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BACKGROUND: Early pathologic studies have reported that focal areas of gray lesions in the cortex and other gray matter (GM) regions are important in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) can provide more specific insight into the disease process, progression, and therapeutic response of MS. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively assess the changes of global GM volumetry and relaxometry information simultaneously in MS patients using synthetic MRI. METHODS: All MS patients and healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. The Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores were obtained from all patients to evaluate the disability progression. Volumetry and relaxometry of the global brain and regional GM were obtained. The quantitative parameters between MS patients and HCs were compared using an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The Pearson correlation assessed the correlations between the quantitative parameters and EDSS, illness duration, education in MS patients. RESULTS: Thirty-five MS patients and fifty-two age-matched HCs were enrolled in this prospective case-control study. The global volumetry including white matter volume (WMV), myelin volume (MYV), and brain parenchymal volume (BPV) were all significantly lower in MS patients (WMV: 613.120±65.388 vs. 579.903±68.432 mL; MYV: 151.883±22.766 vs. 192.457±27.381 mL; BPV: 1,136.771±106.126 vs. 1,276.712±107.368 mL), as well as a higher cerebral spinal fluid volume (CSFV) (241.294±81.805 vs. 177.017±39.729 mL) in MS patients than those in HCs. Similarly, brain parenchymal fraction (BPF) and myelin fraction (MYF) were significantly lower in MS patients (BPF: 82.623±5.368 vs. 87.85±2.392 mL; MYF: 11.034±1.529 vs. 13.231±1.465 mL). For regional GM volumetry, multiple regions of MS patients were significantly smaller than those of HCs (P

Automatic detection of multimodal fake news has gained a widespread attention recently. Many existing approaches seek to fuse unimodal features to produce multimodal news representations. However, the potential of powerful cross-modal contrastive learning methods for fake news detection has not been well exploited. Besides, how to aggregate features from different modalities to boost the performance of the decision-making process is still an open question. To address that, we propose COOLANT, a cross-modal contrastive learning framework for multimodal fake news detection, aiming to achieve more accurate image-text alignment. To further improve the alignment precision, we leverage an auxiliary task to soften the loss term of negative samples during the contrast process. A cross-modal fusion module is developed to learn the cross-modality correlations. An attention mechanism with an attention guidance module is implemented to help effectively and interpretably aggregate the aligned unimodal representations and the cross-modality correlations. Finally, we evaluate the COOLANT and conduct a comparative study on two widely used datasets, Twitter and Weibo. The experimental results demonstrate that our COOLANT outperforms previous approaches by a large margin and achieves new state-of-the-art results on the two datasets., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Doseand DERdistribution on half of the cross section in the nucleus for the irradiated cellular model as shown in Fig. 4, where the height of the partial shell was changed to 15 μm. Relationship between the dose distribution and radial distance from the center of the nucleus as well as the polar angle θ. Figure S2. Dose and DER profile along the 90-degree radial axis of the cross section of the nucleus for irradiated cellular model, as shown in Fig. 4, where the height of the partial shell was changed to 15 μm.

Background: With the advent of IoT, the deployment of batteries with a limited lifetime in remote areas is a major concern. In certain conditions, the network lifetime gets restricted due to limited battery constraints. Subsequently, the collaborative approaches for key facilities to reduce the constraint demands of the current security protocols. Objective: This work covers and combines a wide range of concepts linked by IoT based on security and energy efficiency. Specifically, this study examines the WSN energy efficiency problem among IoT devices and security for the management of threats in IoT through collaborative approaches and finally outlines the future. The concept of energy-efficient key protocols which clearly cover heterogeneous IoT communications among peers with different resources has been developed. Because of the low capacity of sensor nodes, the energy efficiency in WSNs has been an important concern. Methods: In this paper, we present an algorithm for Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) which reviews security and energy consumption to discuss their constraints in the IoT scenarios. Results: The results of a detailed experimental assessment are analyzed in terms of communication cost, energy consumption and security, which prove the relevance of a proposed ABC approach and a key establishment. Conclusion: The validation of DTLS-ABC consists of designing an inter-node cooperation trust model for the creation of a trusted community of elements that are mutually supportive. Initial attempts to design the key methods for management are appropriate individual IoT devices. This gives the system designers, an option that considers the question of scalability.

Additional file 7: Table S4: Summary of RNA-Seq data and mapping metrics.

Additional file 4: Table S1: The primers used for qRT-PCR verification.

Additional file 7: Table S4: Summary of RNA-Seq data and mapping metrics.

Additional file 6: Table S3: The parameters of gradient elution of HPLC.

Additional file 2: Fig. S2: Morphological characteristics of flower organs at three flower developmental stages in three Camellia sinensis varieties. BY1 represents the C. sinensis cv. ‘BaiYe 1’, HJY represents the C. sinensis cv. ‘HuangJinYa’, SCZ represents the C. sinensis cv. ‘SuChaZao’, S1-S3 represent the three flower developmental stages.

Additional file 1: Fig. S1: The ABCDE model and the quartet model of floral organ development in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Additional file 1: Fig. S1. Identification of therecombinant baculovirus infection by cytopathic effects. The recombinant baculovirus were generated successfully. Cytopathic effects (CPE) such as cell swelling was observed in infected cells. Fig. S2. Representative results of immunofluorescence. Immunofluorescence assays were performed on PEDV infected cells. Serums were used as primary antibodies, while PBS was used in mock control. Alexa Fluor 488-conjugated goat anti-pig IgA antibody was used as secondary antibody. Outof 213 pig serum samples from local farms, 75 (35.21%) and 138 (64.79%) were shown to be PEDV IgA positive and negative, respectively. Typical fluorescence was presented. The nuclei were stained blue with DAPI; PEDV infected cells were stained with green fluorescence by positive serum, andsyncytia was visible. Fig. S3. ROC data distribution. Serum samples that positive in both ELISA and IFA were regard as true-positive; Serum samples that positive in ELISA but negativein IFA were regard as false-positive; Serum samples that negative in ELISA butpositive in IFA were regard as false-negative; Serum samples that negative in both ELISA and IFA were regard as true-negative. The cutoff values of S1/S1T1/S1T2/S1T3-ELISA against PEDV IgA were presented as dotted lines.

Additional file 6: Table S3: The parameters of gradient elution of HPLC.

Additional file 5: Table S2: ESI-MS/MS parameters for determination of eight phytohormones.

The application of metal nanoparticles as sensitization materials is a common strategy that is used to study dose enhancement in radiotherapy. Recent in vitro tests have revealed that magnetic gold nanoparticles can be used in cancer therapy under a magnetic field to enhance the synergistic efficiency in radiotherapy and photothermal therapy. However, magnetic gold nanoparticles have rarely been studied as sensitization materials. In this study, we obtained further results of the sensitization properties of magnetic gold nanoparticles using the Monte Carlo method TOPAS and TOPAS-nBio. We analyzed the properties of magnetic gold nanoparticles in monoenergetic photons and brachytherapy, and we investigated whether the magnetic field contributes to the sensitization process. Our results demonstrated that the dose enhancement factor of the magnetic gold nanoparticles was 16.7% lower than that of gold nanoparticles in a single particle irradiated by monoenergetic photons. In the cell model, the difference was less than 8.1% in the cytoplasm. We revealed that the magnetic field has no detrimental effect on radiosensitization. Moreover, the sensitization properties of magnetic gold nanoparticles in a clinical brachytherapy source have been revealed for the first time.

Objective To investigate the neuroprotective effect of puerarin on rat hippocampal neurons cultured in high glucose medium, and to examine the role of the p38 mitogen activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) signaling pathways in this effect. Methods Primary cultures of hippocampal neurons were prepared from newborn Sprague Dawley rats. Neuron-specific enolase immunocytochemistry was used to identify neurons. The neurons were cultured with normal medium (control group) or with high-glucose medium (high-glucose group), and puerarin (puerarin group), a p38 MAPK inhibitor (SB239063; p38 MAPK inhibitor group) or a JNK inhibitor (SP600125; JNK inhibitor group) were added. After 72 h of treatment, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling assay was performed to detect apoptosis, and western blotting was used to assess protein levels of p-p38, p38, p-JNK and JNK. Results In the high-glucose group, the neuronal apoptosis rate and the p-p38/p38 and p-JNK/JNK ratios were higher than in the control group. The p38 MAPK and JNK inhibitors prevented this increase in the apoptosis rate. The apoptosis rates in the puerarin group, the p38 MAPK inhibitor group and the JNK inhibitor group were significantly decreased compared with the high-glucose group. Moreover, protein levels of p-p38 and p-JNK were significantly reduced, and the p-p38/p38 and p-JNK/JNK ratios were decreased in the puerarin group compared with the high-glucose group. In addition, compared with the high-glucose group, p-p38 levels and the p-p38/p38 ratio were reduced in the p38 MAPK inhibitor group, and p-JNK levels and the p-JNK/JNK ratio were decreased in the JNK inhibitor group. Conclusion Puerarin attenuates neuronal apoptosis induced by high glucose by reducing the phosphorylation of p38 and JNK.

Switched reluctance machines (SRMs) have been comprehensively researched, and they play an important role in the modern industrial field. The topology of SRMs is quite simple and only one set of windings is employed. Consequently, the winding configuration has an essential impact on performance. In this paper, a new winding configuration for SRMs with only half-teeth wound (HT-SRM) is proposed, which is totally different from the conventional SRMs with full-teeth wound (FT-SRM). First, the basic topology and operating principle of HT-SRMs are presented by a three-phase 12/8 prototype. Then, based on the 2-D finite element analysis, an optimization of the original 12/8 HT-SRM is conducted and a series of static characteristics of three SRMs, namely, a conventional 12/8 FT-SRM, an original 12/8 HT-SRM with the same iron laminations, and an optimal HT-SRM with the optimized dimensions, are compared. Finally, three 12/8 SRM prototypes are fabricated and the experimental results verify the theoretical analysis and the corresponding finite element analysis-based predictions.

Highly active Al–Ga–In–SnCl2 composites for hydrogen production were prepared by mechanical ball milling. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses were used to characterize the composition and morphology of the composites. Moreover, the hydrogen production performance of the composites was systematically investigated at room temperature. The experiment results indicated that the addition of SnCl2 significantly enhanced the hydrolysis properties of Al–Ga–In ternary alloys. The Al-3%Ga-3%In-5%SnCl2 composite exhibited the optimal hydrogen production performance with a maximum hydrogen production of 1190 ml g−1 and a maximum generation rate of 1110 ml min−1 g−1 at 25 °C. Furthermore, we studied the effect of milling time, initial water temperature, and water quality on the final hydrogen production performance.