Search

Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) is a substance with various biological activities extracted from Lycium barbarum. LbGPs are peptidoglycans with a short peptide backbone and a complex, branched glycan moiety, which is further extracted and isolated from LBPs. Previous studies have shown that LbGP can inhibit cancer cell growth, but its specific mechanism is not completely clear. In this study, we found that LbGP could inhibit the proliferation of glioma cells and promote the expression of period 2 (PER2) through the PKA-CREB pathway. In addition, LbGP could inhibit the de novo synthesis of lipids by downregulating SREBP1c and its target genes, which depended on the expression of PER2. Moreover, PER2 negatively regulated the expression of SREBP1c via suppressing PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway. In summary, LbGP may upregulate the expression of PER2 to reduce the expression of SREBP1c, inhibit lipid synthesis in glioblastoma, and inhibit glioblastoma cell proliferation. This study provides an alternative drug for the treatment of glioma and elucidates its potential mechanism.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Components and standards for scoring for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, Healthy Eating Index-2015, and Alternate Mediterranean diet. Figure S1. Radar plot showing the mean percentage of each component score received in men and women. Table S2. Characteristics of childhood cancer survivors by cardiovascular diseasestatus in the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study. Table S3. Characteristics of childhood cancer survivors by quintiles of DASH in the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study. Table S4. Characteristics of childhood cancer survivors by tertiles of Mediterranean Diet in the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study. Figure S2. Non-parametric regression curves1 for associations between DASH and risk of CVD in St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study. Figure S3. Non-parametric regression curves1 for associations between Mediterranean diet and risk of CVD in St. JudeLifetime Cohort Study.

This letter presents a free space trajectory optimization algorithm for autonomous driving, which decouples the collision-free trajectory generation problem into a Dual-Loop Iterative Anchoring Path Smoothing (DL-IAPS) problem and a Piecewise-Jerk Speed Optimization (PJSO) problem. The work leads to remarkable driving performance improvements including more robust and precise collision avoidance, higher control feasibility, higher computation efficiency and stricter driving comfort guarantee, compared with other existing algorithms. The advantages of our algorithm are attributed to our fast iterative collision checks with exact vehicle/obstacle shapes, strict non-holonomic dynamic constraints and accurate kinematics-based speed optimization. It has been validated that, through batch simulation and road experiments, compared with prior works, our algorithm is with the highest robustness and capable to maintain the lowest failure rate ( $\sim\!\text{7}\%$ ) at nearly all test conditions, achieves 10x faster computational speed than other planners, fulfills $\text{100}\%$ driving-comfort standards in complex driving scenarios, and does not induce significant time increase as boundaries or obstacles scale up.

The characterization of closed and open pore structures is key to evaluating the migration mechanism of gas in shales. In this study, we combined small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) with two fluid ...

This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of organic trace elements (Cu, Fe, Zn, and Mn) on performance, egg quality, trace elements utilization, and intestinal function in late-phase laying hens. A total of 1,080 laying hens (Hy-line brown, 65 weeks old) were randomly assigned to four treatments with six replications of 45 layers each. The basal diet was prepared without adding exogenous trace elements. The control group was fed with a basal diet supplemented with 600 mg/kg of inorganic trace elements. The three treatment groups were fed basal diets supplemented with 300, 450, and 600 mg/kg organic trace elements (OTE300, 450, and 600), respectively. The results showed that there was no significant difference in growth performance among all treatments. However, OTE450 significantly improved the eggshell strength of laying hens (p < 0.05), but had no significant effects on haugh unit, egg yolk weight, eggshell weight, and eggshell thickness, compared with other groups. Moreover, compared with the control group, OTE450 significantly increased the contents of copper, iron, and zinc in serum (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, all of the trace elements had a lower deposition in the feces in organic trace elements groups (p < 0.05). Histological analysis showed that the addition of organic trace elements could significantly improve the villus height and villus concealment ratio (p < 0.05). In addition, the messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein expressions of divalent metal transporter 1 (DMT1), zinc transporter 1 (ZnT-1), and ferroportin 1 (FPN1) were the highest in the OTE450 group. In conclusion, OTE450 could improve egg quality, intestinal function, and trace element utilization efficiency. Thus, this study provides a theoretical basis for the application of low levels of organic trace elements in laying hens.

A novel drug-carrier for paclitaxel entrapment entitled CMC/MATPP-PTX(CTP) was developed starting from the synthesis of MATPP that was grafted to CMC when EDC/NHS was served as coupling agent. Fourier Infrared Spectrometer (FT-IR) and 1H Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H NMR) characterized their constituents and structures information. Laser particle size analyzer (LPSA) and Scanning electron microscope (SEM) measured their size distribution and observed their morphology. Results showed substitution rate of CMC is up to 0.229 when the CMC: MATPP (mole ratio) is 1:0.016. CTP represents different microscale in distinct ratio of H2O/Ethanol or H2O/Acetone aqueous solution. SEM revealed the CTP possess a mean 500 ± 40 nm sizes. PTX loading and encapsulation rates are 14.6% and 8.9% when the ratio of CMC/MATPP:PTX (mole ratio) is 1:2, respectively. The cumulative release of paclitaxel can reach up to 59.75% within 5 h.

We present a learning-based planner that aims to robustly drive a vehicle by mimicking human drivers' driving behavior. We leverage a mid-to-mid approach that allows us to manipulate the input to our imitation learning network freely. With that in mind, we propose a novel feedback synthesizer for data augmentation. It allows our agent to gain more driving experience in various previously unseen environments that are likely to encounter, thus improving overall performance. This is in contrast to prior works that rely purely on random synthesizers. Furthermore, rather than completely commit to imitating, we introduce task losses that penalize undesirable behaviors, such as collision, off-road, and so on. Unlike prior works, this is done by introducing a differentiable vehicle rasterizer that directly converts the waypoints output by the network into images. This effectively avoids the usage of heavyweight ConvLSTM networks, therefore, yields a faster model inference time. About the network architecture, we exploit an attention mechanism that allows the network to reason critical objects in the scene and produce better interpretable attention heatmaps. To further enhance the safety and robustness of the network, we add an optional optimization-based post-processing planner improving the driving comfort. We comprehensively validate our method's effectiveness in different scenarios that are specifically created for evaluating self-driving vehicles. Results demonstrate that our learning-based planner achieves high intelligence and can handle complex situations. Detailed ablation and visualization analysis are included to further demonstrate each of our proposed modules' effectiveness in our method., 8 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by IROS 2021

Purpose: During epidemic control in 2020, via telephone, WeChat, as well as spot investigation, the study team conducted sampling survey on the self-management of psychological health. As the results indicated, although the general public was quite confident to prevail over the epidemic, there were psychological issues needs attention and solutions.

Sophora japonica is a medium-sized deciduous native tree to China. Its flower buds and fruits have special medicinal value. By using 26 highly variable nuclear microsatellites, newly reported here, we assessed the genetic diversity and population structure of 10 representative populations (180 individuals in total) within the species. The results revealed a relatively high genetic diversity in S. japonica (Na = 8.00, He = 0.74, PIC = 0.80, I = 1.67), and reduced genetic variation and heterozygote excess were detected in landrace populations (Na = 5.59, He = 0.71, Ar = 4.11, FIS = − 0.043) when compared with those semi-wild population (Na = 9.7, He = 0.74, Ar = 8.80, FIS = 0.082). A significant bottleneck was detected in two Landraces populations. Moderate differentiation and frequent gene flow were detected among all populations (FST = 0.079, P

This paper presents the design of an automatic (human-out-of-the-loop) control parameters tuning framework, aiming at accelerating large scale autonomous driving system deployed on various vehicles and driving environments. The framework consists of three machine-learning-based procedures, which jointly automate the control parameter tuning for autonomous driving, including: a learning-based dynamic modeling procedure, to enable the control-in-the-loop simulation with highly accurate vehicle dynamics for parameter tuning; a learning-based open-loop mapping procedure, to solve the feedforward control parameters tuning; and more significantly, a Bayesian-optimization-based closed-loop parameter tuning procedure, to automatically tune feedback control (PID, LQR, MRAC, MPC, etc.) parameters in simulation environment. The paper shows an improvement in control performance with a significant increase in parameter tuning efficiency, in both simulation and road tests. This framework has been validated on different vehicles in US and China.

Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) task consists of three typical subtasks: aspect term extraction, opinion term extraction, and sentiment polarity classification. These three subtasks are usually performed jointly to save resources and reduce the error propagation in the pipeline. However, most of the existing joint models only focus on the benefits of encoder sharing between subtasks but ignore the difference. Therefore, we propose a joint ABSA model, which not only enjoys the benefits of encoder sharing but also focuses on the difference to improve the effectiveness of the model. In detail, we introduce a dual-encoder design, in which a pair encoder especially focuses on candidate aspect-opinion pair classification, and the original encoder keeps attention on sequence labeling. Empirical results show that our proposed model shows robustness and significantly outperforms the previous state-of-the-art on four benchmark datasets., EMNLP2021 camera-ready

A low-cost fix-tuned 135-165 GHz sub-harmonic mixer (SHM) with low conversion loss (CL) is presented. The SHM is designed adopting GaAs Schottky dual-diode chip DBES105a, delivered by UMS, Inc. In consideration of extremely short signal wavelength and small circuit size at terahertz band, complicated parasitic effect, brought by packaging of the adopted Schottky chip, can lead to a limitation on optimum CL and operation bandwidth. To reduce the parasitic elements, one of the diodes in series is shorted and single-junction operation is enabled in the chip. The corresponding equivalent circuit model is developed for impedance matching and reliable circuit design. Passive circuits, including the waveguide-to-microstrip-line (WG-MSL) transition, the matching networks and the diplexer, are optimized to minimize the CL based on the equivalent circuit model. The experimental results show that the measured single-side-band CL of the SHM is 11-17 dB over 135-165 GHz, and is 12±1 dB over 140-160 GHz. Wide IF frequency bandwidth is attained, covering 0-20 GHz. The measured results agree well with the simulated ones, demonstrating the accuracy of the equivalent circuit model and the effectiveness of the design methodology.

Left atrial appendage aneurysm (LAAA) is a rare pathologic entity that can be congenital or, more frequently, acquired. Its complications include arrhythmias and thromboembolic events, palpitations, hiccups, chest pain, dyspnea, and myocardial infarction. LAAA can be isolated or associated with other congenital anomalies such as atrial septal defect, ventricular septal defect, anomalous renal artery, Noonan syndrome, and Hurler-Scheie syndrome. We report a rare case of giant LAA with intra-aneurysmal thrombus diagnosed by contrast-enhanced echocardiography.

Key Points: • In-situ stress and natural gas saturation affects fracture process and sediment mechanical properties • Mixed fracture mode tends to be induced while micro fractures and craters were ...

This paper is focused on the possibility of having heart disease by training four machine learning algorithms. By using the data provided by the UCI Machine Learning Repository, we can analyze and compare the models of logistic regression, random forest, extreme gradient boosting and neural network to choose the most robust model and determine important features in our model.

Impairment of microglial functions, such as phagocytosis and/or dysregulation of immune responses, has been implicated as an underlying factor involved in the pathogenesis of various neurodegenerative disorders. Our previous studies have demonstrated that long intergenic noncoding RNA (lincRNA)-Cox2 expression is influenced by nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) signaling and serves as a coactivator of transcriptional factors to regulate the expression of a vast array of immune-related genes in microglia. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been recognized as primary facilitators of cell-to-cell communication and cellular regulation. Herein, we show that EVs derived from astrocytes exposed to morphine can be taken up by microglial endosomes, leading, in turn, to activation of Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) with a subsequent upregulation of lincRNA-Cox2 expression, ultimately resulting in impaired microglial phagocytosis. This was further validated in vivo, wherein inhibition of microglial phagocytic activity was also observed in brain slices isolated from morphine-administrated mice compared with control mice. Additionally, we also showed that intranasal delivery of EVs containing lincRNA-Cox2 siRNA (small interfering RNA) was able to restore microglial phagocytic activity in mice administered morphine. These findings have ramifications for the development of EV-loaded RNA-based therapeutics for the treatment of various disorders involving functional impairment of microglia. Keywords: phagocytosis, drug abuse, morphine, extracellular vesicle, exosome, lincRNA, microglia, CNS

BACKGROUND: Humans and mice absorb bovine milk exosomes and their RNA cargos. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to determine whether milk exosome– and RNA-depleted (ERD) and exosome- and RNA-sufficient (ERS) diets alter the concentrations of purine metabolites in mouse livers, and to determine whether diets depleted of bovine milk alter the plasma concentration and urine excretion of purine metabolites in adults and infants, respectively. METHODS: C57BL/6 mice were fed ERD (providing 2% of the microRNA cargos compared with ERS) and ERS diets starting at age 3 wk; livers were collected at age 7 wk. Plasma and 24-h urine samples were collected from healthy adults who consumed (DCs) or avoided (DAs) dairy products. Spot urine samples were collected from healthy infants fed human milk (HM), milk formula (MF), or soy formula (SF) at age 3 mo. Purine metabolites were analyzed in liver, plasma, and urine; mRNAs and microRNAs were analyzed in the livers of female mice. RESULTS: We found that 9 hepatic purine metabolites in ERD-fed mice were 1.76 ± 0.43 times the concentrations in ERS-fed mice (P

Exosomes are nanoparticles that transfer cargos from donor cells to recipient cells where they elicit changes in gene expression and metabolism. Evidence suggests that exosomes and their cargos are also absorbed from dietary sources such as bovine milk, and bovine exosomes promote the growth of myofibers in murine C2C12 myotube cell cultures. The aim of the current study was to determine whether the dietary intake of bovine milk exosomes alters strength, gene expression and amino acid profiles in murine skeletal muscles. Male and female C57BL/6 mice, age three weeks, were fed an AIN93G-based, exosome and RNA-depleted (ERD) diet for six weeks; controls were fed an exosome and RNA-sufficient (ERS) diet. Variables of feeding behavior, metabolism, grip strength, liver and kidney function, amino acid profiles, and gene expression patterns were analyzed by using metabolic cages, grip strength analyzers, clinical chemistry analyzers, targeted LC/MS-MS, and RNA sequencing analysis. The diets had no effect on food and water intake, respiratory exchange rate, physical activity, grip strength, markers of liver and kidney dysfunction, and amino acid profiles in muscle. Only twelve and nine mRNAs were differentially expressed in skeletal muscle from female and male mice, respectively, fed ERD and ERS diets. The modest effect of the ERD diet on gene expression and levels of free amino acids in skeletal muscle is consistent with observations that bovine milk exosomes and their cargos accumulate in tissues other than skeletal muscle.

Development of an efficient fluorescent probe for sensing hypochlorite in water samples and biological samples is highly demanded. However, the currently reported fluorescent probes for hypochlorite frequently suffered from the problem of high background fluorescence. Herein, based on the combined effect of two different fluorescence quenching groups, we rationally developed a novel fluorescent probe for hypochlorite with extremely low background fluorescence. Notably, due to the doubly quenching groups, the probe could even keep low background fluorescence in a solution with high viscosity. Furthermore, the probe displayed highly sensitive and selective response to hypochlorite, with the detection limits calculated to be 10.5 nM. Practical application demonstrated that the probe was able to quantitatively detect hypochlorite in various water samples with good recovery. Significantly, the probe showed extremely low background fluorescence in living cells and was capable of detecting minor variation of endogenous hypochlorite in RAW 264.7 cells. Moreover, the fluorescence imaging different concentration of hypochlorite in zebrafish has been successfully conducted. The probe developed herein will be widely used as a reliable tool to accurately monitor the variation of hypochlorite in living organism.

This paper presents an optimization-based collision avoidance trajectory generation method for autonomous driving in free-space environments, with enhanced robustness, driving comfort and efficiency. Starting from the hybrid optimization-based framework, we introduces two warm start methods, temporal and dual variable warm starts, to improve the efficiency. We also reformulate the problem to improve the robustness and efficiency. We name this new algorithm TDR-OBCA. With these changes, compared with original hybrid optimization we achieve a 96.67% failure rate decrease with respect to initial conditions, 13.53% increase in driving comforts and 3.33% to 44.82% increase in planner efficiency as obstacles number scales. We validate our results in hundreds of simulation scenarios and hundreds of hours of public road tests in both U.S. and China. Our source code is available at https://github.com/ApolloAuto/apollo.

An accurate vehicle dynamic model is the key to bridge the gap between simulation and real road test in autonomous driving. In this paper, we present a Dynamic model-Residual correction model Framework (DRF) for vehicle dynamic modeling. On top of any existing open-loop dynamic model, this framework builds a Residual Correction Model (RCM) by integrating deep Neural Networks (NN) with Sparse Variational Gaussian Process (SVGP) model. RCM takes a sequence of vehicle control commands and dynamic status for a certain time duration as modeling inputs, extracts underlying context from this sequence with deep encoder networks, and predicts open-loop dynamic model prediction errors. Five vehicle dynamic models are derived from DRF via encoder variation. Our contribution is consolidated by experiments on evaluation of absolute trajectory error and similarity between DRF outputs and the ground truth. Compared to classic rule-based and learning-based vehicle dynamic models, DRF accomplishes as high as 74.12% to 85.02% of absolute trajectory error drop among all DRF variations.

Exosomes facilitate cell-to-cell communication by transferring regulatory molecules such as miRNA from donor to recipient cells, for example, miR-21-5p and miR-30d promote placentation. Exosomes and their miRNA cargos are not exclusively obtained from endogenous synthesis but may also be absorbed from dietary sources, such as milk. This study assessed the effects of milk exosomes and miRNA cargos on embryo development and fertility in C57BL/6 mice. Fluorophore-labeled milk exosomes, miR-21-5p and miR-30d accumulated in murine placenta and embryos following oral gavage. Seventeen mRNAs, miR-21-5p and miR-30d were differentially expressed in placentas of pregnant mice fed a milk exosome and RNA-depleted (ERD) diet or a milk exosome and RNA-sufficient (ERS) diet. Eight of these mRNAs encode proteins implicated in the synthesis of extracellular matrix components, cell adhesion and migration. Changes in mRNA expression were associated with corresponding changes in protein expression, for example, collagen type I. The size of litters born to dams fed ERD was 25–50% smaller than those born to ERS controls. This study implicates dietary exosomes and miRNA in placenta development and embryo survival.

Background Exosomes transfer regulatory microRNAs (miRs) from donor cells to recipient cells. Exosomes and miRs originate from both endogenous synthesis and dietary sources such as milk. miR-200a-3p is a negative regulator of the proinflammatory chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 9 (CXCL9). Male Mdr1a−/− mice spontaneously develop clinical signs of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Objectives We assessed whether dietary depletion of exosomes and miRs alters the severity of IBD in Mdr1a−/− mice owing to aberrant regulation of proinflammatory cytokines. Methods Starting at 5 wk of age, 16 male Mdr1a−/− mice were fed either milk exosome– and RNA-sufficient (ERS) or milk exosome– and RNA-depleted (ERD) diets. The ERD diet is characterized by a near-complete depletion of miRs and a 60% loss of exosome bioavailability compared with ERS. Mice were killed when their weight loss exceeded 15% of peak body weight. Severity of IBD was assessed by histopathological evaluation of cecum. Serum cytokine and chemokine concentrations and mRNA and miR tissue expression were analyzed by multiplex ELISAs, RNA-sequencing analysis, and qRT-PCR, respectively. Results Stromal collapse, gland hyperplasia, and additive microscopic disease scores were (mean ± SD) 56.7% ± 23.3%, 23.5% ± 11.8%, and 29.6% ± 8.2% lower, respectively, in ceca of ERS mice than of ERD mice (P

The objectives of this study were to lay the methodological groundwork for field studies of microRNA analysis in exosomes from small sample volumes of human milk, and assess exosome and microRNA content in infant formulas. When human milk was stored at 4°C for four weeks, the count of exosome-sized vesicles decreased progressively to 49% ± 13% of that in fresh milk. Exosomes were purified from 1 mL of fresh human milk and their microRNA content was assessed by microRNA-sequencing analysis and compared to that in infant formulas. We identified 221 microRNAs in exosomes from three samples of fresh human milk; 84 microRNAs were present in all three samples. MicroRNAs were not detectable in infant formulas and their exosome-sized vesicles, which appeared to be casein micelles. We conclude that large scale studies of microRNAs in human milk exosomes are feasible, and exosomes and microRNAs are not detectable in formulas.

Awake craniotomies (AC) could reduce neurological deficits compared with patients under general anesthesia, however, intraoperative seizure is a major reason causing awake surgery failure. The purpose of the study was to give a comprehensive overview the published articles focused on seizure incidence in awake craniotomy. Bibliographic searches of the EMBASE, MEDLINE,were performed to identify articles and conference abstracts that investigated the intraoperative seizure frequency of patients underwent AC. Twenty-five studies were included in this meta-analysis. Among the 25 included studies, one was randomized controlled trials and 5 of them were comparable studies. The pooled data suggested the general intraoperative seizure(IOS) rate for patients with AC was 8%(fixed effect model), sub-group analysis identified IOS rate for glioma patients was 8% and low grade patients was 10%. The pooled data showed early seizure rates of AC patients was 11% and late seizure rates was 35%. This systematic review and meta-analysis shows that awake craniotomy is a safe technique with relatively low intraoperative seizure occurrence. However, few RCTs were available, and the acquisition of further evidence through high-quality RCTs is highly recommended.

Rapid advances in genomics discovery tools and a growing realization of microRNA’s implication in intercellular communication have led to a proliferation of studies of circulating microRNA sorting and regulation across cells and different species. Although sometimes, reaching controversial scientific discoveries and conclusions, these studies have yielded new insights in the functional roles of circulating microRNA and a plethora of analytical methods and tools. Here, we consider this body of work in light of key computational principles underpinning discovery of circulating microRNAs in terms of their sorting and targeting, with the goal of providing practical guidance for applications that is focused on the design and analysis of circulating microRNAs and their context-dependent regulation. We survey a broad range of informatics methods and tools that are available to the researcher, discuss their key features, applications and various unsolved problems and close this review with prospects and broader implication of this field.

VR tech can build a realistic space scene, ameliorate the sense of human-computer interaction and experience, realize the effective and vivid simulation of the architectural space scene, so as to stimulate and release the imagination and creativity of designers, so it has important research value. Based on this, this paper first analyses the architecture of VR system, then studies the utilization of VR tech in natural landscape architectural space design and planning, and finally gives the process of architectural planning and design based on VR.

S-Adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC) is a key rate-limiting enzyme involved in polyamines biosynthesis, and it plays important roles in plant growth, development and stresses response. However, no SAMDC gene was reported in rubber tree. Here we report characteristics of an SAMDC gene (HbSAMDC1) in rubber tree. HbSAMDC1 contains a 1080 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding 359 amino acids. Quantitative real-time PCR analyses revealed that HbSAMDC1 exhibited distinct expression patterns in different tissues and was regulated by various stresses, including drought, cold, salt, wounding, and H2O2 treatments. HbSAMDC1 5′ untranslated region (UTR) contains a highly conserved overlapping tiny and small upstream ORFs (uORFs), encoding 2 and 52 amino acid residues, respectively. No introns were located in the main ORF of HbSAMDC1, whereas two introns were found in the 5′ UTR. In transgenic tobaccos, the highly conserved small uORF of HbSAMDC1 is found to be responsible for translational repression of downstream β-glucuronidase reporter. To our knowledge, this is the first report on molecular cloning, expression profiles, and 5′ UTR characteristics of HbSAMDC1. These results lay solid foundation for further elucidating HbSAMDC1 function in rubber tree.

In this article, we report on the exceptional application of polypyrrole/graphene composites (Ppy/G) for the corrosion protection of steel. Well-dispersed Ppy/G composites were successfully prepared using in situ solution polymerization. The prepared nanocomposites exhibited superior anticorrosion properties compared with the bare and epoxy, in which the corrosion protection efficiency increased 50–100 times with the Ppy(97)@G(3) pigment. The rheological and dielectric properties of the nanocomposites were superior to those of pure Ppy/epoxy. Ppy(97)@G(3) increased the thermal curing temperature from approximately 100°C to 110°C and considerably decreased the volume resistivity. The substantially improved properties of the nanocomposites were attributed to their high dispersions, which greatly enhanced the corrosion factors and barrier properties.

Chemical reaction practicality is the core task among all symbol intelligence based chemical information processing, for example, it provides indispensable clue for further automatic synthesis route inference. Considering that chemical reactions have been represented in a language form, we propose a new solution to generally judge the practicality of organic reaction without considering complex quantum physical modeling or chemistry knowledge. While tackling the practicality judgment as a machine learning task from positive and negative (chemical reaction) samples, all existing studies have to carefully handle the serious insufficiency issue on the negative samples. We propose an auto-construction method to well solve the extensively existed long-term difficulty. Experimental results show our model can effectively predict the practicality of chemical reactions, which achieves a high accuracy of 99.76\% on real large-scale chemical lab reaction practicality judgment.

In this paper, W-doped ZnSnO (WZTO) thin films and TFT devices are successfully fabricated by a wet-solution technique. The impact of W doping on the film structure, surface morphology, optical properties and chemical compositions of ZTO thin films is analyzed by atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV-visible spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results show that the WZTO thin films have a smooth surface, amorphous structure and fewer oxygen vacancies with increasing W levels. The oxygen vacancy concentration of WZTO thin films is reduced from 40% to 27% with W incorporation. Compared with films free of W doping, for example ZnSnO TFTs, the positive bias stress stability of WZTO TFTs and long-term stability in air are improved obviously and the shift of the threshold voltage (VT) is restrained about six times. The critical reason for the improvement of the ZTO TFT properties is attributed to W-doping, wherein the suppression of oxygen vacancies by W ions plays a dominant role in changing the performance of ZTO thin films and the stability of TFTs.

We present a theory of pluralistic and stochastic gene regulation. To bridge the gap between empirical studies and mathematical models, we integrate pre-existing observations with our meta-analyses of the ENCODE ChIP-Seq experiments. Earlier evidence includes fluctuations in levels, location, activity, and binding of transcription factors, variable DNA motifs, and bursts in gene expression. Stochastic regulation is also indicated by frequently subdued effects of knockout mutants of regulators, their evolutionary losses/gains and massive rewiring of regulatory sites. We report wide-spread pluralistic regulation in ≈800 000 tightly co-expressed pairs of diverse human genes. Typically, half of ≈50 observed regulators bind to both genes reproducibly, twice more than in independently expressed gene pairs. We also examine the largest set of co-expressed genes, which code for cytoplasmic ribosomal proteins. Numerous regulatory complexes are highly significant enriched in ribosomal genes compared to highly expressed non-ribosomal genes. We could not find any DNA-associated, strict sense master regulator. Despite major fluctuations in transcription factor binding, our machine learning model accurately predicted transcript levels using binding sites of 20+ regulators. Our pluralistic and stochastic theory is consistent with partially random binding patterns, redundancy, stochastic regulator binding, burst-like expression, degeneracy of binding motifs and massive regulatory rewiring during evolution.

Vascular tissues are very important for providing both mechanical strength and long-distance transport. The molecular mechanisms of regulation of vascular tissue development are still not fully understood. In this study we identified ANAC005 as a membrane-associated NAC family transcription factor that regulates vascular tissue development. Reporter gene assays showed that ANAC005 was expressed mainly in the vascular tissues. Increased expression of ANAC005 protein in transgenic Arabidopsis caused dwarf phenotype, reduced xylem differentiation, decreased lignin content, repression of a lignin biosynthetic gene and genes related to cambium and primary wall, but activation of genes related to the secondary wall. Expression of a dominant repressor fusion of ANAC005 had overall the opposite effects on vascular tissue differentiation and lignin synthetic gene expression. The ANAC005-GFP fusion protein was localized at the plasma membrane, whereas deletion of the last 20 amino acids, which are mostly basic, caused its nuclear localization. These results indicate that ANAC005 is a cell membrane-associated transcription factor that inhibits xylem tissue development in Arabidopsis.

Based on the status quo of carbon emissions in USA and the international crude oil price fluctuations, this paper introduces control index and critical time of carbon emissions to find a new dynamic evolutionary model of carbon emissions of the States, deducing relative theories, such as Change Trends Theorem and Evolutionary Theorem. The critical time in the economic period is determined based on the evolutionary situation of the international crude oil price peaks, and it can be divided into four time intervals. Least-square method is used to analyze the dynamic evolutionary system of carbon emissions in the four time intervals with data provided by the international energy agency (IEA). Based on the nonlinear dynamic evolutionary model, the paper predicts carbon emissions by means of control index and control function, which facilitates carbon policy regulation and the system's external influence, and creates unique dynamic evolutionary factors of carbon emissions corresponding with the real situation of the United States. The financial crisis and shale gas large-scale mining have significantly changed America's energy supply structure. With the economy running upward, carbon emissions have a tendency to increase again. To achieve the goal of its reduction, different policies should be adopted by the US government. In this essay, the influence of the control index and the effect of critical time of carbon emissions to control function are analyzed. In addition, the dynamic evolutionary model is introduced and evolutionary scenario analysis is also conducted by modulating evolutionary coefficient and critical time.

Geranylgeranyl reductase (CHL P) catalyzes the reduction of geranylgeranyl diphosphate to phytyl diphosphate and provides phytol for both chlorophyll (Chl) and tocopherol (TP) synthesis. Our previous study has found that the Solanum habrochaites CHL P (ShCHL P) gene was repressed by cold stress. In this study, we functionally characterized this gene with respect to abiotic stress tolerance. ShCHL P is expressed highly in leaves and stems, and barely in roots. Also, its expression was suppressed by low and high temperatures, drought, salt, and oxidative stresses. Transgenic tomato plants overexpressing ShCHL P showed increased levels of Chl and α-TP in leaves. In contrast, Chl and α-TP contents were reduced in the co-suppression plants, which exhibited chlorosis. These results confirmed the previous findings that CHL P is essential for Chl and TP synthesis in plants. Moreover, the ShCHL P overexpression and suppression lines showed improved and inhibited early seedling growth under normal, salt, and osmotic stress conditions, respectively, as compared with the wild type. Surprisingly, both overexpression and suppression of CHL P in transgenic tomato enhanced tolerance to methyl viologen-induced oxidative stress. These results indicate that tomato CHL P plays an important role in response to abiotic stress through regulation of Chl and TP synthesis. CHL P might be a good candidate gene for genetic improvement of plant growth under abiotic stress conditions in tomato.

Locally advanced rectal cancer is currently treated with preoperative radiochemotherapy, but the response is not uniform. Most patients benefit from preoperative CRT, however, a small proportion of a patient population is less likely to respond to the treatment. The purpose of this study was to measure neoadjuvant therapy combined with Ki-67 and VEGF expression in pretreatment biopsies and postoperative specimens，serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CA19-9 level from patients with locally advanced rectal cancer receiving intensive neoadjuvant treatment and to correlate the findings with clinical outcome.Â

MicroRNA is a type of short non-coding RNAs, which post-transcriptionally regulate gene expressions. It has been well-documented that human microRNAs contribute in the disease development, such as cancers and obesity. While most microRNA functional studies heavily rely on the regulatory interactions between microRNAs and their target messenger RNAs, the accumulating evidence has shown that the altered availability of microRNAs, their target, and other types of endogenous RNAs competing are able to affect the microRNA-target interactions efficiently, which reflects the dynamic and conditional property of microRNA-mediated gene regulation. Here we present a new computational pipeline, miRDR-OSG, that utilizing the high-throughput computing resource provided by Open Science Grid to study the dynamic regulation of microRNAs in cancer development with the consideration of both competing and cooperative mechanisms. A large-scale genomic dataset from over four thousand patients with 9 major types of cancer was used to demonstrate the usage of miRDR-OSG. As a result, we identified 10,726 microRNA regulatory interactions that only occurred in a specific stage and/or cancer type. This observation demonstrated the dynamic and conditional microRNA regulation during cancer progression. miRDR-OSG is freely available at http://sbbi.unl.edu/miRDR.

MicroRNAs regulate virtually the whole gene network in human body and have been implicated in most physiological and pathological conditions including cancers. Understanding the precise mechanisms of microRNA-mRNA interaction is fundamentally important to elucidate the important roles of miRNA in regulating various cellular and disease developmental stages. Numerous computational methods have been developed for miRNA target prediction, mostly focusing on static binding prediction and highly dependent on sequence-pairing interactions. However, the interplay between competing and cooperative microRNA-target binding makes it exceptionally complex and challenging for reliable target identification, which has hindered the existing tools from practical use. In this study, we present a new computational method for microRNA target prediction using the Dirichlet Process Gaussian Mixture Model (DPGMM). A comprehensive collection of features related to sequence and structure of microRNAs, mRNAs, and the binding sites have been assessed to optimize the statistical prediction of new binding sites in human transcriptome. Through multiple evaluations on recently-discovered miRNA-mRNA interactions reported in large-scale sequencing analyses and a screening test on the entire human transcripts, the results show that our model outperformed several state-of-the-art tools in terms of reduced false positive prediction and promising predictive power on binding sites specific to transcript isoforms.

Cross-talk between competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) may play a critical role in revealing potential mechanisms of tumor development and physiology. Glioblastoma is the most common type of malignant primary brain tumor, and the mechanisms of tumor genesis and development in glioblastoma are unclear. Here, to investigate the role of non-coding RNAs and the ceRNA network in glioblastoma, we performed paired-end RNA sequencing and microarray analyses to obtain the expression profiles of mRNAs, lncRNAs, circRNAs and miRNAs. We identified that the expression of 501 lncRNAs, 1999 mRNAs, 2038 circRNAs and 143 miRNAs were often altered between glioblastoma and matched normal brain tissue. Gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway analyses were performed on these differentially expressed mRNAs and miRNA-mediated target genes of lncRNAs and circRNAs. Furthermore, we used a multi-step computational framework and several bioinformatics methods to construct a ceRNA network combining mRNAs, miRNAs, lncRNAs and circRNA, based on co-expression analysis between the differentially expressed RNAs. We identified that plenty of lncRNAs, CircRNAs and their downstream target genes in the ceRNA network are related to glutamatergic synapse, suggesting that glutamate metabolism is involved in glioma biological functions. Our results will accelerate the understanding of tumorigenesis, cancer progression and even therapeutic targeting in glioblastoma.

Background Sequencing-based large screening of RNA-protein and RNA-RNA interactions has enabled the mechanistic study of post-transcriptional RNA processing and sorting, including exosome-mediated RNA secretion. The downstream analysis of RNA binding sites has encouraged the investigation of novel sequence motifs, which resulted in exceptional new challenges for identifying motifs from very short sequences (e.g., small non-coding RNAs or truncated messenger RNAs), where conventional methods tend to be ineffective. To address these challenges, we propose a novel motif-finding method and validate it on a wide range of RNA applications. Results We first perform motif analysis on microRNAs and longer RNA fragments from various cellular and exosomal sources, and then validate our prediction through literature search and experimental test. For example, a 4 bp-long motif, GUUG, was detected to be responsible for microRNA loading in exosomes involved in human colon cancer (SW620). Additional performance comparisons in various case studies have shown that this new approach outperforms several existing state-of-the-art methods in detecting motifs with exceptional high coverage and explicitness. Conclusions In this work, we have demonstrated the promising performance of a new motif discovery approach that is particularly effective in current RNA applications. Important discoveries resulting from this work include the identification of possible RNA-loading motifs in a variety of exosomes, as well as novel insights in sequence features of RNA cargos, i.e., short non-coding RNAs and messenger RNAs may share similar loading mechanism into exosomes. This method has been implemented and deployed as a new webserver named MDS2 which is accessible at http://sbbi-panda.unl.edu/MDS2/, along with a standalone package available for download at https://github.com/sbbi/MDS2. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12864-018-4528-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Computational reasoning is a practical description of computational logic. In this paper, a new concrete computational reasoning method based on complemented distributive lattices is proposed. Based on some logical operators, an inclusion degree on complemented distributive lattices is defined, which is employed to define the truth degree. Some basic properties of the truth mapping are examined. Then a kind of reasoning by computing in the framework of complemented distributive lattices is developed. The potential value of dealing with knowledge acquisition is expected in future.

Exosomes play important roles in mediating intercellular communication by transferring various cargos (lipids, RNAs and proteins) into recipients. Emerging evidence has indicated strong implication of exosomes and their RNA cargos in human and animal health including cancers, however, little is known about the mechanisms. In this study, we focus on a specific class of exosomal cargo, microRNAs, to explore new machineries underlying exosome-controlled microRNA secretion and trafficking and subsequently, to assess the regulatory impacts of cancerous noncoding RNAs to surrounding cells or remote tissues in terms of signaling transduction. Particularly, we developed a series of novel bioinformatics techniques that address important problems related to sequence motif finding (primarily based on short RNAs) and gene regulation network analysis (modeling complex structures that reflect multifaceted RNA cooperation and competition). Applying public exosomal microRNA sequence data and TCGA cancer transcriptomic profiles on various types of cancer, we have identified several candidate RNA motifs that might be responsible for guiding the transporter-mediated microRNA loading into exosomes, along with corresponding gene networks that are controlled by those circulating intruders. For example, in human colon cancer SW620 case, three 4-mer sequence motif patterns including [AU][CUG][UG]G, [CGU][UA][GU]G, [AUG][CG]U[UG] are highly enriched among exosomal microRNA sequences (with > 85% coverage, adj.p-value Citation Format: Juan Cui, Jiang Shu, Tian Gao, Haluk Dogan. Unraveling exosome-enabled cancer signaling: An integrated genomic approach [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 779.

OBJECTIVES: Exosomes are natural nanoparticles that facilitate cell-to-cell communication by transferring RNAs from donor to recipient cells. Previous studies focused on microRNA cargos and disregarded mRNAs. Exosomes and RNA cargos may be absorbed from milk. RNAs elicit antiviral responses by activating interferon type I (IFN) and NF-kappa B (NF-kB) signaling (Figure 1A). To assess whether 1) bovine milk exosomes (BME) contain microbial mRNAs, 2) microbial mRNAs are bioavailable in humans and mice, and 3) microbial mRNAs activate antiviral responses in reporter cells and mice. METHODS: The mRNA content in BME was assessed by RNA-sequencing. mRNA bioavailability was assessed by RNA-sequencing analysis of human plasma before and 4 h after consumption of 1 L milk and by administering BME transfected with synthetic, fluorophore (IRDye)-labeled Pseudomonas fluorescens capB mRNA to Balb/c mice by oral gavage. (capB mRNA was abundantly expressed in all BME samples sequenced.) Antiviral responses were assessed using liposomes loaded with capB mRNA and cultured with IFN and NF-kB J774 reporter macrophages, and by survival curves of mice fed BME-free or BME-sufficient diets and challenged with influenza A virus. Unpaired t-test was used for statistical analyses; P

With the Songhua university Dust software simulation technology as a tool, and the green environment and sustainable development concept as a guide, to construct the building process heat balance model, and to put forward the state space equation method of the heat balance Selecting World Expo 2012 Yeas Korea swimming pool is a real column object, to discuss the key elements of dynamic thermal engineering design, a modern architectural design is no longer isolated, and however it is a combination of science and art, sublimation of humanity and intelligence, which is a comprehensive system design.

Clear cell meningioma (CCM) is an uncommon type of meninioma with a propensity to highly recur and occasionally metastasis hrough the cerebrospinal fluid circulation [1]. CCMs have a endency to appear in the cerebellopontine region and spinal ord [2]. However, thoracicolumbar vertebral or temporal CCM nvolvement is extremely rare. Here we report one CCM case hat occurred simultaneously in the temporal lobe and spinal ord.

Optical radiative parameters for multichannel visible transition emissions have been determined in Sm3+-doped cadmium-aluminum-silicate(CAS) glass under the excitation of a violet light emitting diode(LED).For the derivation,the necessary fluorescence spectra were measured and calibrated in an integrating sphere,which was connected to a CCD detector with a 400 μm-core optical fiber.The spectral power distribution and luminous flux distribution of the sample under the violet LED excitation have been obtained.And the total radiant flux and total luminous flux for the entire visible region have been calculated to be 712 μW and 12.1 mlm,respectively.The radiant flux and luminous flux for the four visible emission bands of Sm3+ were derived to be 36 μW and 9.7 mlm,which occupied 5% and 80% of the whole.The total quantum yield of the visible fluorescence of Sm3+ is 2.3%.Investigations on absolute spectral parameters for multichannel visible transition emissions of Sm3+ in CAS glass provide a valuable reference for heavy metal silicate glass in developing efficient display and illumination devices.