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Staphylococcus aureus, a major opportunistic pathogen in aerobic vaginitis (AV), can potentially invade the host and occasionally cause infections. Estrogen is associated with an altered immune response of vaginal epithelial cells and prevention of certain vaginal infectious diseases. However, the molecular mechanisms involving estrogen and S. aureus adhesion to vaginal epithelial cells remain unclear. Thus, here, VK2/E6E7 vaginal epithelial cells were infected with S. aureus, and the role of the estrogen receptor α-associated signaling pathway (ERα/FAK/Src/iNOS axis) in S. aureus adhesion was evaluated. The estrogen-associated phosphorylation status of ERα, FAK, and Src and the protein level of iNOS were assessed by western blotting. We used a specific ERα inhibitor to validate the involvement of the ERα-associated signaling pathway. The results showed that with exposure to 1 nM estrogen for 24 h, transient ERα-associated pathway activation was observed, and the protein expression upregulation was accompanied by a dose-dependent increase in 17-β-estradiol (E2) content and increased S. aureus adherence to vaginal epithelial cells. Estrogen-induced activation of the ERα/FAK/Src/iNOS axis was notably inhibited by the specific ERα inhibitor (ICI 182780). Simultaneously, a significant decrease in the number of adherent S. aureus was observed. However, this inhibitory effect diminished after inhibitor treatment for 24 h. Our findings suggested that the ERα-associated signaling pathway might be involved in S. aureus adherence to vaginal epithelial cells, which appeared to be linked to enhanced cell adhesion leading to AV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article summarizes the advancement in the studies of Earth-affecting solar transients in the last decade that encompasses most of solar cycle 24. It is a part of the effort of the International Study of Earth-affecting Solar Transients (ISEST) project, sponsored by the SCOSTEP/VarSITI program (2014–2018). The Sun-Earth is an integrated physical system in which the space environment of the Earth sustains continuous influence from mass, magnetic field, and radiation energy output of the Sun in varying timescales from minutes to millennium. This article addresses short timescale events, from minutes to days that directly cause transient disturbances in the Earth's space environment and generate intense adverse effects on advanced technological systems of human society. Such transient events largely fall into the following four types: (1) solar flares, (2) coronal mass ejections (CMEs) including their interplanetary counterparts ICMEs, (3) solar energetic particle (SEP) events, and (4) stream interaction regions (SIRs) including corotating interaction regions (CIRs). In the last decade, the unprecedented multi-viewpoint observations of the Sun from space, enabled by STEREO Ahead/Behind spacecraft in combination with a suite of observatories along the Sun-Earth lines, have provided much more accurate and global measurements of the size, speed, propagation direction, and morphology of CMEs in both 3D and over a large volume in the heliosphere. Many CMEs, fast ones, in particular, can be clearly characterized as a two-front (shock front plus ejecta front) and three-part (bright ejecta front, dark cavity, and bright core) structure. Drag-based kinematic models of CMEs are developed to interpret CME propagation in the heliosphere and are applied to predict their arrival times at 1 AU in an efficient manner. Several advanced MHD models have been developed to simulate realistic CME events from the initiation on the Sun until their arrival at 1 AU. Much progress has been made on detailed kinematic and dynamic behaviors of CMEs, including non-radial motion, rotation and deformation of CMEs, CME-CME interaction, and stealth CMEs and problematic ICMEs. The knowledge about SEPs has also been significantly improved. An outlook of how to address critical issues related to Earth-affecting solar transients concludes this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A binary phase-only modulation technique was proposed to focus and scan light through a multimode fiber (MMF) based on spatial light modulator (SLM). For the same number of modulation modes, the number of iterations using this method is only 1/256 of that using phase-only iterative optimization or 1/3 of that using phase-only computation optimization, and the modulation time is at least one to two orders of magnitude shorter than previous wavefront shaping systems. Focusing and scanning light through an MMF with a 105 μm core diameter and 5 m length was achieved experimentally. This method can be extended to focus and scan light at multiple planes along the axial direction by modifying the input wavefront accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a binary amplitude-only modulation parallel coordinate algorithm for focusing and scanning light through a multimode fiber (MMF) based on the digital micro-mirror device (DMD) in a reference-free multimode fiber imaging system. In principle, our algorithm is capable of efficiently calculating the masks to be added to DMD for yielding a series of tightly focused spots; and for the same number of modulation sub-regions, our method is more than M (the number of focused spots) times faster than the amplitude iterative optimization algorithm. In the experiment, efficient light focusing and scanning at the distal end of the MMF are demonstrated. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the proposed method can also be extended to focus and scan light at multiple planes along the axial direction by just modifying the input wavefront accordingly; and our algorithm can be applied not only in multimode optical fiber focusing but also to other disordered media. Particularly, it will be valuable in fast multimode fiber calibration for endoscopic imaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]