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When a high-speed train passes through tunnels, tunnel pressure waves will cause pressure fluctuation inside carriage. Traditional control strategy of shutting down air ducts for a fixed period may fail to consider both riding comfort and air quality. The similarity of tunnel pressure waves when the same train passes through the same tunnel provides a possibility to solve the problem by iterative learning control (ILC) algorithm. However, the varying amplitude and scale limit the application of conventional ILC. Thus in each iteration, the control inputs of the nearest condition in the historical database will be matched and applied to the control process, after which the control error will be gained and then the control inputs will be updated by the error. Next, the performance will be evaluated to refresh the database to make the control inputs in the database to be optimal. Feasibility analysis and simulations show the feasibility of controlling the fluctuation inside the carriage by matching the database records.

We aimed to investigate the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This cross-sectional study included 2667 Chinese patients with T2DM aged 18 to 76 years from March 2017 to October 2021. Dietary intake was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire, and prevalent NAFLD was diagnosed with abdominal ultrasonography. High fruit–vegetable consumption was determined using ≥500 g/day consumption of both fruit and vegetable, and both fruit and vegetable consumption were divided into three categories of 400 g (high). The primary outcome measurement was multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the prevalence of NAFLD in relation to the highest fruit and (or) vegetable intake compared with the lowest. Secondary analyses were conducted to assess the effects of either fruit or vegetable intake on the fatty liver index (FLI) using multivariable linear regressions. There were 1694 men and 973 women in this study, and 1445 (54.06%) participants had prevalent NAFLD. Patients with high fruit–vegetable intake had a lower prevalence of NAFLD than those with low fruit–vegetable intake (52.04% vs. 56.48%), but this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.065). Vegetable intake had a significantly inverse association with NAFLD (OR: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.52–0.90), but this association was not pronounced with fruit intake (OR: 1.23, 95% CI: 0.89–1.69) or fruit–vegetable intake (OR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.73–1.10). Additional analyses showed that an increase in vegetable intake was linearly associated with a significant reduction in FLI (β: −1.028, 95% CI: −1.836, −0.219). In conclusion, higher vegetable consumption was associated with lower odds of NAFLD in Chinese patients with T2DM, which suggested that increased vegetable intake might protect patients with diabetes against NAFLD.

To study the vibration of a passenger's head and internal organs at different locations of a high-speed train, a 9-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) model of seated passengers is proposed in this paper, and its parameters of the damping coefficients and stiffnesses are identified. Next, the response of the head and internal organs is simulated by applying the vibrational stimulation generated by a 27-DOF vehicle model under track irregularity. Moreover, by applying the measured vibration signal, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) the weakest response is detected at the centre of the compartment of the wagon, and a stronger response is detected at the centre of the bogie, with the rolling motion having a greater effect 1 m away from the centre of the bogie; (2) the response of the human internal organs is stronger than that of the head under stimulation with a lower frequency of less than 3 Hz, and a similar conclusion can be drawn in the range of 5 to 8 Hz. However, if the frequency is in the range between 8 and 15 Hz, the situation is entirely different. The responses of both the head and internal organs are reduced at frequencies over 20 Hz; (3) from the real application, it can be inferred that the greatest response can be detected at approximately 3 Hz for internal organs and at 8 Hz or higher for the head.

Gastric cancer is the second highest cause of global cancer mortality. Genome-wide screening of transcriptome dysregulation between cancer and normal tissues would provide insights into the molecular basis of gastric cancer initiation and progression. Recently, next-generation sequencing technique has started to revolutionize biomedical studies. RNA-seq method has become a superior approach in cancer studies, which enables accurate measurement of gene expression levels. In this work, we used RNA-seq data from tumor and matched normal samples to investigate their transcriptional changes. We totally identified 114 significantly differentially expressed genes, and these genes are highly enriched in some gene ontology (GO) categories, such as "digestive system process," "regulation of body fluid levels," "secretion," "digestion," etc. This study provided the preliminary survey of the transcriptome of Chinese gastric cancer patients, which provides better insights into the complexity of regulatory changes during tumorgenesis.

Background & Aims Iron is an essential metal for fundamental metabolic processes, but little is known regarding the involvement of iron in other nutritional disorders. In the present study, we investigated disordered iron metabolism in a murine model of hereditary tyrosinemia type I (HT1), a disease of the tyrosine degradation pathway. Methods We analysed the status of iron accumulation following NTBC withdrawal from Fah −/− mice, a murine model for HT1. Liver histology and serum parameters were used to assess the extent of liver injury and iron deposition. To determine the physiological significance of iron accumulation, mice were subjected to a low-iron food intake to reduce the iron accumulation. Mechanistic studies were performed on tissues and cells using immunoblotting, qRT-PCR, adenovirus transfection and other assays. Results Severe iron overload was observed in the murine model of HT1 with dramatically elevated hepatic and serum iron levels. Mechanistic studies revealed that downregulation and dysfunction of Tfr2 decreased hepcidin, leading to iron overload. The Fah −/− hepatocytes lost the ability of transferrin-sensitive induction of hepcidin. Forced expression of Tfr2 in the murine liver reduced the iron accumulation. Moreover, transcription factor Sp1 was downregulated and identified as a new regulator of Tfr2 here. Additionally, low-iron food intake effectively reduced the iron deposits, protected the liver and prolonged the survival in these mice. Conclusions Iron was severely overloaded in the HT1 mice via the Sp1/Tfr2/Hepcidin axis. The iron overload induced liver injury in the HT1 mice, and reduction of the iron accumulation ameliorated liver injury. Lay summary Primary and secondary iron overload is an abnormal status affecting millions of people worldwide. Here, we reported severe iron overload in a murine model of HT1, a disease of the tyrosine degradation pathway, and elucidated the mechanistic basis and the physiological significance of iron overload in HT1. These studies are of general interest not only with respect to secondary iron-induced liver injury in HT1 but also are important to elucidate the crosstalk between the two metabolic pathways.

Purpose: The objective was to study whether apoptosis occurs in human embryogenesis. Methods: Human viable, arrested, and nonviable embryos and immature, and nonfertilized oocytes donated by our patients were used to detect apoptosis by Tunel labeling, annexin staining, and single-cell reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: DNA fragmentation and phosphotidylserine translocation, the two markers for apoptosis, were detected frequently in fragmented human embryos derived from in vitro fertilization–embryo transfer (IVF-ET). Using RT-PCR, apoptotic genes also were detected in these embryos. The frequencies of gene expression in viable embryos, arrested embryos, nonviable embryos, immature oocytes, and nonfertilized oocytes were: 7/8, 5/5, 5/6, 0/6, 0/3, for Bax; 8/8, 5/5, 7/7, 0/4, 0/5 for Fas; 2/8, 0/2, 0/3, 0/5, 0/3 for BCL-2; 0/8, 1/3, 0/2, 0/3, 0/2 for Fas-ligand; and 8/8, 17/17, 21/21, 24/24, 15/15 for actin, respectively. Conclusions: Our preliminary data did not show a significant difference in the expression frequency of all studied genes between viable embryos and nonviable or arrested embryos. However, the expression of Bax and Fas was noticeably higher in nonviable embryos than in viable embryos as judged by the intensities of amplicons visualized after ethidium bromide staining. In addition, BCL-2 was only detected in viable embryos. Whether embryos quality is related to the regulation of BCL-2, Bax, and Fas expressions requires further study.

Stable epigenetic silencing of p16(INK4a) is a common event in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells, which is associated with abnormal cell proliferation and liberation from cell cycle arrest. Understanding the early epigenetic events in silencing p16(INK4a) expression may illuminate a prognostic strategy to block HCC development. Toward this end, we created a reprogram cell model by the fusion mouse HCC cells with mouse embryonic stem cells, in which the ES-Hepa hybrids forfeited HCC cell characteristics along with reactivation of the silenced p16(INK4a). HCC characteristics, in terms of gene expression pattern and tumorigenic potential, was restored upon induced differentiation of these reprogrammed ES-Hepa hybrids. The histone methylation pattern relative to p16(INK4a) silencing during differentiation of the ES-Hepa hybrids was analyzed. H3K27 trimethylation at the p16(INK4a) promoter region, occurring in the early onset of p16(INK4a) silencing, was followed by H3K9 dimethylation at later stages. During the induced differentiation of the ES-Hepa hybrids, H3K4 di- and trimethylations were maintained at high levels during the silencing of p16(INK4a), strongly suggesting that H3K4 methylation events did not cause the silencing of p16(INK4a). Our results suggested that the enrichment of H3K27 trimethylation, independent of H3K9 dimethylation, trimethylation, and DNA methylation, was an early event in the silencing of p16(INK4a) during the tumor development. This unique chromatin pattern may be a heritable marker of epigenetic regulation for p16(INK4a) silencing during the developmental process of hepatocellular carcinogenesis.

To observe the expression of R. gracilis D-amino acid oxidase (DAAO) gene labeled by EGFP in HeLa cells and how it mediates cytotoxicity, DAAO cDNA and EGFP gene were cloned into Eukaryotic expression vector pIRES to construct DAAO gene expression vector pIRES-DAAO. HeLa cells were transfected with pIRES-DAAO in vitro. Expression of EGFP gene in HeLa-D cells was observed under a fluorescent microscope. The efficiency of transfection was analyzed by flow cytometry (FCM). The fluorescent cells were screened by FCM and were named HeLa-D. The activity of HeLa-D cells was detected by MTT colorimetric assay after they were treated with D-Ala at various concentrations. The results indicted that expression of EGFP gene in HeLa-D cells was seen under fluorescent microscope and HeLa-D cells were screened by FCM. Apparently,the prodrug D-Ala killed HeLa-D cells. These results demonstrate that EGFP gene can be regarded as a reporter gene to screen the cells transduced with DAAO quickly, and DAAO/D-Ala suicide gene system may prove helpful in gene therapy of cancer.

To investigate the presence of messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding insulin-like growth factor binding proteins (IGFBP) in human secretory endometrial stromal cells cultured in vitro, total cellular mRNA and protein extracted from cells treated with various hormones were detected and identified by Northern and Western blotting techniques respectively. Northern blot analysis detected 1.4 and 2.5 kilobase (kb) mRNA transcripts for IGFBP-2 and IGFBP-3 respectively, in both control and progestin-treated human endometrial stromal cells in vitro. However, the 1.5 kb mRNA transcript of IGFBP-1 was detected only in progestin-treated cells but not in the controls. Progestin alone markedly stimulated cellular BP-1 protein and mRNA, but only moderately stimulated cellular IGFBP-2 and IGFBP-3 protein mRNA in a dose-dependent fashion. Adding relaxin at the same time as progestin further enhanced the stimulatory effects of progesterone. Oestradiol had a stimulatory effect on cellular IGFBP-2 mRNA, but had an inhibitory effect on protein and mRNA of IGFBP-3, also in a dose-dependent fashion. In general, for each specific binding protein, the amount of cellular mRNA correlated well with the amount of cellular protein. Therefore, IGFBP protein and mRNA transcript in human secretory endometrial stromal cells appears to be under hormonal influence. These hormones may control the synthesis of IGFBPs at the transcription rather than the translation level.