so that the algorithm can not only deal with offline video denoising, but also deal with online video denoising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize is China's largest grain crop. Mechanical grain harvesting is the key technology in maize production, and the kernel moisture concentration (KMC) is the main controlling factor in mechanical maize harvesting in China. The kernel dehydration rate (KDR) is closely related to the KMC. Thus, it is important to conduct genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of the KMC and KDR in maize, detect relevant quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs), and mine relevant candidate genes. Here, 132 maize inbred lines were used to measure the KMC every 5 days from 10 to 40 days after pollination (DAP) in order to calculate the KDR. These lines were genotyped using a maize 55K single-nucleotide polymorphism array. QTNs for the KMC and KDR were detected based on five methods (mrMLM, FASTmrMLM, FASTmrEMMA, pLARmEB, and ISIS EM-BLASSO) in the package mrMLM. A total of 334 significant QTNs were found for both the KMC and KDR, including 175 QTNs unique to the KMC and 178 QTNs unique to the KDR; 116 and 58 QTNs were detected among the 334 QTNs by two and more than two methods, respectively; and 9 and 5 QTNs among 58 QTNs were detected in 2 and 3 years, respectively. A significant enrichment in cellular component was revealed by Gene Ontology enrichment analysis of candidate genes in the intervals adjacent to the 14 QTNs and this category contained five genes. The information provided in this study may be useful for further mining of genes associated with the KMC and KDR in maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A planar metasurface is designed to replace the traditional three-dimensional axicon lens to generate a nondiffraction in normal direction at first. Then, to generate Bessel beams that can be tilted in any direction, we add the phase distribution information derived from the generalized Snell's reflection law to the traditional axicon phase distribution formula. Finally, a metasurface with a nondiffracting beam inclined to φ of 30° and θ of 30° is designed by employing the final modified phase information for demonstration. The simulated results indicate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed theory and design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diclazuril, a broad-spectrum anticoccidial drug, may be accumulated in edible tissues of animals through illegal use, which poses potential threats to human health through the food chain. In this study, an innovative hapten was designed and an immunogen of diclazuril was successfully synthesised with keyhole limpet haemocyanin as carrier protein; then a monoclonal antibody with high specificity was obtained. Furthermore, based on the novel antibody, a one-step indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (icELISA) was established for rapid and specific detection of diclazuril residues. Compared with the traditional icELISA method, this method saves at least 0.5 hours and one washing step. Under the optimal conditions, the one-step icELISA for diclazuril exhibited good performance with a 50% inhibition concentration (IC50) value of 0.952 μg/kg. The average recoveries of the icELISA ranged from 73.1% to 115.5% with the coefficient of variation lower than 12.7%, which was evaluated by detecting spiked animal-origin food samples. Finally, the one-step icELISA shows a good correlation with an ultra-high liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method. Those results demonstrate that the one-step icELISA developed for diclazuril detection is time-saving, low-cost, specific, sensitive, and reliable. It shows good potential for social, environmental, and economic benefits in future use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) is an important commensal and pathogenic bacterium responsible for pneumonia, meningitis and other invasive diseases. Pneumolysin (PLY) is the major virulence factor that contributes significantly to the interaction between S. pneumoniae and the host. Key findings: In this study, the results of antibacterial analysis, the haemolysis test and the Western blotting assay showed that acacetin inhibited PLY‐mediated pore‐forming activity caused by S. pneumoniae culture precipitates and purified PLY without anti‐S. pneumoniae activity. In addition, acacetin treatment inhibited PLY oligomerization without affecting the expression of PLY in S. pneumoniae culture supernatants. Live/dead cells and cytotoxicity assays suggested that acacetin significantly enhanced the survival rate of injured cells by inhibiting the biological toxicity of PLY without cytotoxicity in the coculture system. The in vivo mouse model of S. pneumoniae infection further demonstrated that acacetin treatment could significantly reduce the levels of inflammatory factors (INF‐γ and IL‐β) in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and alleviate the pathological damage of lung injury. Conclusions: Taken together, the results presented in this study indicated that acacetin inhibited the pore‐forming activity of PLY and reduced the virulence of S. pneumoniae in vivo and in vitro, which may provide a leading compound for the treatment of S. pneumoniae infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) is an important zoonotic pathogen in public health and food safety. The type III secretion system (T3SS) encoded by Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI) is a sophisticated molecular machine that facilitates active invasion, intracellular replication, and host inflammation. Due to increasing antibiotic resistance, new therapeutic strategies that target the Salmonella T3SS have received considerable attention. In this study, paeonol was identified as an inhibitor of the S. Typhimurium T3SS. Paeonol significantly blocked the translocation of SipA into host cells and suppressed the expression of effector proteins without affecting bacterial growth in the effective concentration range. Additionally, S. Typhimurium-mediated cell injury and invasion levels were significantly reduced after treatment with paeonol, without cytotoxicity. Most importantly, the comprehensive protective effect of paeonol was confirmed in an S. Typhimurium mouse infection model. Preliminary mechanistic studies suggest that paeonol inhibits the expression of effector proteins by reducing the transcription level of the SPI-1 regulatory pathway gene hilA. This work provides proof that paeonol could be used as a potential drug to treat infections caused by Salmonella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a novel differentially driven circularly polarized metasurface-based antenna with symmetrical and unidirectional radiation pattern. The introduction of metasurface could generate an additional resonance. The location of lower resonant frequency could be tuned independently by varying the length of cross gap in the ground plane while the higher resonant frequency is insensitive to this change. In addition, it is also proved that the circularly polarized performance could be better using the nonuniform metasurface than the uniform one. Furthermore, an antenna prototype has been fabricated to experimentally validate the principle and design approach. The measurements agree reasonably with the simulated ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication presents a new design of a quadri-polarization-agile aperture-coupled patch antenna array for 60 GHz applications. Four polarization states, namely, vertical linear polarization, horizontal linear polarization, left-hand circular polarization (LHCP), and right-hand circular polarization (RHCP) can be flexibly reconfigured by dynamically switching the excitation of the corresponding port. More importantly, as the LP and CP radiations are achieved by using differential feeding and sequential-rotation feeding, respectively, the array exhibits wide impedance and axial ratio (AR) bandwidths, high polarization purity as well as symmetrical pattern with the main beam fixed at boresight. The −10 dB impedance bandwidths are better than 11.6% (57–64 GHz) for the four polarization states. The measured AR bandwidths are from 58 to more than 64 GHz for both the LHCP and RHCP. The good radiation performance together with the quadri-polarization-agile capability of this new array, as demonstrated in the communication, underlines its suitability for the future 5G communication systems, especially in a multipath propagation environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately predicting the power load in certain areas is of great importance for grid management and power dispatching. A great deal of research has been conducted within the smart grid system community in developing an assortment of different algorithms that seek to increase the accuracy of these predictions. However, these predictions suffer from various sources of error, such as the variations in weather conditions, calendar effects, economic indicators, and many other sources, which are caused by the inherent stochastic and nonlinear characteristics of power demand. In order to quantify the uncertainty in load forecasting effectively, this paper proposes a comprehensive probability density forecasting method employing Gaussian process quantile regression (GPQR). GPQR is a type of Bayesian non-parametric method which can handle the uncertainties in power load data in a principled manner. Consequently, the probabilistic distribution of power load data can be statistically formulated. The effectiveness of the proposed method for short-term load forecasting has been assessed adopting the real dataset provided by American PJM electric power company. Numerical results demonstrate that the uncertainties in power load data can be effectively acquired based on the proposed method. Meanwhile, the competitive predictive performance could be yielded with respect to the conventional adopted methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The characteristics and biological activities of a novel polysaccharide from Lepidium meyenii leaves (LMLP) were investigated. LMLP was purified using DEAE-52 cellulose chromatography followed by SephadexG-100 chromatography. The average molecule weight of LMLP was 58.43 kDa and it was composed of galactose, arabinose, rhamnose, glucose and mannose with a relative molar ratio of 5.51:4.05:1.15:0.77:0.01. Antioxidant activity results showed that LMLP presented an EC 50 of 3.72 mg/mL in scavenging 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical, and it also had reducing power (OD700 nm being 0.079 at 1 mg/mL). Moreover, LMLP possessed the potential on stimulating immune response of RAW264.7 cells. It could promote proliferation, strengthen phagocytosis function, enhance the expression of CD80, and increase the secretion of nitric oxide (NO) in a dose-dependent manner. All of these results suggested that LMLP could be used as a natural ingredient for functional food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

External-soil spray seeding has gradually become a widely used technology for slope ecological rehabilitation in China in the 21st century. Meanwhile, with ever-increasing amounts of municipal sewage sludge being produced, sewage sludge has become a new source of solid waste pollution in the environment. Therefore, the goal of this study was to utilize sludge as a new kind of spray seeding component to replace non-renewable turfy soil. Orthogonal experiments were conducted to optimize the substrate formulation regarding the four factors of soil-to-sludge ratio, fiber content, soil additive concentration, and bioorganic fertilizer concentration. The results showed that sludge improved the physical and chemical properties of the substrate, increased plant growth, and within a certain range of dosage, reduced runoff and soil loss. The improvements of soil bulk density, total porosity and soil nutrients were particularly notable ( P < 0.01). Plant growth in experimental groups was better than that of control groups ( P < 0.05), and Festuca arundinace performed best among the three plants ( P < 0.01). In addition, besides the physical and chemical properties, fiber content mainly affected plant growth, and soil additive reduced runoff and soil loss, whereas bioorganic fertilizer showed no obvious effect. After the experiments, a simple model was used to integrate the effects of the four factors on 28 parameters and thus to get the optimum component proportions, which were a soil-to-sludge ratio of 6:4 (v/v), fiber content of 15% (v/v), and soil additive concentration of 0.6 kg m −3 . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abs reactive to DNA and DNA/histone complexes are a distinguished characteristic of primary immunoglobulin repertoires in autoimmune B6.MRL-Fas lpr and MRL/MpJ-Fas lpr mice. These mice are defective in Fas receptor, which is critical for the apoptosis of autoreactive B cells by an extrinsic pathway. In the present study, we explored the possibility that bone marrow small pre-B and immature B cells from adult B6.MRL-Fas lpr mice and MRL/MpJ-Fas lpr mice respectively, which contain autoreactive B-cell antigen receptors (BCR) and manifest autoimmune syndromes, exhibit enhanced receptor editing patterns. Indeed, FAS lpr pre B and immature B cells were shown to possess more ongoing replacements of non-productive (nP) than productive (P) primary VκJκ rearrangements. Significantly, the P vs nP ratios of these replaced primary rearrangements were 1:2, thus indicating that κ light-chain production appears not to inhibit secondary rearrangements. In addition, we identified multiple atypical rearrangements, such as Vκ cRS (cryptic recombination signals) cleavages. These results suggest that the onset of light chain secondary rearrangements persists similarly as a non-selected mode and independent of BCR autoreactivity during certain developmental windows of bone marrow B cells in lupus-prone mice and control, and leads us to propose the function of secondary, de novo Igκ rearrangements to increase BCR diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wideband bandpass filter based on dual-mode defected ground structure resonator (DGSR) is designed and effectively analysed by utilising the even-/odd-mode theory and equivalent circuit models. The lower and upper cutoff frequencies of the filter can be independently tuned by adjusing the even- and odd-mode resonant frequencies of the dual-mode DGSR, respectively. The fabricated prototype is centred at 2.27 GHz with a wide bandwidth (FBW 63.4%), low insertion loss (0.386 dB), high selectivity and wide stopband. The attenuation slopes in the lower and upper passband transitions are 108.5 and 136.9 dB/GHz, respectively. The stopband rejection is better than 22 dB up to 6 GHz (2.6 f0). © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2300-2303, 2016 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-powered piezoelectric sensors based on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) porous materials are light-weight and portable, whereas using unmodified CNCs can hardly obtain enough piezoelectric properties without external strong polarization due to its irreversible deformation caused by low toughness. Here, we bonded rod-like CNCs with a soft polymer, poly ethylene glycol (PEG), and hypothesized that PEG could toughen the material and its dielectric signal could induce the CNC polarization. We further adsorbed graphene (GR) as surface electrodes to prepare a CNC-PEG-GR piezoelectric porous material with density of 0.096 g·cm−3. The voltage output reached maximum when the frequency matched the dielectric relaxation frequency of PEG. We also increased the length-diameter ratio of porous material pores from 1.1 to 3.3 by adjusting its freeze-drying process, and the voltage output could reach to 0.7 V at a moderate ratio. They could be conveniently integrated into portable self-powered sensors applied to the intelligent wearable electronic devices. Here, we have prepared a flexible piezoelectric cellulose nanocrystals-based porous material using flexible poly ethylene glycol as the piezoelectric activator. The voltage output of the porous material reached the maximum when the compression frequency approached the relaxation frequency of PEG molecules. Then, we optimized the appropriate orientation cells length-diameter ratio of 1.41 by adjustable freeze-dry process and further to make a portable self-powered sensor. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we state and establish a new fixed point theorem for generalized Ćirić-type contraction in Kaleva-Seikkala's type fuzzy b-metric space. Our results improve and extend some well-known results in the literature. Some examples are given to support our result. Finally, as an application, we show the existence and uniqueness of solution to Volterra integral equation formulated in Kaleva–Seikkala's type fuzzy b-metric space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning has been successfully applied to video anomaly detection. However, the way that deep network learn spatio-temporal features autonomously will ignore the specificity of different pattern features. Therefore, this paper focuses on how to efficiently learn deep appearance feature, introduces the idea of learning appearance information by predicting future frame, and proposes dual stream conditional generative adversarial network fusion for video abnormal behavior detection. The video frame and its corresponding optical flow image are transferred to the conditional generative adversarial network to learn the motion feature representation. In addition, inputting the video frame and its corresponding future frame to the network to generate the appearance representation complementary to motion feature. The model is only trained with normal events, therefore it is not able to generate abnormal events accurately. During the test, for the foreground moving targets, the images generated by the model are compared with the ground truth to obtain a two-stream anomaly probability distribution model based on the mean square error used to achieve the purpose of region anomaly detection. Experiments on the public datasets show that the proposed method can effectively detect and locate abnormal behaviors in the video. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we theoretically designed and numerically analyzed an ultrabroadband meta-absorber with near unity absorptivity that works in terahertz spectrum. A wideband meta-absorber composed of bilayer patterned graphene and dielectric cylinder array with high symmetry was proposed. The wideband absorption mechanism benefited from two aspects. The first one was enhanced surface plasmons based on bilayer patterned graphene. And the second one was the coupling of continuous resonant modes within Fabry-Perot cavities to the enhanced surface plasmons in the graphene. An ultrawide bandwidth with absorptivity over 90 % were obtained from 3.2 THz to 9.4 THz. Simulated results showed that the proposed ultra-wideband absorbing structure also possessed high performance of polarization independence, flexible tunability, large incident angle insensitivity, and compact fabrication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wild tall wheatgrass ( Agropyron elongatum) is an important relative of wheat. Seven distinct sequences, each consisting of a single intron-less intact open reading frame, were amplified from the genomic DNA of tall wheatgrass, using degenerate primers special to SRL-/TRQ-type ω-gliadin genes targeted at Gli-1 loci. The amplified sequences shared a high degree of homology to known ω-gliadin sequences. Their lengths ranged from 837 to 951 bp, and those of the corresponding deduced peptides, from 278 to 316 residues. Each deduced polypeptide possessed a typical structure of ω-gliadin consisting of a signal peptide with 19 amino acid residues, a short N-terminal and C-terminal conserved domain, and a long variable repetitive domain. Three of the seven sequences matched the SRL-type ω-gliadin, while the other four matched the TRQ-type. Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction results showed five of the seven ω-gliadin genes expressed in the endosperm of tall wheatgrass seed. In addition, the seven tall wheatgrass genes clustered closely with one another, except clone JN092577, which was more closely related to three B-genome SRL-type ω-gliadin genes. Variation and evolutionary relationship of the ω-gliadin family genes were also illustrated and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

4-Amino-2-Trifluoromethyl-Phenyl Retinate (ATPR), a novel all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) derivative, has been demonstrated that it had a variety of anti-tumor effects by exerting regulation on cellular proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation. Here, we found that ATPR is critical for alleviating myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and acute myelogenous leukemia. USO1, vesicle transport factor, belongs to tether protein family and involved in endoplasmic reticulum to Golgi trafficking of protein which is important to tumorigenesis. How USO1 contribute to MDS remain elusive. USO1 is aberrantly activated in MDS and AML in vivo and vitro, aberration of which might be a dominant mechanism for MDS cell survival. During the ATPR-induced remission of MDS, in vitro , USO1 presents a time and concentration-dependent decrease. Silencing of USO1 promotes myeloid differentiation of MDS cells and inhibits MDS cellular proliferation while USO1 over-expression has the opposite effect, suggesting that reduction of USO1 enhances the sensitivity of SKM-1 cells to ATPR treatment. Mechanistically, USO1 exerts its oncogenic role by inactivating Raf/ERK signaling, while ATPR is access to revise it. Notably, the activity of Raf/ERK pathway is required for the development and maintenance of MDS cell proliferation. Collectively, our results demonstrate the USO1- Raf/ERK signaling axis in MDS and highlight the negative role of USO1 in ATPR-regulated remission of MDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Diprophylline modifies the work function of ITO and increases the transmittance of P3CT-Na HTL. • The doped diprophylline could simultaneously interact with ITO and P3CT-Na. • The diprophylline could fix P3CT-Na onto the ITO substrate and enhancing the durability of HTL. • Inverted PSCs utilizing diprophylline doped P3CT-Na HTL yield a remarkable efficiency of 20.87%. • The device fabricated with ultrasonically cleaned doped HTL showed an efficiency of 18.77%. Poly[3-(4-carboxybutyl) thiophene-2,5-diyl] (P3CT) is extensively used as hole transport layers (HTL) for efficient inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs). However, some drawbacks of P3CT-Na such as strong aggregation tendency and unwell-matched energy alignment restrict the application of P3CT-Na-based devices. Here, diprophylline is first used to modify the P3CT-Na HTL in inverted PSCs. Diprophylline modifies work function of ITO (indium tin oxide) by self-assembling onto the ITO surface. Meanwhile, it could interact with P3CT-Na through hydrogen bonding interaction, thus inducing ordered arrangement of P3CT-Na molecules, and increasing transmittance of the HTL. In addition, diprophylline could partially dissolve into the upper perovskite layer, and facilitate the perovskite crystallization. As a result, inverted PSCs utilizing diprophylline added P3CT-Na as HTL yield a remarkable efficiency of 20.87% and excellent long-term stability. Notably, the fill factor (FF) is approaching 84%, representing one of the highest results in inverted PSCs. More interestingly, when the diprophylline treated P3CT-Na layer undergoes ultrasonic cleaning in deionized water for 10 mins, the as-fabricated PSCs still show a high efficiency of 18.77%, manifesting good durability of the HTL. Thus, the recyclability and cost-effectiveness of the HTL makes it more applicable in future commercialization. This work provides a new strategy of improving efficiency and long-term stability of inverted PSCs through HTL engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication proposes an additively manufactured metal-only millimeter-wave dual circularly polarized (CP) reflectarray with independent control of polarizations. A metal-only right-hand CP (RHCP) antenna is designed and used as the reflectarray’s phase-shifting unit cell (UC). The RHCP UC is immune to the LHCP incidence, and the UC directly reflects the LHCP incidence into free space. Thus, the phase shifting of the LHCP wave solely depends on the rotation angle of the UC. For the RHCP incidence, it is received by the RHCP UC first and induced into the metal waveguide. Then, the energy is reflected by the ground of the metal waveguide and reradiated into free space with RHCP. Thus, the phase shifting of the RHCP wave is determined by the rotation angle of the UC and the length of the metal waveguide. By properly selecting the rotation angle of the UC and the length of the metal waveguide, RHCP and LHCP can be independently manipulated. To demonstrate, two reflectarray antennas with different LHCP and RHCP beam directions are fabricated using additive manufacturing and experimentally verified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this article, a novel triband bandpass filter with high design flexibility and wide stopband is designed by combining a shorted stub-loaded resonator and two cross-coupled DGS (defected ground structure) resonators [two RF (radio frequency) passages] with the same feeding structure. The three passbands can be flexibly designed not only because there is no cross-coupling between the two passages but also because the harmonic passband can be easily eliminated just by embedding the feeding structure with open-circuited stubs, while the performance of the three passbands remains the same. What's more, there are two transmission zeros beside each passband. A prototype filter with three passbands centered at 1.57, 3.45, and 5.28 GHz is designed and fabricated, and it behaves a wide upper stopband to about 9.6 GHz with rejection better than 20 dB. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:1226-1228, 2015 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ochratoxin A (OTA) is a potential human carcinogen that poses a significant concern in food safety and public health. OTA has been found in a wide variety of agricultural commodities, including cereal grains. This study investigated the reduction of OTA during the preparation of rice- and oat-based porridge by a simulated indirect steam process. The effects of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and fructose on the reduction of OTA were also investigated. During the processing, OTA in rice- and oat-porridge was decreased by 59% and 14%, respectively, from initial OTA artificially added at 20 μg/kg (dry weight basis). When 0.5% and 1% of sodium bicarbonate were added to rice porridge, increased reduction of OTA was observed as 78% and 68%, respectively. The same amounts of added sodium bicarbonate also further reduced OTA in oat porridge to 58% and 72%, respectively. In addition, increased reduction of OTA in the presence of fructose was observed. A combination of the two, i.e., 0.5% sodium bicarbonate and 0.5% fructose, resulted in a 79% and 67% reduction in rice porridge and oat porridge, respectively. These results indicate that indirect steaming may effectively reduce OTA in preparation of porridge-type products, particularly when sodium bicarbonate and/or fructose are added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowd density estimation is an important part of intelligent crowd monitoring. However, there are still many problems in density estimation due to the complexity of crowd scenes. Aiming at the high-density scenes with varied scales, we present a method based on cross-adversarial loss and global feature for crowd counting, so as to achieve the purpose of capturing more feature details and reducing the impact of background noise more effectively. First, we use the cross-adversarial loss to generate the residual map, which makes use of the consistency between different scales and solves the homogenization problem of fused density map. Then, we extract large-range context information and focus on key information in global spatial features for the generation of a residual map. Finally, the high-resolution density map is used to estimate the crowd counting. Experiments on three datasets confirm that the proposed method has good adaptability in scenes with obvious distribution change, not just in extracting high-quality features for density map estimation but also for accurate crowd counting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• MTMR14 inhibits ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury-triggered hepatic dysfunction and cell death. • MTMR14 suppresses IR-triggered hepatic inflammation. • MTMR14 interacts with AKT to meditate cell death and inflammation during hepatic IR injury. Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury is characterized by severe inflammation and cell death. However, very few effective therapies are presently available for hepatic IR injury treatment. Here, we reported a protective function and the underlying mechanism of myotubularin-related protein 14 (MTMR14) during hepatic IR injury. Hepatocyte-specific MTMR14 knockout (HKO) and transgenic (TG) mice were subjected to hepatic IR operation to explore MTMR14 function in vivo. Primary hepatocytes isolated from MTMR14-HKO and MTMR14-TG mice were subjected to hypoxia/reoxygenation (HR) insult in vitro. We found that MTMR14 expression in liver tissues from individuals with hepatic IR was markedly decreased, and similar results were detected in mice with hepatic IR surgery. MTMR14-TG mice following hepatic IR operation had obviously ameliorated liver pathological changes, along with improved hepatic dysfunction, which was proved by the decreased serum alanine amino transferase (ALT) and aspartate amino transferase (AST) levels. MTMR14-HKO and MTMR14-TG animal models indicated that MTMR14 alleviated cell death and inflammatory response. In addition, MTMR14 inhibited nuclear transcription factor κB (NF-κB) signaling. Of note, promoting MTMR14 expression improved phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/protein kinase-B (PI3K/AKT) pathway through a physical interaction with AKT, subsequently reducing cell death and inflammation. Therefore, MTMR14 is a protective factor during hepatic IR injury, and the MTMR14/AKT signaling is involved the pathogenesis hepatic IR injury. Improvement of this axis might be a novel therapeutic strategy for the prevention of this pathological process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kernel water content (KWC) and kernel dehydration rate (KDR) are two main factors affecting maize seed quality and have a decisive influence on the mechanical harvest. It is of great importance to map and mine candidate genes related to KWCs and KDRs before physiological maturity in maize. 120 double-haploid (DH) lines constructed from Si287 with low KWC and JiA512 with high KWC were used as the mapping population. KWCs were measured every 5 days from 10 to 40 days after pollination, and KDRs were calculated. A total of 1702 SNP markers were used to construct a linkage map, with a total length of 1,309.02 cM and an average map distance of 0.77 cM. 10 quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and 27 quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) were detected by genome-wide composite interval mapping (GCIM) and multi-locus random-SNP-effect mixed linear model (mrMLM), respectively. One and two QTL hotspot regions were found on Chromosome 3 and 7, respectively. Analysis of the Gene Ontology showed that 2 GO terms of biological processes (BP) were significantly enriched (P ≤ 0.05) and 6 candidate genes were obtained. This study provides theoretical support for marker-assisted breeding of mechanical harvest variety in maize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) during gestation leads to fetal growth restriction (FGR), whereby the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Here, we found that FGR patients showed higher levels of BPA in the urine, serum, and placenta; meanwhile, trophoblast ferroptosis was observed in FGR placentas, as indicated by accumulated intracellular iron, impaired antioxidant molecules, and increased lipid peroxidation products. To investigate the role of ferroptosis in placental and fetal growth, BPA stimulation was performed both in vivo and in vitro. BPA exposure during gestation was associated with FGR in mice; also, it induces ferroptosis in mouse placentas and human placental trophoblast. Pretreatment with ferroptosis inhibitor ferritin-1 (Fer-1) alleviated BPA-induced oxidative damage and cell death. Notably, BPA reduced the trophoblastic expression of Yes-associated protein (YAP) and transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ), which regulated tissue growth and organ size. YAP or TAZ siRNA enhanced BPA-induced ferroptosis, suggesting that trophoblast ferroptosis is dependent on YAP/TAZ downregulation after BPA stimulation. Consistently, the protein levels of YAP/TAZ were also reduced in FGR placentas. Further results revealed that silencing YAP/TAZ promoted BPA-induced ferroptosis through autophagy. Pretreatment with autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) attenuated BPA-induced trophoblast ferroptosis. Ferritinophagy, an autophagic degradation of ferritin (FTH1), was observed in FGR placentas. Similarly, BPA reduced the protein level of FTH1 in placental trophoblast. Pretreatment with iron chelator desferrioxamine (DFO) and NCOA4 (an autophagy cargo receptor) siRNA weakened the ferroptosis of trophoblast after exposure to BPA, indicating that autophagy mediates ferroptosis in BPA-stimulated trophoblast by degrading ferritin. In summary, ferroptosis was featured in BPA-associated FGR and trophoblast injury; the regulation of ferroptosis involved the YAP/TAZ-autophagy-ferritin axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) during gestation leads to fetal growth restriction (FGR), whereby the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Here, we found that FGR patients showed higher levels of BPA in the urine, serum, and placenta; meanwhile, trophoblast ferroptosis was observed in FGR placentas, as indicated by accumulated intracellular iron, impaired antioxidant molecules, and increased lipid peroxidation products. To investigate the role of ferroptosis in placental and fetal growth, BPA stimulation was performed both in vivo and in vitro. BPA exposure during gestation was associated with FGR in mice; also, it induces ferroptosis in mouse placentas and human placental trophoblast. Pretreatment with ferroptosis inhibitor ferritin-1 (Fer-1) alleviated BPA-induced oxidative damage and cell death. Notably, BPA reduced the trophoblastic expression of Yes-associated protein (YAP) and transcriptional coactivator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ), which regulated tissue growth and organ size. YAP or TAZ siRNA enhanced BPA-induced ferroptosis, suggesting that trophoblast ferroptosis is dependent on YAP/TAZ downregulation after BPA stimulation. Consistently, the protein levels of YAP/TAZ were also reduced in FGR placentas. Further results revealed that silencing YAP/TAZ promoted BPA-induced ferroptosis through autophagy. Pretreatment with autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) attenuated BPA-induced trophoblast ferroptosis. Ferritinophagy, an autophagic degradation of ferritin (FTH1), was observed in FGR placentas. Similarly, BPA reduced the protein level of FTH1 in placental trophoblast. Pretreatment with iron chelator desferrioxamine (DFO) and NCOA4 (an autophagy cargo receptor) siRNA weakened the ferroptosis of trophoblast after exposure to BPA, indicating that autophagy mediates ferroptosis in BPA-stimulated trophoblast by degrading ferritin. In summary, ferroptosis was featured in BPA-associated FGR and trophoblast injury; the regulation of ferroptosis involved the YAP/TAZ-autophagy-ferritin axis. [Display omitted] • Gestational BPA exposure induced fetal growth restriction in mice. • Ferroptosis occurs in animal models of BPA-induced fetal growth restriction. • BPA promotes placental trophoblast ferroptosis via autophagic degradation of ferritin. • BPA promotes autophagy via downregulation of YAP/TAZ expression. • YAP/TAZ reduction, ferritinophagy, and ferroptosis occur in FGR placentae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Prolonged feeding of excessive fermentable concentrates reduces rumen acidity and causes gram-negative bacteria to lyse and release lipopolysaccharides, triggering an inflammatory response in the body. As an important immune and metabolic organ in animals, the liver is susceptible to damage. Although the Chinese herb Sophora alopecuroides has antitumor, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and other pharmacological effects, the mechanism of action of Sophora alopecuroides on the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant functions of the liver in lambs is still unclear. In this study, via liver function indices, liver inflammatory factor levels, antioxidant indices and transcriptome analysis, we demonstrated that Sophora alopecuroides could improve the immune and antioxidant functions of the liver in lambs under high-concentrate conditions and regulate the mechanism of liver injury in sheep through the expression of the relevant genes involved in the ECM–receptor interactions and the focal adhesion pathway. Elucidating the molecular mechanism of inflammatory responses is crucial for understanding liver dysfunction induced by high-concentrate diets. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of Sophora alopecuroides (SA) on liver function, liver inflammatory factor levels, antioxidant indexes and transcriptome in sheep. Twenty-four 3-month-old healthy Dumont hybrid lambs weighing 25.73 ± 2.17 kg were randomly divided into three groups: C1 (the control group), fed a concentrate-to-forage ratio of 50:50; H2 (the high-concentration group), fed a concentrate-to-forage ratio of 70:30; and S3 (the SA group), fed a concentrate-to-forage ratio of 70:30 + 0.1% SA. The results showed that the rumen pH values of the C1 and S3 groups were significant or significantly higher than that of the H2 group (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01). The serum ALT, AST and LDH activities and the LPS and LBP concentrations in the sheep serum and liver in the H2 group were significantly or extremely significantly higher than those in the C1 and S3 groups (p < 0.01), and the IL-10 content and SOD, GPX-PX and T-AOC activities showed the opposite trend (p < 0.05 or p < 0.01). KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the differentially expressed genes were significantly enriched in the ECM–receptor interaction and focal adhesion pathways, which are closely related to immune and antioxidant functions (p-adjust < 0.1). In summary, SA could improve the immune and antioxidant functions of lamb livers under high-concentrate conditions and regulate the mechanism of damage on sheep livers, which is caused by high-concentrate diets and through the expression of related genes in the ECM/FAs pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive disorder mainly affecting the neuromuscular system, which seriously threatens the life and health of patients. But few studies have reported the acceptance rate of SMA gene screening and SMA carrier rate in China. The present study aimed to clarify the two issues in China through a retrospective analysis of 18,818 reproductive age women in Wuhan area of China. Methods: The copy number (CN) of exons 7 and 8 in survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene was detected by real-time quantitative PCR, and the results were verified by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification. Results: Carrier screening was offered to 44,953 women of childbearing age in our medical center from March, 2018, to February, 2022, of whom 18,818 were enrolled in the program. A total of 336 women were identified as carriers (1.73%; 326/18,808; without fertility history of the children with SMA). Among 18,818 reproductive age women, 286 spouses (85.12%; 286/336) were successfully recalled for screening. The results showed 17 couples at high risk of having children with SMA, of whom prenatal diagnosis was implemented in 11, and 6 fetuses were identified with SMA. All the 5 pregnant women bearing the 6 SMA fetuses chose to terminate the pregnancy by artificial abortion. Conclusion: Reproductive age women and their spouses in Wuhan area showed a positive attitude toward general screening for SMA carriers. Given the high early mortality of children with SMA, screening for SMA carriers in women of reproductive age is necessary and feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new dual-band dual circularly polarized (CP) high gain patch antenna array for vehicle satellite communications. The array consists of 16 linearly polarized dual-band elements backed with a new frequency-selective-surface (FSS)-integrated polarization rotation ground. The polarization rotation ground is located underneath the array, which not only acts as a reflector to increase the array boresight gain but also enables the array's dual CP radiation. The electromagnetic (EM) waves reflected by the ground retard either 90° or 270° with respect to the EM waves of the array directly radiated to the upper sphere at two frequency bands, leading to the dual-band dual CP radiation. This is totally different from many of the former counterparts which are based on either the perturbation on the stacked patch or external feeding network. Measured results show the −10-dB impedance bandwidth is from 7.8 to more than 8.5-GHz for X-band and from 14 to 15.3-GHz for Ku-band. The 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth is from 8.15 to 8.35-GHz for the lower band (right-hand CP) and from 14.2 to 14.8-GHz for the higher band (left-hand CP), respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new single-ended-fed planar aperture antennas (SPAAs) using low-temperature co-fired ceramics (LTCC) process technology. The SPAA element is proposed first, which not only inherits the merits of the aperture antennas including high gain and wide bandwidth but also exhibits advantages of low profile and compact size. The aperture is excited by a cross-shaped patch, and a loop-shaped balun structure placed below the patch is introduced to convert the single-ended signal into differential one to drive the patch. In this way, the energy can propagate on the patch in a traveling waveform and illuminate the aperture with uniform E-field distributions. Therefore, the antenna achieves good electrical and radiation performances, which are comparable to its balanced-fed counterparts, while processing a simplified structure. Measured results demonstrate that the impedance bandwidth of the antenna covers the 60 GHz license-free band (57–64 GHz), and the maximum gain can reach 11.5 dBi with a cavity area of only about 27 mm2. Furthermore, the element is successfully extended to a $4\,\,\times \,\,4$ element array using a substrate-integrated-waveguide based feeding network to further increase the gain up to 20.4 dBi. The measured results show that the impedance bandwidth of the array is from 57.5 to 65.7 GHz and the radiation performances are very stable over the operating frequency band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 is a global pandemic. Understanding the immune responses in pregnant women recovering from COVID-19 may suggest new therapeutic approaches. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study between March 1, 2020, and September 1, 2020. Participants were assigned into the convalescent COVID-19 group if they had a previous COVID-19 infection during pregnancy or the healthy control group. RNA-Seq was performed on human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUMSCs) and human amniotic mesenchymal stem cells (hAMSCs). Immunohistochemical staining, cytokine testing, lymphocyte subset analysis, RNA-Seq, and functional analyses were performed on the placental and umbilical cord blood (UCB) and compared between the two groups. Results: A total of 40 pregnant women were enrolled, with 13 in the convalescent group and 27 in the control group. There were 1024, 46, and 32 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) identified in the placental tissue, hUMSCs, and hAMSCs between the convalescent and control groups, respectively. Enrichment analysis showed those DEGs were associated with immune homeostasis, antiviral activity, cell proliferation, and tissue repair. Levels of IL-6, TNF-α, total lymphocyte counts, B lymphocytes, Tregs percentages, and IFN-γ expressing CD4+ and CD8+ T cells were statistically different between two groups (p ≤ 0.05). ACE2 and TMPRSS2 expressed on the placenta were not different between the two groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Multiple changes in immune responses occurred in the placental tissue, hUMSCs, and hAMSCs after maternal recovery from COVID-19, which might imply their protective roles against COVID-19 infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Considering the essential roles that genetic factors play in azoospermia and oligospermia, this study aims to identify abnormal chromosomes using karyotyping and CNVs and elucidate the associated genes in patients. Methods: A total of 1157 azoospermia and oligospermia patients were recruited, of whom, 769 and 674 underwent next-generation sequencing (NGS) to identify CNVs and routine G-band karyotyping, respectively. Results: First, 286 patients were co-analyzed using CNV sequencing (CNV-seq) and karyotyping. Of the 725 and 432 patients with azoospermia and oligospermia, 33.8% and 48.9% had abnormal karyotypes and CNVs, respectively. In particular, 47,XXY accounted for 44.18% and 26.33% of abnormal karyotypes and CNVs, respectively, representing the most frequent genetic aberration in azoospermia and oligospermia patients. Nevertheless, big Y and small Y accounted for 7.46% and 16.67% of abnormal karyotypes, respectively. We also identified high-frequency CNVs-loci, such as Xp22.31 and 2p24.3, in azoospermia and oligospermia patients. Conclusion: Sex chromosome and autosomal CNV loci, such as Xp22.31 and 2p24.3, as well as the associated genes, such as VCX and NACAP9, could be candidate spermatogenesis genes. The high-frequency abnormal karyotypes, CNV loci, and hot genes represent new targets for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hericium erinaceus (HE), a widely utilized natural remedy and dietary source, has garnered significant attention for its therapeutic potential in various diseases. In this study, we employed supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) technology to isolate the bioactive compounds from HE's fruiting body. Comprehensive assessments of the antioxidant and antibacterial activities were conducted, along with in vitro investigations on the human colon cancer cell line (HCT-8). The SFE rate served as the evaluation metric, while the variables of extraction time, pressure, and temperature were systematically examined. By integrating the response surface center composite design, we successfully optimized the extraction process, yielding optimal parameters of 80 min, 30 MPa, and 35 °C, thus resulting in an extraction rate of 2.51%. These optimized conditions exhibited considerable antioxidant capacity, anticancer activity, and antibacterial potential. Furthermore, we employed graded alcohol extraction to refine the crude extracts, thereby confirming superior anticancer effects under a 70% alcohol precipitation. To elucidate the composition, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were employed to analyze the crude extracts and isolates of HE, facilitating a comparative analysis of six HE varieties. Our findings suggest that sterol derivatives hold promise as the active component against the colon cancer HCT-8 cell line. In conclusion, this study underscores the potential of HE SFE in the development of functional foods or alternative drugs for colon cancer treatment, thus opening new avenues for therapeutic interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dictyopteris divaricata is a kind of important brown algae with many biological activities. It has been receiving more and more attention, yet there are rarely studies done on its polysaccharides. In this study, the optimum extraction and biological activity of seaweed polysaccharides from Dictyopteris divaricata (DDSP) were investigated. Response surface methodology (RSM), based on a three-level, three-variable Box-Behnken design (BBD), was employed to obtain the best possible combinations for maximum polysaccharides yield. The optimum extraction conditions were as follows: liquid-solid ratio of 110 mL/g, extraction time of 6 h and extraction temperature of 100 °C. Under these conditions, the experimental yield was 3.05%, which was in close agreement with the predicted value of 3.15%. The average molecular weight of DDSP was 58.05 kDa. Gas chromatograph (GC) results showed that DDSP was composed of fucose, xylose, mannose, glucose and galactose with the corresponding molar ratio of 4.45:2.74:1.00:2.94:1.35. Biological activity showed that DDSP exhibited strong antioxidant activity in vitro and possessed the potential on stimulating immune response of RAW264.7 cells. So DDSP can be used as a natural ingredient in functional foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication presents a new kind of substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) slot antenna array with 1-D and 2-D monopulse radiation patterns. First, a new SIW magic-tee is developed, which exhibits a wide phase/amplitude balance bandwidth. Then, the magic-tee is extended to a new comparator which is used to feed the antenna with 2-D monopulse radiation pattern. Based on the proposed magic-tee and the comparator, 1-D and 2-D monopulse slot antenna arrays with $4\times 4$ elements are designed and measured, respectively. The experimental results show that the arrays exhibit good monopulse performance. More importantly, compared with their former counterparts, the monopulse performance of the arrays exhibits merely slight degradation over a much wider bandwidth due to the wide phase/ amplitude balance bandwidth that the comparators achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collagens serve essential mechanical functions throughout the body, particularly in the connective tissues. In articular cartilage, collagens provide most of the biomechanical properties of the extracellular matrix essential for its function. Collagen plays a very important role in maintaining the mechanical properties of articular cartilage and the stability of the ECM. Noteworthily, many pathogenic factors in the course of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, such as mechanical injury, inflammation, and senescence, are involved in the irreversible degradation of collagen, leading to the progressive destruction of cartilage. The degradation of collagen can generate new biochemical markers with the ability to monitor disease progression and facilitate drug development. In addition, collagen can also be used as a biomaterial with excellent properties such as low immunogenicity, biodegradability, biocompatibility, and hydrophilicity. This review not only provides a systematic description of collagen and analyzes the structural characteristics of articular cartilage and the mechanisms of cartilage damage in disease states but also provides a detailed characterization of the biomarkers of collagen production and the role of collagen in cartilage repair, providing ideas and techniques for clinical diagnosis and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new and simple design of photo-excited broadband to dual-band tunable terahertz (THz) metamaterial cross polarization converter is proposed in this paper. The tunable converter is a sandwich structure with the center-cut cross-shaped metallic patterned structure as a resonator, the middle dielectric layer as a spacer and the bottom metallic film as the ground. The conductivity of the photoconductive semiconductor (Silicon) filled in the gap of the cross-shaped metallic resonator can be tuned by the incident pump power, leading to an easy modulation of the electromagnetic response of the proposed converter. The results show that the proposed cross-polarization converter can be tuned from a broadband with polarization conversion ratio (PCR) beyond 95% (1.86–2.94 THz) to dual frequency bands ( f l = 1 . 46 THz & f h = 2 . 9 THz). The conversion peaks can reach 99.9% for the broadband and, 99.5% ( f l ) and 99.7% ( f h ) for the dual-band, respectively. Most importantly, numerical simulations demonstrate that the broadband/dual-band polarization conversion mechanism of the converter originates from the localized surface plasmon modes, which make the design simple and different from previous designs. With these good features, the proposed broadband to dual-band tunable polarization converter is expected to be used in widespread applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a newly developed electrochemical sensor base on the nanohybrid of palladium-reduced graphene oxide modified with gold nanoparticles (Au/Pd/rGO) was established, which was prepared by electrodeposing Au nanoparticles on Pd/rGO modified on a glass carbon electrode. The morphologies and microstructures of the as-prepared nanohybrid were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy and Infrared spectroscopy. And, experiment results showed that the prepared Au/Pd/rGO nanohybrid exhibited excellent electrocatalytic- activity toward the redox of acetaminophen (PA) and 4-aminophenol (4-AP) simultaneously. The linear detection ranges were 1.00–250.00 μM for PA and 1.00–300.00 μM for 4-AP, with the detection limits of 0.30 μM for PA and 0.12 μM for 4-AP, respectively. Because of the excellent performance of lower detection, wider linear range and better selectivity, the prepared Au/Pd/rGO nanohybrid with more potential applications was a promising candidate for advanced electrode material in electrochemical sensing field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wideband circularly polarized (CP) 2-arm spiral antenna is designed for 60-GHz applications in this letter. The proposed antenna is implemented on a single layer with spiral printed on the top surface of the substrate and fed in a differential way through 2 metallized via holes. Unidirectional radiation is achieved thanks to the presence of the ground plane, which is placed with a distance of one-quarter of the guided wavelength to the spiral. A cavity is mounted on the top of the spiral antenna to suppress the surface wave propagate along the substrate as well as to improve the antenna gain. Experimental results show that the prototype achieves the −10-dB impedance bandwidth from 55.2 to 66 GHz with circular polarization. The peak gain at boresight is 9.5 dBi occurring at 63 GHz and the radiation patterns are stable over the operating frequency band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to better understand the possibility of utilizing all-trans retinoic acids (ATRA) in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). We found that ATRA significantly suppressed global translation and protein synthesis in AML cells. The efficacy of ATRA in treating AML required its translational regulatory functions, as shown by the fact that the decrease in the universal eukaryotic initiation factor 4E (eIF4E) was essential to maintain the induction of cell growth arrest and differentiation by ATRA. By establishing a specific translational landscape, we suggested that transcripts with simple 5′UTR gained a translational advantage in AML cells during ATRA stress. Based on that, the genes translationally regulated by ATRA were mainly enriched in phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase/Akt (PI3K/AKT) signaling; we subsequently revealed that PI3K/AKT activation was required for ATRA to effectively induce AML cell differentiation. However, PI3K/AKT has been reported to promote the stemness of AML cells. As such, we further suggested that sequential treatment including ATRA and PI3K/AKT inhibitor induced robust apoptosis, extremely inhibited the clonality of AML cells, and suppressed the FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3-internal tandem duplication (FLT3-ITD)-driven transformation of CD34+ hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. Future clinical studies are warranted to further support the clinical application of the sequential strategy for the effective treatment of AML. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe an electrochemical sensor for simultaneous determination of hydroquinone (HQ) and catechol (CC). A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was modified with gold nanoparticles, L-cysteine, and ZnS/NiS@ZnS quantum dots using a layer-by-layer technique. The materials were characterized by X-ray diffractometry, field emission scanning electron microscopy, and electrochemical impedance and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry revealed this modified GCE to represent a highly sensitive sensor for the simultaneous determination of HQ and CC. The anodic peak current for HQ at a working voltage of 80 mV (vs. Ag/AgCl) is related to its concentration in the 0.1 to 300 μM range (even in the presence of 0.1 mM of CC). The anodic peak current for CC at a working voltage of 184 mV is related to its concentration in the 0.5 to 400 μM range (even in the presence of 0.1 mM of HQ). The detection limits (at an S/N ratio of 3) are 24 and 71 nM for HQ and CC, respectively. The modified GCE was successfully applied to the determination of HQ and CC in aqueous solutions and gave satisfactory results. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • TRPM7 is associated with the proliferation, metastasis and inflammation of RA-FLSs. • TRPM7 increased IL-6 stability via the PKCα-HuR axis. • TRPM7 knockdown effectively attenuated synovial hyperplasia and inflammation in AA rat. Transient receptor potential melastatin 7 (TRPM7) is a cation channel that plays a role in the progression of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), yet its involvement in synovial hyperplasia and inflammation has not been determined. We previously reported that TRPM7 affects the destruction of articular cartilage in RA. Herein, we further confirmed the involvement of TRPM7 in fibroblast-like synoviocyte (FLS) proliferation, metastasis and inflammation. We observed increased TRPM7 expression in FLSs derived from human RA patients. Pharmacological inhibition of TRPM7 protected primary RA-FLSs from proliferation, metastasis and inflammation. Furthermore, we found that TRPM7 contributes to RA-FLS proliferation, metastasis and inflammation by increasing the intracellular Ca2+ concentration. Mechanistically, the PKCα-HuR axis was demonstrated to respond to Ca2+ influx, leading to TRPM7-mediated RA-FLS proliferation, metastasis and inflammation. Moreover, HuR was shown to bind to IL-6 mRNA after nuclear translocation, which could be weakened by TRPM7 channel inhibition. Additionally, adeno-associated virus 9-mediated TRPM7 silencing is highly effective at alleviating synovial hyperplasia and inflammation in adjuvant-induced arthritis rats. In conclusion, our findings unveil a novel regulatory mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of RA and suggest that targeting TRPM7 might be a potential strategy for the prevention and treatment of RA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]