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In this paper, the dynamical behaviors of a new cytokine-enhanced HIV infection model with intracellular delay τ1, virus replication delay τ2 and immune response delay τ3 are investigated. The positivity and boundedness of all solutions for the model with non-negative initial values have been proved. Moreover, two important biological parameters, called the virus reproductive number R0 and the antibody immune reproductive number R1 are established. By constructing suitable Lyapunov functionals and using LaSalle’s invariance principle, the global dynamics of the equilibria is completely determined by R0 and R1. On the one hand, the results show that intracellular delay τ1, viral replication delay τ2 and immune response delay τ3 have no effect on the stability of E0, E1, and if τ1 ≥ 0, τ2 ≥ 0, τ3 = 0, the endemic equilibrium with the presence of antibody response E2 is globally asymptotically stable. On the other hand, when τ1 ≥ 0, τ2 ≥ 0, τ3 > 0, numerical analysis confirms the theorems and suggests that time delay play a positive role in virus infection, with the increase of τ3, the dynamic behavior of the equilibrium E2 will change as follows: locally asymptotically stable → unstable; Hopf bifurcation appears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world with complex etiology, high tumor heterogeneity, and low efficacy of treatment. The establishment of an animal model that is close to the clinical situation of hepatocellular carcinoma and can be successfully modeled many times is of great significance to the study of the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. We used Diethylnitrosamine (DEN) to induce hepatocellular carcinoma in rodents and compared four models of DEN-induced hepatocellular carcinoma. Group C (Control): rats were fed a standard laboratory rat diet and freely drank normal water. Group P (Peritoneal injection): rats were administered an IP injection (50 mg/kg/week) between 5 and 23 weeks after birth. Ten microliter of DEN solution would be injected per g of rat. Group O (DEN-Fed group): rats were allowed unrestricted access to water contaminated with 0.01 % DEN between the ages of 7 and 15 weeks. 0.2 mL of DEN drinking water was consumed per gram of rat. Group P+O (Combined peritoneal injection and Oral feeding): rats were administered an IP injection (50 mg/kg) at weeks 3 and 5 post-birth, and they freely drank water contaminated with 0.012 % DEN between weeks 7 and 14 post-birth. We used an ultrasound scan, biochemical testing, haematoxylin, and eosin staining, Masson staining, Wolf scarlet staining, Ki67, CD34, a-SMA, CD8, and CD68 staining to compare between groups. Liver dissection and ultrasound scan showed that compared to other groups, the liver of Group P+O was darker in color, with more grey-white cancer nodules and larger localized tumors, and the structure of the tumors was slightly disorganized, with the elastography hardness of the middle lobe and the right lobe was slightly increased. The alanine aminotransferase and total bilirubin of Group P+O were higher than those of Group O but lower than those of Group P. Haematoxylin and eosin staining showed that the tumors of Group P+O were large, with large tumor cords and pseudo-glandular, the degree of differentiation was medium and surrounded by more fatty lesions. We conclude that combined DEN treatment is more effective, stable, and has the advantage of multiple modalities, leading to faster tumor formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the phenomenon of the crack on the autoclave flange, a three-dimensional model of the autoclave was established based on the Ansys Workbench platform. A new finite element analysis flow for optimizing the design of autoclave teeth was established using the Fluent, Static Structure, and Direct Optimization modules. The paper analyzed and discussed the maximum stress and minimum fatigue life at the corresponding position. The variation trend of stress and fatigue life at the corresponding position after fillet optimization was also discussed. The results showed that the equivalent stress of autoclave teeth without fillet optimization reached the maximum under different fillet sizes. The equivalent stress and fatigue life of the autoclave tooth were the same as the rounded corner size obtained by the optimization design. The optimal global solution could be obtained through the optimization design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, three new third-order accurate schemes are proposed and analyzed for the phase field crystal equation modeled by the Swift-Hohenberg energy functional with periodic boundary conditions based on three types of convex splittings. Firstly, using a third-order backward differentiation formula for the temporal discretization, we treat the convex and concave parts produced by the energy splitting implicitly and explicitly, respectively. Next, we develop three nonlinear third-order semi-discrete schemes and present rigorous proofs of the mass conservation, unique solvability, and the energy stability. The Fourier pseudo-spectral method is utilized for the spatial discretization and some advanced nonlinear iterative solvers are applied to solve the discrete system. Furthermore, various numerical experiments in two and three dimensional are presented to demonstrate the accuracy, energy stability, and mass conservation of the proposed schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers flight price discrimination between different aircraft types in an analysis of airport congestion under a Stackelberg game. In addition, we introduce a method to determine the specific total flight volume under which there should be no congestion toll because there is no congestion when total flight volume is low. Furthermore, congestion tolls should be levied on all airlines when total real flight production is between the equilibrium flights in a joint-profit maximization scenario and equilibrium flights in a self-profit maximization scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We herein reprogrammed axial ligands of platinum(iv) prodrugs, conferring the constructed prodrug entities with the ability to self-assemble in aqueous solution. Further cloaking of the PEG chain with Pluronic surfactant makes this nanoassembly (termed Pt(iv)-NP) suitable for systemic injection. Notably, Pt(iv)-NP significantly alleviated the toxicity of the parent cisplatin drug in vivo while preserving the pharmacological activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this article, a cytokine-enhanced viral infection model with cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) immune response and antibody immune response is proposed and analyzed. The model contains six compartments: uninfected CD4+T cells, infected CD4+T cells, inflammatory cytokines, viruses, CTLs and antibodies. Different from the previous works, this model not only considers virus-to-cell transmission and cell-to-cell transmission, but also includes a new infection mode, namely cytokine-enhanced viral infection. The incidence rates of the healthy CD4+T cells with viruses, infected cells and inflammatory cytokines are given by general functions. Moreover, the production/proliferation and removal/death rates of all compartments are represented by general functions. Firstly, we prove that all the solutions of the model are nonnegative and uniformly bounded. Then, five key parameters with strong biological significance, namely the virus basic reproduction number R 0, CTLs immune response reproduction number R 1, antibody immune response reproductive number R 2, CTLs immune competitive reproductive number R 3 and antibody immune competitive reproductive number R 4 are derived. Then, by using Lyapunov’s method and LaSalle’s invariance principle, we have shown the global stability of each equilibrium. In addition, the numerical simulation results also show that the theoretical results are correct. Finally, we formulate an optimal control problem and solve it using Pontryagins Maximum Principle and an efficient iterative numerical methods. The results of our numerical simulation show that it is very important to control the infection between viruses and cells and between cells and inflammatory cytokines for controlling HIV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose two momentum-preserving finite difference schemes for solving one-dimensional Camassa–Holm equation with periodic boundary conditions. A two-level nonlinear difference scheme and a three-level linearized difference scheme are constructed by using the method of order reduction. For nonlinear scheme, we combine mid-point rule and a specific difference operator, which ensures that our obtained scheme is of second-order convergence in both temporal and spatial directions. For linearized scheme, we apply a linear implicit Crank–Nicolson scheme in the temporal direction, then unique solvability and momentum conservation are analysed in detail. Numerical experiments are provided for Camassa–Holm equation admitting different types of solutions, which demonstrate the convergence order and accuracy of the proposed methods coincide with theoretical analysis. Moreover, numerical results show that the nonlinear scheme exhibits better accuracy for mass conservation, while the linearized scheme is more time-saving in computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore the molecular mechanisms involved in the rice– Magnaporthe oryzae interaction, we conducted a time-course phosphoproteomic analysis of leaf samples from resistant and susceptible rice cultivars infected with M. oryzae , with emphasis on the initial biotrophic phase of the interaction. Phosphoproteomic profiling analysis led to the identification of 56 M. oryzae -regulated phosphoprotein spots. MALDI-TOF/TOF analysis unveiled 53 phosphoproteins belonging to 12 functional categories. Phosphorylation within 7 identified phosphoproteins was verified by mapping the phosphorylation sites by nanoLC-MS/MS. Although the phosphoproteins involved in photosynthesis, antioxidation, and protein folding showed similar changes in both compatible and incompatible interactions, differential regulation between the two interactions was documented for the phosphorylation status of defense-related proteins, signaling-related proteins, microtubule-associated proteins, energy-related enzymes, and amino acid synthesis-related proteins. Rice resistance is likely related to several rapidly and strongly triggered signal transduction cascades (e.g., Rac GTPases- and H 2 O 2 -mediated rice defense signaling) resulting in a multiple-level activation of defense responses. The six differentially expressed mRNA encoding proteins were measured by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). This study provides useful clues for the further exploration of the sophisticated regulatory mechanisms of M. oryzae –rice interactions. Biological significance Although large-scale identification of phosphorylated proteins has been carried out in rice, there is little report on the rice phosphoproteome in response to pathogens in general and in response to M. oryzae in particular. In this study, a time-course comparative phosphoproteomics was performed to analyze the changes of phosphoprotein profiles in rice leaves during early compatible and incompatible interactions with M. oryzae by using a combination of PEG prefractionation, Al(OH) 3 -MOAC, 2-DE, Pro-Q DPS and mass spectrometry. Fifty-six M. oryzae -regulated phosphoproteins were identified successfully and phosphorylation within 7 identified phosphoproteins was verified by mapping the phosphorylation sites by nanoLC-MS/MS. Our study provides novel insights into the functions of proteins involved in rice resistance and the molecular mechanism of rice resistance against M. oryzae . Furthermore, we propose the working model for the signaling pathways of rice defense in response to M. oryzae . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work proposes an alternating current electric flux leakage (AC-EFL) testing methodology that can be applied to detect metallic material surface defects. The inspection principles and feasibility of this strategy are described in detail on the basis of electric field (E-field) theory. Theoretical analyses using a three-dimensional (3D) finite element method (FEM) are presented to explain the working principle of this technology. A disturbed E-field caused by defects can be decomposed into a non-conservative (or rotational) E-field that arises from a time-variant magnetic field and a conservative (or irrotational) E-field that results from free charge. 3D FEM simulations were employed to separately analyse the rotational and irrotational E-field distribution inside and outside an AC-carrying aluminium rod with a surface crack. The simulation results demonstrated that, for metallic materials with high conductivity, the conservative E-field due to free charge could be neglected when the frequency of the exciting voltage is high compared to the non-conservative E-field produced by the time-varying magnetic field. Experiments applying a prototype coplanar capacitive probe were also conducted and the experimental results agreed well with those of the theoretical analyses, confirming the signal mechanisms of AC-EFL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] The global burden of colorectal cancer (CRC), the third most commonly diagnosed malignancy, continues to rise. Therefore, more effective and less toxic therapies are needed for CRC. CPT-11 (also called irinotecan), the standard-of-care treatment for CRC, has only had limited effects on survival outcomes. In vivo , CPT-11 must be converted to an active metabolite, SN38, to exert antitumor activity in the presence of carboxylesterases, but the conversion rate is extremely low (usually less than 8%). To fully harness the active SN38 compound, we showed here that esterification of SN38 using α-linolenic acid (LNA) generated a prodrug (termed LSN38), which can be formulated in pharmaceutically acceptable surfactants, such as polysorbate 80. Upon blending with an aqueous ethanolic solution, the mixture of LSN38/polysorbate 80 formed self-emulsifying nanomicelles (termed LSN38 NMs), enabling systemic injection. Unlike the insufficient release of active SN38 from CPT-11, drug activation from the LSN38 prodrug was quantitative and relied on esterase, which is abundant in cancerous cells. Pharmacokinetics studies revealed that polysorbate 80-based nanomicelles stably constrained the prodrug in the reservoir and prolonged blood circulation compared to CPT-11. Furthermore, LSN38 NMs showed superior therapeutic efficacy against a colorectal xenograft-bearing mouse model that failed to be treated with clinically approved CPT-11. Overall, these studies highlight the feasibility of converting a chemotherapeutic agent that is not miscible or compatible with pharmaceutical surfactants into an injectable self-emulsifying formulation. This approach could be applied to rescue other drugs or drug candidates that are abandoned in the preclinical stages due to pharmaceutical challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growth of air traffic demand in busy airspace, there is an urgent need for airspace sectorization to increase air traffic throughput and ease the pressure on controllers. The purpose of this paper is to develop a method framework that can perform airspace sectorization automatically, reasonably, which can be used as an advisory tool for controllers as an automatic system, especially for eliminating irregular sector shapes generated by simulated annealing algorithm (SAA) based on the region growth method. The two graph cutting method, dynamic Monte Carlo method by changing location of flexible vertices (MC-CLFV) and Monte Carlo method by radius changing (MC-RC) were developed to eliminate irregular sector shapes generated by SAA in post-processing. The experimental results show that the proposed method framework of airspace sectorization (AS) can automatically and reasonably generate sector design schemes that meet the design criteria. Our methodology framework and software can provide assistant design and analysis tools for airspace planners to design airspace, improve the reliability and efficiency of airspace design, and reduce the burden of airspace planners. In addition, this lays the foundation for reconstructing airspace with the more intelligent method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to ascertain whether implementation difficulty can be used in a slot allocation model as a new mechanism for slightly weakening grandfather rights; according to which, a linear integer programming model is designed to compare and analyze displacement, implementation difficulty and priority with different weights. Test results show that the implementation difficulty can be significantly reduced without causing excessive displacement and disruption of existing priorities, by weight setting while declared capacity is cleared. In addition to this, whether the movements are listed in order of descending priority or not have great impact on displacement and implementation difficulty within the slot allocation model. Capacity is surely a key factor affecting displacement and implementation difficulties. This study contributes to propose a new mechanism for slightly weakening grandfather right, which can help decision makers to upgrade slot allocation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new approach called Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) to solve the Lotka–Volterra predator–prey models using a novel approximation form. Unlike the traditional methods that involve constructing complex algebraic systems and performing inverse matrix operations, ELM transforms the system of differential equations into a set of nonlinear equations and solves for the parameters through optimization iterations to obtain an approximate solution. Furthermore, we construct a solution form that satisfies the initial conditions, eliminating the need to handle initial conditions during the solving process, making this method more concise. Finally, by comparing with other numerical methods using two sets of models and parameters, ELM can produce high-precision results and further demonstrate the advantages of our method. • First use of ELM to solve Lotka–Volterra predator–prey models with discrete delays. • We construct an approximate solution structure that satisfies the initial conditions. • We have discretized the original differential equation into a system of nonlinear equations for the computation. • We present numerical examples to verify the effectiveness of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Integration of exposure features enhances global feature capture in low-light scenes. • Track extraction formulated as row-grid-based classification for real-time detection. • Auxiliary tasks mitigate overfitting and improve performance in sparse track-extraction task. • Strategies to enhance accuracy by addressing the impact of noise in low-light images. Vision-based methods for detecting the dynamic clearance intrusion of trains in underground tunnels encounter challenges in extracting rails from low-contrast images caused by low-light scenes. This study introduces a solution for Rail Extraction in the Low-light scenes of underground tunnels (LRE-Net). Exposure features were integrated into the backbone to enhance the capability of the model in capturing global features in low-light scenes. Additionally, this study proxies the track extraction as a row-grid-based classification formulation. Two auxiliary tasks were introduced as regularization terms for generic feature learning during the training phase to address the potential overfitting resulting from the sparse nature of the track-extraction task. Experiments were conducted on a dataset consisting of 7,643 images, demonstrating that LRE-Net achieved the highest extraction accuracy of 93.94% at 88 frames per second (FPS). Furthermore, the impact of noise in low-light images on track extraction was analyzed, and strategies were proposed to enhance accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the operational performance of airside and landside at Chinese airports with two novel inputs. Furthermore, the airport landside operation is decomposed into passenger-terminal operations and cargo-warehouse operations. One novel input is the capability of the runway system which is introduced into airside performance evaluation. The other novel input is cargo warehousing which is introduced into landside performance evaluation. To address multiple optimal solutions when estimating Returns to Scale in Data Envelopment Analysis, we adopted the Zhu and Shen method. This empirical study shows that neither the number of runways nor total runway length is a genuine index of runway system capability in the evaluation of airside performance. Only four airports achieved full efficiency in all eight measures while eight airports did not achieve any full efficiency. In addition, one airport did not perform well in the benchmark analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessments of internal thickness reduction of ferromagnetic components are extremely important. Traditional nondestructive testing (NDT) methods are usually non-linear and sometimes the electromagnetic parameters of components are required. In this paper, a thickness reduction testing method based on variable intensity DC magnetization (VIDC-MAG) is proposed. Both theoretical modeling analysis and simulation modeling analysis show that a pole point of magnetic permeability μ m appears with the increase of DC magnetization intensity, which corresponds to an inflection point magnetizing current i m. The i m decreases with the increase of the defect depth of the wall thickness reduction and shows a linear relationship. The experimental results show that the method performs well for the inner wall thickness thinning and the relative error of the measurement results is small. Additionally, the measurement results are related to the width of the thickness reduction, the probe excitation frequency, the magnetic properties of ferromagnetic material and the lift-off distance of the magnetizer. The method is applicable to the thickness variation of the cover layer and does not need to know the electromagnetic parameters of the components in advance, which has greater practical application value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a hybrid numerical scheme based on combining exponential time differencing (ETD) and local radial basis function collocation method was constructed. Model problems with different boundary conditions were considered, and the resulting linear system was carefully analyzed. The relation between the number of points employed in the local radial basis function collocation method and the condition number of the coefficient matrix was given. For application, three typical differential equations were investigated, that is, the Allen–Cahn equation for checking the maximum‐preserving property, the combustion equation for checking the monotonicity‐preserving property, and the Gray–Scott system for checking the robustness of the proposed scheme. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Device-to-device (D2D) communication is a promising wireless communication technology which can effectively reduce the traffic load of the base station and improve the spectral efficiency. The application of intelligent reflective surfaces (IRS) in D2D communication systems can further improve the throughput, but the problem of interference suppression becomes more complex and challenging due to the introduction of new links. Therefore, how to perform effective and low-complexity optimal radio resource allocation is still a problem to be solved in IRS-assisted D2D communication systems. To this end, a low-complexity power and phase shift joint optimization algorithm based on particle swarm optimization is proposed in this paper. First, a multivariable joint optimization problem for the uplink cellular network with IRS-assisted D2D communication is established, where multiple DUEs are allowed to share a CUE's sub-channel. However, the proposed problem considering the joint optimization of power and phase shift, with the objective of maximizing the system sum rate and the constraints of the minimum user signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), is a non-convex non-linear model and is hard to solve. Different from the existing work, instead of decomposing this optimization problem into two sub-problems and optimizing the two variables separately, we jointly optimize them based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). Then, a fitness function with a penalty term is established, and a penalty value priority update scheme is designed for discrete phase shift optimization variables and continuous power optimization variables. Finally, the performance analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is close to the iterative algorithm in terms of sum rate, but lower in power consumption. In particular, when the number of D2D users is four, the power consumption is reduced by 20%. In addition, compared with PSO and distributed PSO, the sum rate of the proposed algorithm increases by about 10.2% and 38.3%, respectively, when the number of D2D users is four. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetic flux leakage (MFL) non-destructive testing technology is widely used. The MFL of a defect first increases with an increase in the magnetic excitation and is then thought to remain constant after magnetically saturating the ferromagnetic objects being tested. This trend is in agreement with the B-H curve. In this work, the change trends of the MFL are assessed by further deriving and analysing the MFL signal description, and a reduction of the MFL is found when the component is subject to strong magnetic fields. Later, using simulations from finite element models with various notch sizes and test conditions, the change trends of the MFL are further described and verified. Furthermore, the reduction of the MFL is also modified by reducing the primary origin of the magnetic compression effect. The work mentioned above elucidates scenarios involving increasing MFL and provides further knowledge about MFL mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) causes persistent infection and challenges tuberculosis control worldwide. T cell-mediated immunity plays a critical role in controlling Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection, and therefore, enhancing Mtb-specific T cell immune responses represents a promising therapeutic strategy against TB. Cytokine-induced killer (CIK) immunotherapy is based on autologous infusion of in vitro expanded bulk T cells, which include both pathogen-specific and nonspecific T cells from patient peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) into TB patients. Preclinical mouse studies have shown that the adoptive T cell therapy inhibited Mtb infection. However, the efficacy of CIK immunotherapy in the treatment of MDR-TB infection has not been evaluated in clinical trials.Methods: We performed a retrospective study of MDR-TB patients who received CIK immunotherapy in combination with anti-TB chemotherapy and those who had standard chemotherapy.Results: Our results showed that CIK immunotherapy in combination with anti-TB chemotherapy treatment increased the conversion rate of sputum smear and Mtb culture, alleviated symptoms, improved lesion absorption, and increased recovery. The kinetics of serology and immunology index monitoring data showed good safety profiles for the CIK treatment.Conclusion: Our study has provided strong evidence that CIK immunotherapy in combination with anti-TB chemotherapy is beneficial for MDR-TB patients. A multicenter clinical trial is warranted to evaluate CIK as a new immune therapy for MDR-TB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Metabolic reprogramming has been reported in various kinds of cancers and is related to clinical prognosis, but the prognostic role of pyrimidine metabolism in gastric cancer (GC) remains unclear. Methods: Here, we employed DEG analysis to detect the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in pyrimidine metabolic signaling pathway and used univariate Cox analysis, Lasso-penalizes Cox regression analysis, Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis to explore their prognostic roles in GC. The DEGs were experimentally validated in GC cells and clinical samples by quantitative real-time PCR. Results: Through DEG analysis, we found NT5E, DPYS and UPP1 these three genes are highly expressed in GC. This conclusion has also been verified in GC cells and clinical samples. A prognostic risk model was established according to these three DEGs by Univariate Cox analysis and Lasso-penalizes Cox regression analysis. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis suggested that patient cohorts with high risk score undertook a lower overall survival rate than those with low risk score. Stratified survival analysis, Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis of this model confirmed that it is a reliable and independent clinical factor. Therefore, we made nomograms to visually depict the survival rate of GC patients according to some important clinical factors including our risk model. Conclusion: In a word, our research found that pyrimidine metabolism is dysregulated in GC and established a prognostic model of GC based on genes differentially expressed in pyrimidine metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using hydrophobic cabazitaxel as a target anticancer drug, we show that the conjugation of oligo(ethylene glycol)–oligolactide (OEG–OLA) via a self-immolative linkage induces the self-assembly of the resulting prodrug into injectable nanoparticles. The nanoparticles release chemically unmodified cabazitaxel after endocytosis in cancer cells. With the optimal conjugate, the nanotherapy not only potently induces tumor regression but also has a higher safety margin in animals than the free drug administered in its clinical formulation. Our studies highlight the design rationale that attaching a short amphiphilic oligomer to a toxic drug can convert it to a self-deliverable and safe nanotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the stability of a class of fractional-order static neural networks. Two new Lyapunov functions with proper integral terms are constructed. These integrals with variable upper limit are convex functions. Based on the fractional-order Lyapunov direct method and some inequality skills, several novel stability sufficient conditions which ensure the global Mittag–Leffler stability of fractional-order projection neural networks (FPNNs) are presented in the forms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Two LMI-based Mittag–Leffler stability criteria with less conservativeness are given for a special kind of FPNNs. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated via four numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Niacin-ligated platinum(IV)–ruthenium(II) chimeric complexes (PtRu 1–4) have been synthesized and evaluated for their antitumor performance. Using the optimal complex, PtRu-1, we show that this water-soluble chimeric prodrug not only potently inhibits the metastasis and proliferation of tumor cells but also has an unexpectedly higher safety margin in animals compared with the traditionally-used, clinically approved drug cisplatin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been reported that deletion of tumor necrosis factor-α-induced protein-8 like 2 (TNFAIP8L2, TIPE2) facilitates the activation of T-cell receptors. However, the role of TIPE2 in T-cell-mediated acute transplant rejection remains unclear. To illustrate the underlying cellular mechanisms, we transplanted BALB/c hearts into C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) or C57BL/6 mice deficient for TIPE2 (TIPE2−/−) and found that TIPE2−/− recipient mice showed significantly prolonged survival of heart allografts and suppressed maturation of CD11c+ dendritic cells (DCs), which largely abolished the activation and proliferation of alloreactive T cells and their cytotoxic activity. TIPE2−/− DCs increased CD4+CD25+Foxp3+CD127− regulatory T cells (Tregs)generation, likely by inhibiting DCs maturation and CD80 and CD86 expression. Administration of anti-CD25 abolished the allograft survival induced by TIPE2 deficiency. Moreover, TIPE2 deficiency increased IL-10 production in T cells and in recipient serum and allografts. Mechanistic studies revealed that TIPE2−/− restrained the maturation of DCs via inhibition of PI3K/AKT phosphorylation during alloantigen stimulation. Taken together, TIPE2 deficiency in recipient mice inhibited acute rejection by increasing Tregs generated by immature DCs. Thus, TIPE2 could be a therapeutic target for suppressing rejection in organ transplantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuberculosis (TB) has become a global public health and social threat. As clinical first-line drugs, rifampicin and isoniazid used in combination with pyrazinamide and ethambutol (the HRZE regimen) usually induce hepatotoxicity. However, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear, and studying the metabolic impact of co-treating TB patients with the HRZE regimen can provide new hepatotoxicity evidence. In this study, urine metabolites from TB patients were profiled using a high-resolution ultra-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) platform. The tricarboxylic acid circulation, arginine and proline metabolism and purine metabolic pathways were found to be affected by anti-TB drugs. The levels of pyroglutamate, isocitrate, citrate, and xanthine were significantly decreased after the administration of HRZE. The above mentioned pathways were also different between drug-induced liver injury (DILI) and non-DILI patients. Urate and cis -4-octenedioic acid levels in the DILI group were significantly increased compared to those in the non-DILI group, while the cis -aconitate and hypoxanthine levels were significantly decreased. These results highlight that superoxide generation can aggravate the hepatotoxic effects of the HRZE regimen. In addition, our metabolomic approach had the ability to predict hepatotoxicity for clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In magnetic flux leakage (MFL) testing technology, the MFL signals are thought to result from all defects and are used in their evaluation. The tested defects include two types of defects, concave and bump-shaped features, and recently described mechanisms in the MFL method indicate that the former defects produce positive MFL because of magnetic refraction and the latter ones produce negative magnetic fields because of self-magnetization regulation; consequently, these defects result in raised test signal waves and sunken test signal waves, respectively. Thereby, a new methodology for accurately identifying the defect type based on the mapping relation between the signal features and defect types is proposed. Both simulations and experiments with three representative defects (i.e., notch, protrusion and combination) were conducted to confirm their identification using this new methodology. Combined with MFL standards such as American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) E570-09 (Standard Practice for Flux Leakage Examination of Ferromagnetic Steel Tubular Products, ) and British Standards (BS) EN 10246-4 (Non-destructive Testing of Steel Tubes-Part 4: Automatic Full Peripheral Magnetic Transducer/Flux Leakage Testing of Seamless Ferromagnetic Steel Tubes for the Detection of Transverse Imperfections, ), suggestions for standard specimens with reference defects that consist of both types of defects are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Understanding the morphological evolution of tungsten carbides (WC) grains is one of a few key factors to control the mechanical properties of the cemented carbides such as wear resistance and toughness. In this work, the three-dimensional (3D) equilibrium morphology of faceted WC grains in WC-Co system was prospected by means of phase-field simulations with parameters adjusted on ab-initio calculations. To model faceted grain surfaces, a specific class of high anisotropy functions harnessing the vertex vectors of the corresponding Wulff shape construction was implemented. As a result, both truncated trigonal prism in C-poor alloys, and trigonal prism in C-rich alloys in WC-25%Co system morphologies could be reproduced, depending on the magnitude of the anisotropy. Phase-field simulations show an excellent quantitative agreement with the present scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations to representatively sintered WC-Co alloys. This approach paves a new way to model the morphology of high anisotropy grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnesium alloys act as ideal biomedical materials with good biocompatibility. In this paper, the extruded biomedical Mg-6Zn-0.5Nd-0.5/0.8Ca alloys were prepared and their microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion properties were investigated. The results showed that the surfaces of Mg-6Zn-0.5Nd-0.5/0.8Ca alloys extruded at medium temperature were smooth and compact without cracks. The tensile strength and elongation of Mg-6Zn-0.5Nd-0.5/0.8Ca alloys were 222.5 MPa and 20.2%, and 287.2 MPa and 18.4%, respectively. A large number of dislocations were generated in the grains and on grain boundaries after the extrusion. The alloy was immersed in simulating body fluid (SBF) for the weightlessness corrosion, and the corrosion products were analyzed by FTIR, SEM equipped with EDS. It was found that the corrosion rate of Mg-6Zn-0.5Nd-0.5Ca and Mg-6Zn-0.5Nd-0.8Ca alloy were 0.82 and 2.98 mm/a, respectively. Furthermore, the compact layer was formed on the surface of the alloy, which can effectively hinder the permeation of Cl− and significantly improve the corrosion resistance of magnesium alloys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]