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Getting from a GWAS hit to an actionable gene remains a challenge in complex disease genetics. In a new article of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Sobczyk et al. (2021) use a wide variety of genomic data to generate a prioritization algorithm to tackle this problem in atopic dermatitis, calling on the wisdom of the genome to generate promising results.

Background Flood events increase the risk of sediment erosion and hence the release of particle-bound pollutants besides other processes that can be observed during such events like transportation, lateral distribution and other. Macropollutants, such as acids, salts, nutrients, and natural organic matter, are usually diluted by flooding, while the effect of floods on micropollutants is still unclear. To fill this gap, Qingshui Stream, a tributary of the Jialing River in the city of Chongqing that suffered 75,000 m3·s−1 flood in August 2020 was selected in the current study to clarify effects of flood-induced pollution transportation. 14 surface water samples and 14 sediment samples were collected to analyze the occurrence of micropollutants (including 21 organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), 34 organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) and 3 estrogenic compounds) before, during and after the flood. Finally, the environmental risks were evaluated by risk quotient (RQ). Results The concentrations of total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the surface water decreased from upstream to downstream, and the amounts were diluted by flooding from 0.08 to 0.05 mg·L−1 for TP, from 0.06 to 0.02 mg·L−1 for TN and from 132 to 27 mg·L−1 for COD, respectively. The concentration of estrogenic compound was up to 90 ng·g−1, which was reduced to be lower than the limit of detection during flood. Alpha-endosulfan, delta-BHC, mirex, dichlorvos, phosdrin, thionazine, tetraethyl pyrophosphate, diazinon, methyl parathion, malathion, chlorpyrifos, famphur, and EPN were diluted by flooding, i.e., the concentration of delta-BHC reduced from 6.67 to 0.09 ng·g−1; whereas, pp'-DDD, heptachlor epoxide, o,o,o-triethylphosphorothioate, dimethoate, rabon and fensulfothion were enriched after the flood. The environmental risk was observed to be mainly arise from the presence of OPPs, which increased after flooding. The RQ values of OPPs and OCPs increased after the flood, and the potential environmental risk of OPPs accounted for the majority portion of the risk. Conclusions The concentrations of macropollutants in surface water and sediments, and 14 micropollutants in sediments were diluted, while pesticides such as pp′-DDD, heptachlor epoxide, o,o,o-triethylphosphorothioate, dimethoate, rabon and fensulfothion were enriched after the flood. These results suggested management on urban river should focus on potential risk of OPPs. The current study therefore could provide scientific evidence and regulatory reference for urban river ecosystem protection.

Differing from the conventional fixed-route transit, Demand Responsive Connector (DRC) is scheduled to pick up passengers based on requests, and delivers them to a common destination (e.g., a metro station). The demand for DRC is affected by not only the fare and travel time, but also time reliability. The latter’ impact is non-negligible because of the uncertainty nature of DRC on collecting the temporally and spatially distributed passengers. This paper explicitly introduces an elastic demand function embedded with a time deviation penalty model. Based on that, one-vehicle and two-vehicle DRC models are formulated to maximize the social welfare. The decision variables include fare, service area, and operating cycle time. Augmented Lagrange Multiplier Method is applied to solve the optimization problem. Simulation is performed to verify the validity of the models. In numerical studies, sensitivity analysis unveils the influences of several key parameters, e.g., potential demand density, vehicle capacity, line-haul distance and elasticity factors. By comparison, threshold values of demand density are revealed for the applicability of the one-vehicle and two-vehicle schemes. The proposed model provides a decision-making tool for DRC operators considering local conditions.

To improve the detection efficiency of airborne transient electromagnetic method (ATEM) and reduce the times of flight experiments, a dual resonance-based combined wave emission circuit is proposed in this paper, which realizes the combined emission of half-sine wave and triangular wave through the selection of different resonant branches. Based on the operating principle of the proposed emission circuit, the model of second-order resistor-inductor-capacitor equivalent circuit is established. Then, the generation process of the combined wave is analyzed, and the segmentation control method is proposed. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed combined wave emission system are verified by simulation model building and prototype testing, and the results show that the emission current has good quality and high stability. Compared with the traditional emission of single wave current, the combined wave current has the advantages of large magnetic moment of half-sine wave and rich high-frequency components of triangular narrow pulse, which can effectively expand the detection range and improve the measurement efficiency of ATEM.

The traveling salesman problem (TSP) plays an important role in the field of transportation and logistics. While most studies focus on developing algorithms to find the shortest path and explore the average length of the shortest paths, the degree to which the shortest path deviates from its mean has not been studied. The study of deviation is important because it has implications for travel time reliability. Previous studies have used various indicators to measure this deviation, mainly including standard deviation, quantiles, and buffer time index (BTI). Therefore, this study aims to develop an empirical model to estimate the standard deviation, quantiles, and BTI for the optimal TSP tour. Experiments are performed to find the shortest path connecting N customers, which are generated randomly in a specified service area, using a genetic algorithm. The service area is a rectangle with ratio of length to width ranging from 1:1 to 8:1. Two types of lengths are considered: Euclidean and Manhattan. The number of customers considered ranges from 10 to 100 with intervals of 10. In the experimental design, the customers are generated randomly 500 times. The quartiles and standard deviations of the 500 shortest paths are recorded. The BTI is also calculated. Regression models are developed to estimate quartiles, standard deviation, and BTI using number of customers and parameters of service area as predictive variables. The models perform well on the testing data set. The constructed models can be used to estimate the standard deviation and reliability of travel time.

In this study, wood density, anatomical characteristics, and major chemical components were investigated on branchwood, trunkwood, and rootwood of three Alnus sibirica trees grown in Maoershan Mountain, Northeast China. The anatomical structure and composition of xylem within a tree were spatially heterogeneous. At the alpha = 0.05 level, the differences among branchwood, rootwood, and trunkwood were significant in wood density, cell dimensions, extractives, and ash content. The trunkwood was desired as papermaking raw material and structural timber because of its high-quality fibers, cellulose content, and medium density value. Because of its similar density to trunkwood, large-sized branchwood could be used as a substitute for structural materials. The rootwood with low densities and large vessel dimensions was suitable for producing short fiber biocomposite.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) offers unique advantages of autonomous flight capability and small coefficient of risk, and is increasingly being used in harbor-border inspection to ensure security and orderly operation of harbors. In response to the influence of external factors such as electromagnetic interference in harbor-border inspection, this paper utilizes UAV and visible light communication (VLC) to build an efficient system to track maritime targets near the harbor reliably. In a VLC scenario, a geometrical equation for transmitter positioning is first proposed based on the received signal strength of the optical signal emitted by the target. On this basis, linear iterative positioning (LIP) using first-order Taylor expansion is proposed to realize online beam tracking. Furthermore, quadratic approximative iterative positioning (QAIP), a more precise approximation of the geometrical equation, is proposed based on second-order Taylor expansion. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can track targets effectively, and QAIP can achieve higher accuracy with no noise or high signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, compared with the geometrical solution, LIP and QAIP have faster computing speeds and fixed overheads.

In view of the complexity of port ship supervision and the influence of external factors such as electromagnetic interference in harbor-border inspection, an efficient system combining an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and visible light positioning (VLP) is proposed for locating maritime targets. In this system, a rotatable receiver with five photodetectors (PDs) installed obliquely on UAV is designed for expanding the positioning range and allowing a lower flight altitude. On this basis, we propose the Chan–Taylor (CT) method based on time difference of arrival (TDOA) for target positioning. First, the localization problem is reformulated as a weighted least squares (WLS) problem and provides a good initial estimate via the two-step WLS (TWLS) method. Then, based on Taylor expansion of TDOA equations, estimated error is calculated using the initial estimate, which can correct the estimated position of the target iteratively. To offset the error, weighted centroid CT (WCCT) is proposed by endowing different weights based on error difference to estimated results. For further improving accuracy, a restricted-region fingerprinting positioning based on CT (CT-RFP) is proposed. In restricted area determined by CT, a certain number of fingerprints is generated based on received signal strength (RSS) for matching. Simulation results show that CT is significantly improved over the previous methods. Compared with TWLS, the accuracy of CT is improved by 49.71%. For WCCT, the maximum error is reduced from 8.65 to 6.91 cm, which effectively reduces the influence of error. Moreover, CT-RFP can achieve an accuracy within millimeter level via the appropriate number of fingerprints and ensemble runs of CT, even at high noise levels.

In our previous study, we discovered a ubenimex-fluorouracil (5FU) conjugates BC-02, which displays significant in vivo anti-tumor activity, however, the instability of BC-02 in plasma limits its further development as a drug candidate. Herein, we designed and synthesized four novel ubenimex-5FU conjugates by optimizing the linkers between ubenimex and 5FU based on BC-02. Representative compound 20 is more stable than BC-02 in human plasma and displays about 100 times higher CD13 inhibitory activity than the positive control ubenimex. Meanwhile, the antiproliferative activity of 20 was comparable with 5FU in vitro. The preliminary mechanism study indicated that compound 20 exhibited significant anti-invasion and anti-angiogenesis activities in vitro. Furthermore, compound 20 obviously inhibits tumor growth and metastasis in vivo and prolong the survival time of tumor-bearing mice. Our study may have an important implication reference for the design of more druglike mutual prodrug, and compound 20 can be used as a lead compound for further design and development.

To ascertain the possibility of using branchwood, trunkwood, and rootwood of Betula platyphylla Roth. in papermaking, this study investigated tissue proportion, fiber features, and major chemical components in whole-tree wood of the tree species. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the rootwood had a significantly lower density and vessel proportion, higher ray proportion, wider lumen, and thicker wall of fiber than the trunkwood and branchwood (p

A novel polarization-reconfigurable cut ring microstrip antenna with high gain is proposed. This simple structure microstrip antenna consists of a ring radiation patch, two switches (p-i-n diodes), and six nonmetallic columns. By controlling the switches, the antenna can be operated on three polarized states: one state for linear polarization (LP), one state for left-hand circular polarization (LHCP), and one state for right-hand circular polarization (RHCP). In addition, the antenna peak gain can reach 10.0 dB for LP, LHCP, and RHCP over the operating bandwidth and stable unidirectional radiation patterns. The proposed antenna is fabricated and verified. By analyzing simulated and measured results, the measured common operating bandwidth of the proposed antenna on three states is from 3.86 to 3.98 GHz with the relative bandwidth of 3.1%. The cross-polarization of the antenna on the whole states is very low. Good polarization-reconfigurable characteristics of the proposed antenna have been obtained from 3.86 to 3.98 GHz. The proposed antenna is also a good candidate for advanced wireless communication systems.

To enhance effective wood utilization, knowledge of the anatomical features that impact its service behavior is indispensable. The anatomical features of branchwood and stemwood of Betula costata Trautv. from natural secondary forests in central (Muzhaling mountain) and northeast (Maoershan mountain) China were studied to provide adequate information to enhance their efficient utilization, especially branchwood, whose use could widen the raw material base of the timber industry. Microtomed sections were employed to determine the tissue dimensions and proportions. Analyses of variance were used to test the anatomical feature differences between the two different sites, between the stemwood and branchwood, and between the heartwood and sapwood. The results showed that B. costata wood is diffuse-porous with more but narrower vessels located in the branch than in the stem. The branchwood also had a significantly higher fiber proportion than the stemwood. The sapwood exhibited significantly longer fibers than the heartwood. B. costata from Maoershan had significantly longer fibers, lower fiber proportions, larger fiber lumen diameter, and higher vessel density than that from Muzhaling. The results suggested that B. costata branchwood from Maoershan is suitable for papermaking and glued plates, while stemwood can be used for light construction purposes.

Millimeter-wave radar is widely used in family safety, rehabilitation, and assisted living due to its ability to operate in all weathers and all day. To address the problem whereby the radar detection angle significantly impacts human behavior recognition, a recognition method based on multi-angle radar observation is adopted. We proposed a novel radar selection method called the energy domain ratio method to choose a radar with more sensitive features. Then, local tangent space alignment and an adaptive extreme learning machine (ELM) are presented to enhance the recognition rate of the model in a high-noise environment. A multi-angle entropy feature and an improved ELM are developed to identify human micro-motion in a low-noise indoor environment. The effect of observation distance on the recognition effect was also explored. The experimental results show that the proposed model has a more than 86% recognition rate for human behavior in outdoor scenes and a recognition accuracy of more than 98% for indoor micro-action.

Aiming at the problem that the information contained in the two-dimensional feature data of millimeter wave radar is difficult to accurately and effectively recognize human behavior and movement in complex environments. A multi-angle scanning human motion recognition method based on millimeter wave radar data cube is proposed. This method first extracts the Time-Range, Time-Doppler and Range-Doppler characteristics of the radar signal; And then, three types of characteristics are fused to form a three-dimensional data model that represents human behavior and action, which is observed from multiple angles. Finally, a human motion recognition model is established using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and the observed characteristics. Experimental results show that compared with the traditional two-dimensional characteristics recognition method, this method has the characteristics of faster convergence speed and higher recognition accuracy.

Colon cancer is a common malignancy, and its incidence and mortality have been increasing in recent years. This study aims to explore the regulation of long non-coding RNA CYTOR on proliferation and metastasis of colon cancer cells through miRNA-105/PTEN axis. Real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) disclosed that expression of CYTOR was significantly decreased in colon cancer tissues, compared with that of adjacent normal tissues, while miRNA-105 was significantly increased. Correlation study found that CYTOR was negatively correlated with miR-105. The proliferation, migration, and invasion rates of the LoVo cells with highly expressed CYTOR were significantly slower. miR-105 mimic could suppress the decrease in proliferation, migration, and invasion rates of colon cancer cells caused by overexpression of CYTOR. Additionally, the proliferation, migration, and invasion rates of the LoVo cells in miR-105 inhibition group were significantly slower. The Starbase database predicted the targeting of miR-105 by CYTOR, and qRT-PCR and dual luciferase reporter gene method were used to verify the targeting relationship of CYTOR and miRNA-105/PTEN axis. In conclusion, CYTOR can inhibit the proliferation and metastasis of colon cancer cells through targeted inhibition of the miR-105/PTEN axis.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the underlying mechanisms of thymus‑expressed chemokine (TECK) autocrine signaling, and its effect on carcinogenesis and the development of breast cancer. The present study also assessed epithelial‑mensenchymal transition (EMT) and cell migration, invasion, proliferation and apoptosis. Breast cancer cell lines MCF‑7 and MDA‑MB‑231 were used in the present study, and TECK basic expression in cancer cells was investigated using western blotting (WB). EMT markers, Akt pathway molecules and apoptosis indicators were detected by reverse transcription‑quantitative PCR or WB. In order to assess migration and invasion, wound healing and Matrigel invasion assays were performed. Moreover, flow cytometry was used to assess the rate of proliferation and apoptosis. In vivo experiments were conducted in nude mice to assess cancer growth. It was revealed that breast cancer cells could secrete TECK in an autocrine manner. Furthermore, TECK could increase cell migration and invasion by promoting EMT and inhibit apoptosis via the Akt signaling pathway.

Objectives To compare suprapubic-assisted laparoendoscopic single-site surgery nephrectomy with standard laparoscopic nephrectomy. Methods A retrospective case-control study comparing three surgeons' experience with 122 suprapubic-assisted laparoendoscopic single-site surgery nephrectomy and 107 standard laparoscopic nephrectomy was carried out. Operative time, estimated blood loss, intraoperative complications, intraoperative conversion, postoperative bowel recovery, postoperative analgesics, postoperative visual analog pain scale score, postoperative length of stay, days before going back to work, postoperative complications and Patient Scar Assessment Questionnaire were compared after propensity score matching. Results A total of 97 matched pairs were obtained after propensity score matching. There were no statistically significant differences between the suprapubic-assisted laparoendoscopic single-site surgery nephrectomy and standard laparoscopic nephrectomy groups with respect to operative time, estimated blood loss, intraoperative complications, intraoperative conversion, postoperative bowel recovery, length of stay and postoperative complications. Suprapubic-assisted laparoendoscopic single-site surgery nephrectomy group had decreased postoperative analgesics (20.9 vs 23.5, P = 0.04), visual analog pain scale score at 24 h (4.28 vs 5.28, P = 0.000), visual analog pain scale score at discharge (1.01 vs 1.47, P = 0.000), days before going back to work (28.4 vs 31.9, P = 0.000) and Patient Scar Assessment Questionnaire score (34.0 vs 42.0, P = 0.000), compared with the standard laparoscopic nephrectomy group. Conclusions Suprapubic-assisted laparoendoscopic single-site surgery nephrectomy and standard laparoscopic nephrectomy are equivalent in terms of the safety and efficacy. However, suprapubic-assisted laparoendoscopic single-site surgery nephrectomy confers less postoperative pain, fewer days before going back to work and better cosmetic result when compared with standard laparoscopic nephrectomy.

Because of the interrelation and restriction among the various functional units within the complex mechanical equipment, the characteristic of the equipment running state and its signal features is time-varying. The single static model established by off-line data is difficult to reflect the real-time running state of equipment in a complete and effective way. Therefore, a fault diagnosis method for convolutional neural network (CNN) and online sequential-extreme learning machine (OS-ELM) is proposed. In this method, the S-transform of the vibration signal is transformed and the S-transform spectrum is constructed firstly. Then, the characteristics of CNN adaptive extraction of the S change spectrum are used to establish the OS-ELM fault diagnosis model. OS-ELM is used to update the fault diagnosis model in real time to improve the dynamic adaptability and operational efficiency of the fault diagnosis model by gradually adding new samples. It reduces the retraining time of the model. The simulation results of bearing data sets show that the method can identify fault types quickly and effectively.