Search

The transformation of old neighborhoods involves many important types of livelihood development projects, of which smart transformation is considered one of the most important tasks at present. The smart transformation of old neighborhoods provides an important means to promote sustainable development; however, enhancing the willingness of residents to participate is an important prerequisite for the smart transformation of old neighborhoods. Considering perceptive value acceptance theory and community ownership theory in the field of information management and sociology, we study the intention of residents in old communities to participate in intelligent transformation and its influence mechanisms. Our results show that willingness to participate in the smart renovation of old residential areas is positively affected by the perceived value of smart renovation and the sense of community attachment of residents. The sense of community plays an intermediary role in the relationship between perceived value and willingness to participate in smart renovation. At the same time, the perceived value of intelligent renovation of old residential areas and a sense of community have chain mediating effects between perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived risk, perceived cost, and willingness to participate. This paper not only achieves theoretical expansion but also provides good support for accelerating the intelligent transformation of old communities in China.

Blockchain-based product traceability systems are receiving increasing attention from both industry and academia. Existing systems make full use of the traceability and non-modification characteristics of blockchain technology and realize the openness and transparency of product traceability information in the entire supply chain. However, existing systems do not consider government regulation, cannot protect enterprise sensitive private data effectively, and have performance bottlenecks. To address these problems, this paper proposes a product traceability scheme based on the permissioned blockchain within a double-layer framework. We introduce the double-layer framework and describe its advantages in detail. We also describe the smart contracts (chain code) in the double-layer framework. Finally, we test the performance of the proposed scheme through simulation experiments. The simulation results demonstrate the performance of nodes in the main layer, which is very important for consumers to obtain product traceability information, is optimized.

Tumor cells and pathogen-infected cells are presented to human γδ T cells based on “inside-out” signaling in which metabolites called phosphoantigens (pAgs) inside target cells are recognized by the intracellular domain of a butyrophilin protein (BTN3A1), leading to an extracellular conformational change. Here, we report that pAgs function as molecular “glues” that initiate a heteromeric association between the intracellular domains of BTN3A1 and the structurally similar BTN2A1. Working with both exogenous and endogenous pAgs, we used x-ray crystallography, mutational studies, cellular assays, synthetic probe as well as molecular dynamics investigations to determine how pAgs glue intracellular BTN3A1 and BTN2A1 together for the “inside-out” signaling that triggers γδ T cell activation. This γδ T cell-specific mode of antigen sensing creates opportunities for the development of alternative immunotherapies against cancer and infectious diseases that do not involve αβ T cells.One Sentence SummaryThe responses of gamma-delta T cells to cancer cells or pathogens are initiated via the intracellular association of heteromeric butyrophilins that are glued together by isoprenoid metabolites.

In the biomedical big data and artificial intelligence era, pioneering interdisciplinary information science research, life science, and medicine are represented by a complex biological network which has attracted increasing attention from researchers. Complex biological network includes qualitative and quantitative description of the relationship between tissues, cells, and molecules in an organism. It lays the foundation for constructing complex biological systems, and is also an important bridge connecting information science, life science, and medicine. Network pharmacology has two distinct characteristics regarding current scientific and technological background. Firstly, it promotes the moving from “reductionism” to “system-based theory”, which is widely considered as “the next generation medicine research mode.” Secondly, the accumulation of modern biomedical big data and the development of artificial intelligence as well as other computing methods provide an important driving force for the development of network pharmacology.

The concept of open banking has been a powerful trigger for the revolution in the financial services industry. When financial institutions disclose application programming interfaces (APIs) to third-party providers (TPPs), the biggest system risks concern issues such as malicious attack, data leakage and tampering, privacy disclosure and more. API is a new communication path for information systems, but it could be misused and tampered. To address this, we conceptualize a blockchain-based data sharing scheme for open banking named OBBC, in which the API’s information can be saved in a blockchain, that no one can dominate it. We propose an API consensus mechanism aims to ensures that the open API can’t be maliciously tampered. Moreover, zero knowledge proof and Merkel tree structure are used to realize that users’ privacy protection. In particular, we give the framework of our scheme and compare with existing data sharing schemes. We further implement a software prototype on fabric framework with real-world dataset. Experiment results show the feasibility, usability and scalability of our proposed open banking system.

With the continuous update and iteration of Internet Technology, e-commerce develops rapidly under the support of national preferential policies. In view of the advantages of Harvard Analysis Framework, this paper conducts an in-depth analysis and research on the financial statements of JD based on it. It mainly describes how to analyze the financial data of JD by using the three parts of strategy analysis, accounting analysis and financial analysis in the framework of Harvard analysis, so as to make targeted analysis and forecast for the future development and prospect of JD. Finally, based on the problems encountered by JD in its development and the data obtained from the analysis of financial statements, the corresponding solutions are given.

A majority of mammalian promoters are associated with CpG islands. CpG island promoters frequently lack common core promoter elements, such as the TATA box, and often have dispersed transcription start sites. The mechanism through which CpG island promoters are transcriptionally initiated remains unclear. We speculate that some transcription factors can direct transcription initiation by themselves. To test this hypothesis, we screened a variety of transcription factors to see whether they could initiate transcription. Most transcription factors, including specificity protein 1 (Sp1) and nuclear factor Y (NF-Y), showed little transcriptional initiation activity. However, nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF-1), the basic helix-loop-helix/leucine zipper (bHLH/ZIP) family of proteins and the E-twenty six (Ets) family of proteins had strong transcriptional activity. We further demonstrated that these transcription factors initiate dispersed transcription. Our studies provide perspectives to the mechanism of transcription initiation from CpG island promoters.

Despite the prevalence of bidirectional promoters among the mammalian genomes, the majority of promoters are unidirectional. The mechanism through which unidirectional promoters are prevented from reverse transcription remains to be clarified. Here we investigate the transcriptional directionality of the mouse insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) promoter, which contains a CpG island and has dispersed transcription initiation sites. Although IDE is unidirectionally transcribed according to its genomic context, the basic promoter region of mouse IDE has bidirectional transcriptional properties. The region between −219 and +133 of mouse IDE relative to its first transcription initiation site has bidirectional transcriptional activities, but the region between −350 and +133 can only be transcribed from the normal direction, implying that an upstream promoter element locating between −350 and −219 blocks the reverse transcription of mouse IDE. We further mapped this upstream promoter element to the region between −243 and −287. Promoter mutation analysis showed that the upstream promoter element contains two functional sub-regions. In conclusion, we identified an upstream promoter element which blocks the reverse transcription of mouse IDE. Our studies are suggestive for the transcriptional mechanism of bidirectional promoters in mammalian genomes.

Unidirectional promoters dominate among mammalian genomes. However, the mechanism through which the transcriptional directionality of promoters is accomplished remains to be clarified. Insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE) is a ubiquitously expressed zinc metalloprotease, whose promoter contains a CpG island. We previously showed that the basal promoter region of mouse IDE has bidirectional transcriptional activity, but an upstream promoter element blocks its antisense transcription. Therefore, we wonder whether the human IDE promoter contains an analogous element. Similarly, the basal promoter region of human IDE (−102 ~ +173 and −196 ~ +173 relative to the transcription start site) showed bidirectional transcriptional activity. However, the region from −348 to +173 could only be transcribed from the normal orientation, implying that an upstream promoter element between −348 and −196 blocks the antisense transcription of the human IDE promoter. Through promoter deletion and mutagenesis analysis, we mapped this element precisely and found that the upstream promoter element locates between −318 and −304. Furthermore, the transcription-blocking elements in the mouse and human IDE promoters inhibited the transcription of the SV40 promoter when put downstream of it. In conclusion, we identify an upstream promoter element which blocks the antisense transcription of the human IDE promoter. Our studies are helpful to clarify the transcriptional directionality of promoters.