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In this paper, we propose a stochastic SIR epidemic model with vertical transmission and varying total population size. Firstly, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the global positive solution for the stochastic model. Secondly, we establish three thresholds λ 1 , λ 2 and λ 3 of the model. The disease will die out when λ 1 < 0 and λ 2 < 0 , or λ 1 > 0 and λ 3 < 0 , but the disease will persist when λ 1 < 0 and λ 2 > 0 , or λ 1 > 0 and λ 3 > 0 and the law of the solution converge to a unique invariant measure. Moreover, we find that when λ 1 < 0 some stochastic perturbations can increase the threshold λ 2 , while others can decrease the threshold λ 2 . That is, some stochastic perturbations enhance the spread of the disease, but others are just the opposite. On the other hand, when λ 1 > 0 , some stochastic perturbations increase or decrease the threshold λ 3 with different parameter sets. Finally, we give some numerical examples to illustrate obtained results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a two-stage surrogate-assisted meta-heuristic algorithm named SDAMA-SPS to solve computationally expensive problems with high dimensions. In this algorithm, a surrogate-assisted monkey algorithm with dynamic adaptation (SDAMA) is presented to globally search for the best solution of the first stage, and a surrogate-based perturbation search (SPS) is designed to perform a more intensive local search for the final optimal solution. In the first stage, a global radial basis function (RBF) surrogate model is constructed with all historical solutions and is used to evaluate the positions of monkeys in the climb process and watch-jump process. Such global RBF model is updated with the positions of monkeys and their real objective function values after the second round of the climb process for each iteration. In the second stage, a local RBF surrogate model is built with a set of current best solutions, which can help to select the most promising sample so as to further locally improve the solution searched in the first stage. Experimental studies are conducted on eight benchmark optimization problems with the number of dimensions varying from 30 to 100, and numerical results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better performance than five other state-of-the-art surrogate-assisted algorithms with a limited budget of function evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to craft adversarial queries for image retrieval, which uses image features for similarity measurement. Many commonly used methods are developed in the context of image classification. However, these methods, which attack prediction probabilities, only exert an indirect influence on the image features and are thus found less effective when being applied to the retrieval problem. In designing an attack method specifically for image retrieval, we introduce opposite-direction feature attack (ODFA), a white-box attack approach that directly attacks query image features to generate adversarial queries. As the name implies, the main idea underpinning ODFA is to impel the original image feature to the opposite direction, similar to a U-turn. This simple idea is experimentally evaluated on five retrieval datasets. We show that the adversarial queries generated by ODFA cause true matches no longer to be seen at the top ranks, and the attack success rate is consistently higher than classifier attack methods. In addition, our method of creating adversarial queries can be extended for multi-scale query inputs and is generalizable to other retrieval models without foreknowing their weights, i.e., the black-box setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collision system size dependence of light (anti-)nuclei and (anti-)hypertriton production is investigated using the parton and hadron cascade (PACIAE) model plus dynamically constrained phase-space coalescence (DCPC) model in 10 B+ 10 B, 12 C+ 12 C, 16 O+ 16 O, 20 Ne+ 20 Ne, 27 Al+ 27 Al, 40 Ar+ 40 Ar, 63 Cu+ 63 Cu, 96 Ru+ 96 Ru, 197 Au+ 197 Au, and 238 U+ 238 U collisions at s NN = 200 GeV. The yield ratios of deuteron to proton, helium-3 to proton, hypertriton to Λ -hyperon are predicted for various collision systems. In this study, we find the yield ratios between anti-(hyper-)nuclei are significantly suppressed compared to the ratios between the (hyper-)nuclei. It is also interesting to see the strangeness population factor s 3 shows a non-smooth dependence of atomic mass number A around 12 to 27, which can be related to the relative size of the produced nuclei and the emission source of different collision systems. Our present study provides a reference for a upcoming collision system scan program at RHIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes a constrained multiobjective robust simulation optimization (CMRSO) method to address black-box problems with multiple objectives and constraints under uncertainties, especially when multiple objectives and constraints are evaluated by costly simulations. Neighborhood exploration is first performed for each iterate to search for its infeasible neighbors and worst-case feasible neighbors with the help of kriging surrogate models of constraints and multiple objectives. Next, a local move direction and a proper step size are determined to obtain an updated iterate that stays away from previous infeasible neighbors and worst-case feasible neighbors. These two steps are repeated until no feasible local move direction exists or the computational budget is exhausted. By evolving iteratively and independently from a set of initial solutions, multiple final solutions will generate a set of robust efficient solutions. Finally, the CMRSO method is applied to a synthetic constrained biobjective optimization problem and a network-wide signal timing simulation optimization (SO) problem under cyber-attacks. Our study shows the effectiveness of CMRSO even with a limited computational budget, indicating that it may be a promising tool for solving simulation-based problems with multiple objectives and constraints under uncertainties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disorder significantly decreasing patients' lives of quality and placing huge economic burden on our society. Existing studies indicated that the therapeutic effects maintained for a period of time after the treatments were discontinued. It is clinically important to assess these post-treatment therapeutic effects (PTTE), which prevent IBS from relapsing. To assess the PTTE in pinaverium treatment and obtain high-quality evidence to justify the use of PTTE for long-term IBS management, we performed this controlled, double blind study on patients with IBS who were randomized to pinaverium 50 mg (n = 132) or placebo (n = 132), three times daily, for 4 weeks, and were followed up for 57 weeks after the treatments. The primary endpoints were abdominal pain and stool consistency. The secondary endpoints were pain frequency and stool frequency. The tertiary endpoints were global overall symptom and adverse events. Three days after pinaverium was discontinued, endpoints rebounded only 23.2–42.8% (P < 0.015 cf. placebo). The PTTE (P < 0.05 cf. placebo) lasted 9–17 weeks, which is similar to other antispasmodics with a 15-week treatment in striking contrast to ≥ 1 year PTTE in cognitive behavior therapy and < 1 week PTTE in serotonin antagonist treatment indicating that PTTE length markedly depends on the medication class used for the treatment and less depends on treatment length. After 17 weeks, the stage could be considered as an IBS natural history [no significant differences between pinaverium and placebo (all endpoints' P's > 0.05)], during which an average of 51.5–56.4% of patients (pool pinaverium and placebo data together) had IBS symptoms. These results provide clinical insights into efficient and cost-effective management of refractory IBS, and lend support to the IBS management that the selection of a therapy should consider both its effectiveness during treatment and its PTTE after the treatment. Trial registration number: NCT02330029 (16/08/2016). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasingly strict emission regulations, the combustion noise has become an important factor restricting diesel engine development. Therefore, it is necessary to study the transfer function and prediction of combustion noise and to control it from the design stage. This paper proposes a method to calculate the combustion noise transfer function. An electronically controlled common rail diesel engine (D19TCI) was selected as the research object. It was tested for in-cylinder pressure and sound pressure across different engine operating conditions. The original signal was preprocessed using time synchronization and least squares polynomial fitting, and the diesel engine combustion noise transfer function was obtained based on motor tests and different injection strategies. The research verified the existence of a transfer relationship between the in-cylinder pressure and surface radiation combustion noise in all directions in the same engine. In addition, the prediction accuracy of the combustion noise obtained using the transfer function was verified. The experimental results show that the combustion noise transfer function obtained using the multiple linear regression main-injection strategy has better consistency result than other strategies, and the results also provide new ideas and methods for optimization design of diesel engine noise reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objective: Quetiapine and aripiprazole are currently prescribed for pregnant women to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. A dramlatic decline in the plasma concentrations of these two drugs was observed if the doses remained fixed throughout pregnancy. This study aims to develop physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models to predict the pharmacokinetics of quetiapine, aripiprazole, and the active aripiprazole metabolite dehydroaripiprazole during pregnancy. Methods: We developed models using a combined 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' strategy. Models were verified by assessing goodness-of-fit plots and ratios of predicted-to-observed pharmacokinetic parameters. To extrapolate to pregnancy, we considered anatomical, physiological, and metabolic alterations. The in silico models were applied to predict steady-state pharmacokinetics in the three stages of pregnancy and to inform dose selection. Results: We successfully constructed PBPK models that accurately predicted the pharmacokinetics of drugs in the adult population. Predictions suggested that the area under the concentration–time curve at steady state in the first, second, and third trimesters, respectively, decreased by 8.7%, 35.0%, and 49.1% for quetiapine and 12.6%, 38.8%, and 60.9% for the active moiety of aripiprazole. The third-trimester plasma concentrations of quetiapine were below the lower limit of the therapeutic range (100 ng/mL) for most of the time interval, and aripiprazole was entirely unable to reach its effective concentration (150 ng/mL). Conclusions: According to PBPK predictions, the doses should be increased in the latter two trimesters. We generally recommend that women during late pregnancy take at least 2.5- and 2-times their baseline doses of quetiapine and aripiprazole, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dynamically constrained phase-space coalescence model and PACIAE model are used to predict the exotic resonant state Z c ± (3900) yield in pp collisions at s = 1.96 , 7 and 13 TeV, respectively, which are estimated to be around 10 - 6 to 10 - 5 based on the J / ψ π ± bound state in the decay chain of b hadrons. The energy dependence of the transverse momentum distributions and rapidity distributions with | y | < 6 and p T < 10 GeV/c are also calculated for Z c + (3900) and Z c - (3900) . The production of Z c + (3900) and its anti-particle Z c - (3900) are found to be quite similar to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fine-grained 3D shape recognition (FGSR) is crucial for real-world applications. Existing methods face challenges in achieving high accuracy for FGSR due to high similarity within sub-categories and low dissimilarity between them, especially in the absence of part location or attribute annotations. In this paper, we propose V2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$^2$$\end{document}MLP, a multi-view representation-oriented MLP network dedicated to FGSR, using only class labels as supervision. V2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$^2$$\end{document}MLP comprises two key modules: the cross-view interaction MLP (CVI-MLP) and the cross-view fusion MLP (CVF-MLP). The CVI-MLP module captures contextual information, including local and global contexts through cross-view interactions, to extract discriminative view features that reinforce subtle differences between sub-categories. Meanwhile, the CVF-MLP module performs cross-view aggregation from space and view dimensions to obtain the final 3D shape features, minimizing information loss during the view feature fusion process. Extensive experiments on three categories from the FG3D dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of V2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$^2$$\end{document}MLP in learning discriminative features for 3D shapes, achieving state-of-the-art accuracy for FGSR. Additionally, V2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$^2$$\end{document}MLP performs competitively for meta-category recognition on the ModelNet40 dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gut microbiota plays vital roles in the development, evolution and environmental adaptation of the host insects. The brown planthopper (BPH) is one of the most destructive pests of rice, but little is known about its gut microbiota. In this study, we investigated the gut bacterial communities in two BPH populations feeding on susceptible and resistant rice varieties by high-throughput amplicon sequencing. Our results revealed that the gut bacterial communities in BPH were species diverse. A total of 29 phyla and 367 genera were captured, with Proteobacteria and Acinetobacter being the most prominent phylum and genus, respectively. Comparative analysis showed that significant differences in the profile of gut bacterial communities existed between the two BPH populations. The species richness detected in the population feeding on the resistant rice variety was significantly higher than that in the population rearing on the susceptible rice variety. Although the most dominant gut bacteria at all taxonomic levels showed no significant differences between the two BPH populations, the relative abundances of two subdominant phyla (Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes) and two subdominant classes (Bacteroidia and Clostridia) were significantly different. FAPROTAX analysis further indicated that host rice varieties might induce changes of the gut bacterial flora in BPH, as significant differences in five metabolism-related functional categories (fermentation, methylotrophy, xylanolysis, nitrate reduction and ureolysis) were detected between the two BPH populations. Our results are informative for studies which focused on the interactions between BPH and its symbiotic microbes and could also provide the basis of future BPH biological management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In computer artificial intelligence, there is great potential in research on the protection of Suzhou's traditional gardens, a world cultural heritage site. As a special material in Suzhou's traditional garden architecture, shedthin tile is widely used in roof base laying and is one of the important materials for building roofs. However, professionals need to reach the roof and spend much time and effort assessing the damage before repairing it. Therefore, the main goals of this study are to investigate a machine learning-based method for finding targets and determining the type of surface damage on a shedthin tile using the YOLOv4 model trained in this study. Using 500 shedthin tile on-site photos as training samples, the model was trained for 750 epochs. The main results of this study are as follows: (1) An object detection method based on machine learning can efficiently and accurately identify damage content, overcoming the manpower and time–cost limitations of traditional assessment methods. (2) The detection model in this study has an accuracy of 85.89% for water stain recognition of shedthin tiles, 93.29% for surface scaling, 87.37% for color aberration, and 96.15% for too wide a gap. The comprehensive accuracy is 90.20%, which meets the basic testing requirements. (3) The model demonstrated its robustness and reliability in complex environments in application tests in actual scenarios, providing a methodological reference for computer vision and target detection technology in cultural heritage protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we proposed an amphibious spherical robot that can search and rescue from uneven terrain and also move in narrow underwater spaces. This paper presents three control methods for an articulated amphibious spherical robot. The first is a full-dimensional that is adapted the robot to the complex amphibious terrain, in this method, relying on a novel drive mode of mecanum wheels, the power required for the movement comes from the friction generated by mecanum wheels and the spherical shell. The second control method is modeling based on a unit quaternion motion control algorithm to realized 6 Degrees of Freedoms (DoFs) movement mode. The last control algorithm is according to Archimede Buoyancy Principle (ABP) and Fuzzy Control (FC) algorithm by controlling the air density of the spherical capsules in the lower hemispheres, the relationship between buoyancy and gravity is controlled to achieve the functions of floating and diving. Experiments are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods and the developed robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To preserve some invariant properties of the original differential equation is an important criterion to judge the success of a numerical simulation. In this paper, we construct, analyze and numerically validate a class of momentum-preserving finite difference methods for the Korteweg-de Vries equation. The proposed schemes can conserve the discrete momentum to machine precision. Numerical experiments reveal that the phase and amplitude errors, after long time simulation, are well controlled due to the momentum-preserving property. Besides, the numerical results show that the numerical errors grow only linearly as a function of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of renewable energy poses new challenges to grid operation. Owing to deficiencies in peak regulation capability, wind power cannot be fully connected to the grid. As a controllable load, electric vehicle (EV) charging enables the coordinated operation of EV charging, and the wind/thermal power generation system. In order to determine the coordinated operation mechanism of a power system with large-scale EV charging, a new dynamic multi-objective dispatch (DMOD) model of the power system that includes the economy, pollutant discharge, and abandonment volume was established to optimize the output of thermal power units. Here, we report the two-phase optimization strategy we developed to solve this model. In the first phase of the strategy, EV charging load is determined by optimizing user charging, combined with the time-sharing price of electricity, and the charging protocol. In its second phase, an improved multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (IMOEA) based on a modified particle swarm optimization (PSO) method was proposed to determine the coordinated operation of EV charging, and wind/thermal power generation system. A power system with 10 conventional units, and a grid-connected wind farm was simulated, and the analysis verifies the feasibility of the dispatching model and the effectiveness of the proposed optimization algorithm as a solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to improve the collaboration ability and stability of amphibious spherical robots (ASRs). According to our previous researches, robots have no communication or control stability module. This study designed a new torque gyro control stability and an artificial electronic communication module devoted to allowing the robot to both move on land and underwater, which used a gyro sensor to design a closed-loop control module to perform terrestrial locomotion efficiently. Regarding the spherical robot mechanical structure and dynamic model, the robot communication module is designed, and the physical robot is set up to complete specific experiments. In addition, it is necessary to analyze the underwater and land motion to evaluate the performance of the robot stability motion and communication module, which includes the gait stability and velocity, and predicts the effects of the key parameters, such as electrode distance and emitter current of the amphibious spherical robot when it moves in underwater or on land. We also characterize communicate performance of the robots in still water with obstacles and natural water conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing amount of Linked Data on the Web can be reused to facilitate numerous applications. One of the first steps is to explore these structured data to determine whether there is relevant information. Since an entity-centric model closely reflects the real world, it provides an intuitive way to explore Linked Data. However, large numbers of linked entities and high diversity of links between entities, often make it difficult for users to understand the overall structure, as well as find the entities of interest quickly for further exploration. In this paper, we present a link pattern discovery approach to facilitate entity exploration. Link patterns describe explicit and implicit relationships between entities and can be used to categorize linked entities. On top of link patterns, we construct a hierarchy to allow exploration of linked entities in a hierarchical multiscale fashion. To lighten users’ exploration burden further, we select top-k link patterns from hierarchy as navigation options. The proposed approach is implemented in a Linked Data browser called SView. We compare it with two conventional Linked Data browsers by conducting a task-based user study. The experiment results show that our approach provides effective support for entity exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to make sure the horizontal braces of semi-submersible drilling platform are safe during its service life, this research studies the load assessment on the horizontal braces of a platform under harsh wave loads. The hydrodynamic structure model of the platform has been established, and hydrodynamic conditions have been determined firstly. The model test in a wave tank is used to verify the accuracy of the established model in this research. Then, the loads response of the horizontal braces under several typical wave loads which affect the strength of floating structures greatly are evaluated. The results of the research indicate that (a) the splitting force between pontoons and vertical bending moment are found affecting the strength of the horizontal braces greater than the other loads; (b) both the splitting force and vertical bending moment would occur when the platform encounter beam wave; (c) the horizontal braces are loaded on 4.16% of splitting force between pontoons and 2.78% of the vertical bending moment respectively during its service life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of constituent quark (NCQ) scaling behavior of elliptic flow has been systematically studied at the LHC energy within the framework of a multiphase transport model (AMPT) in this work. With the variation of the fragmentation parameters, collision centrality and system energy, we find that the initial conditions of parton dynamics are more important than the final state parton cascade process for the existence of NCQ scaling when the hadronic interaction is off in Pb-Pb collisions. By turning on the hadron interaction process, the impacts of hadronic evolution are found to be responsible for a significant violation to the well established scaling structure. Our study suggests that the interpretation of NCQ scaling is not only subject to the hadronization mechanism but also to the initial conditions of parton evolution as well as the hadronic interactions especially for the LHC experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the task of image search using the Bag-of-Words (BoW) model. In this model, the precision of visual matching plays a critical role. Conventionally, local cues of a keypoint, e.g., SIFT, are employed. However, such strategy does not consider the contextual evidences of a keypoint, a problem which would lead to the prevalence of false matches. To address this problem and enable accurate visual matching, this paper proposes to integrate discriminative cues from multiple contextual levels, i.e., local, regional, and global, via probabilistic analysis. 'True match' is defined as a pair of keypoints corresponding to the same scene location on all three levels (Fig. 1). Specifically, the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is employed to extract features from regional and global patches. We show that CNN feature is complementary to SIFT due to its semantic awareness and compares favorably to several other descriptors such as GIST, HSV, etc. To reduce memory usage, we propose to index CNN features outside the inverted file, communicated by memory-efficient pointers. Experiments on three benchmark datasets demonstrate that our method greatly promotes the search accuracy when CNN feature is integrated. We show that our method is efficient in terms of time cost compared with the BoW baseline, and yields competitive accuracy with the state-of-the-arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Untethered and wirelessly-controlled micro-robots have been catching substantial attention for a long time due to their great potentials in biomedical areas. Their small sizes and property of wireless magnetic actuation and control make them fit in tiny and closed environments both in vitro and in vivo such as lab-on-a-chip and human blood vessels for micromanipulations, minimum/non-invasive theoretical and diagnostic applications, respectively. In recent years, micro-robots driven by magnetic fields become a hotspot due to their good controllability and motion performance they have shown in both wet and dry environments. And they hardly bring harm under magnetic actuation and control, which qualify them especially for biomedical applications. This paper reviews the state of the art of hjbvmagnetic-micro-robot systems, including the related knowledge and theories, design works of magnetic micro-robots and magnetic navigation systems. For a straightforward understanding, several types of magnetic micro-robot systems are presented. And some applications of magnetic micro-robot systems are introduced at the end to show their great potentials. However, for further developments, many obstacles still need to be solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the bag-of-words representation is widely applied in the image retrieval applications. In this model, visual word is a core component. However, compared with text retrieval, one major problem associated with image retrieval consists in the visual word ambiguity, i.e., a trade-off between precision and recall of visual matching. To address this problem, this paper proposes a tensor index structure to improve precision and recall simultaneously. Essentially, the tensor index is a multi-dimensional index structure. It combines the strengths of two state-of-the-art indexing strategies, i.e., the inverted multi-index [Babenko and Lempitsky (Computer vision and pattern recognition (CVPR), 2012 IEEE Conference, 3069-3076, )] as well as the joint inverted index [Xia et al. (ICCV, )] which are initially designed for approximate nearest neighbor search problems. This paper, instead, exploits their usage in the scenario of image retrieval and provides insights into how to combine them effectively. We show that on the one hand, the multi-index enhances the discriminative power of visual words, thus improving precision; on the other hand, the introduction of multiple codebooks corrects quantization artifacts, thus improving recall. Extensive experiments on two benchmark datasets demonstrate that tensor index significantly improves the baseline approach. Moreover, when incorporating methods such as Hamming embedding, we achieve competitive performances compared to the state-of-the-art ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The eukaryotic calcineurin (CN) pathway comprising catalytic A (CnA) and regulatory B subunits (CnB) is crucial for many biological processes but functionally unexplored in entomopathogenic fungi. Here, we characterise three CN subunits (CnA1, CnA2 and CnB) and a downstream CN-responsive zinc finger transcription factor (Crz1) in Beauveria bassiana. CN-mediated phosphatase activity decreased by 16-38 % in all deletion mutants compared with wild type. Growth and conidiation were most defective in Δ cnB, which showed a large proportion of abnormally branched germlings but were less defective in Δ cnA1 and Δ cnA2. Conidiation defects also occurred in Δ crz1, uniquely accompanied with slower germination. Compared with wild type, the four deletion mutants became, to varying degrees, more sensitive to Ca, Mn, Zn, Mg, two oxidants, three cell wall stressors, carbendazim, heat shock and ultraviolet (UV)-B irradiation. They were also less virulent to Spodoptera litura larvae. Only Δ cnB and Δ crz1 were less tolerant to high osmolarity. The altered phenotypes of the deletion mutants were associated with lower intracellular mannitol and trehalose levels, reduced overall activity of superoxide dismutases and catalases, altered cell wall composition and down-regulation of numerous phenotype-influencing genes. Additionally, the transcription of six cascaded genes in two stress-responsive mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways and the phosphorylation of hallmarking Hog1 and Slt2 were largely down-regulated in all the deletion mutants under osmotic and cell wall stresses, respectively. All the changes were restored by gene complementation. Taken together, three calcineurin subunits and Crz1 play vital, but variable, roles in B. bassiana responses to environmental stresses during development and host signals during infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a global problem that brings a heavy burden to both patients and society. Recent investigations indicated degenerative disease is taking an increasing part in SCI with the growth of the aging population. However, little insight has been gained about the effect of cervical degenerative disease on the spinal cord during dynamic activities. In this work, a dynamic fluid–structure interaction model was developed and validated to investigate the effect of anterior and posterior encroachment caused by degenerative disease on the spinal cord during normal extension and flexion. Maximum von-Mises stress and maximum principal strain were observed at the end of extension and flexion. The abnormal stress distribution caused by degenerative factors was concentrated in the descending tracts of the spinal cord. Our finding indicates that the excessive motion of the cervical spine could potentially exacerbate spinal cord injury and enlarge injury areas. Stress and strain remained low compared to extension during moderate flexion. This suggests that patients with cervical degenerative disease should avoid frequent or excessive flexion and extension which could result in motor function impairment, whereas moderate flexion is safe. Besides, encroachment caused by degenerative factors that are not significant in static imaging could also cause cord compression during normal activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ssk1-type response regulator proteins are the core elements of histidine-to-aspartate systems that mediate fungal stress tolerance, a determinant to the biocontrol potential of fungal entomopathogens. We characterized the functions of Beauveria bassiana Ssk1 (Bbssk1) by analyzing multi-phenotypic changes in Δ Bbssk1 and differentially expressed genes in the digital gene expression (DGE) libraries of Δ Bbssk1 and wild-type constructed under osmotic stress. The Bbssk1 disruption caused 25 % reductions in conidial yield and virulence to Spodoptera litura larvae and significant defects in tolerances to two osmotic salts (81-84 %), HO oxidation (23 %), two fungicides (21-58 %), three cell wall biosynthesis inhibitors (25-36 %), and three metal ions (~8 %) during colony growth, respectively, but little changes in cell sensitivity to menadione oxidation and in conidial thermotolerance and UV-B resistance. RNA-seq analysis with the DGE libraries revealed differential expressions of 1,003 genes in the Δ Bbssk1 genome. Of those, many associated with conidiation, stress response, xenobiotic transport, cell wall integrity, and protein/carbohydrate metabolism were remarkably down-regulated, including the genes involved in mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signal pathway that downstream of Bbssk1. Our results indicate that Bbssk1 regulates positively the expressions of the MAPK cascade in the pathway of B. bassiana and many more downstream genes associated with conidiation, multi-stress tolerance, and virulence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of machine learning technology, it has become possible to automatically identify cultural heritage elements in traditional buildings. This research aimed to develop a machine learning model based on the YOLOv4 architecture to identify the traditional Chinese porcelain inlay pattern in the Lingnan region. The researchers collected and annotated a large quantity of Lingnan Chinese porcelain inlay image data and then used these data to train the studied model. The research results show that (1) the model in this study was specifically adjusted to effectively identify a variety of Chinese porcelain inlay pattern types, including traditional patterns such as plum blossoms and camellias. (2) In the 116th epoch, the model showed excellent generalization ability, and the verification loss reached the lowest value of 0.88. The lowest training loss in the 195th epoch was 0.99, indicating that the model reached an optimal balance point for both recognition accuracy and processing speed. (3) By comparing different models for detecting Chinese porcelain inlay images across 581 pictures, our YOLOv4 model demonstrated greater accuracy in most classification tasks than did the YOLOv8 model, especially in the classification of chrysanthemums, where it achieved an accuracy rate of 87.5%, significantly outperforming YOLOv8 by 58.82%. However, the study also revealed that under certain conditions, such as detecting apples and pears in low-light environments, YOLOv8 showed a lower missing data rate, highlighting the limitations of our model in dealing with complex detection conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to tenacious stress signals, such as the unscheduled activation of oncogenes, cells can mobilize tumour suppressor networks to avert the hazard of malignant transformation. A large body of evidence indicates that oncogene-induced senescence (OIS) acts as such a break, withdrawing cells from the proliferative pool almost irreversibly, thus crafting a vital pathophysiological mechanism that protects against cancer. Despite the widespread contribution of OIS to the cessation of tumorigenic expansion in animal models and humans, we have only just begun to define the underlying mechanism and identify key players. Although deregulation of metabolism is intimately linked to the proliferative capacity of cells, and senescent cells are thought to remain metabolically active, little has been investigated in detail about the role of cellular metabolism in OIS. Here we show, by metabolic profiling and functional perturbations, that the mitochondrial gatekeeper pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) is a crucial mediator of senescence induced by BRAFV600E, an oncogene commonly mutated in melanoma and other cancers. BRAFV600E-induced senescence was accompanied by simultaneous suppression of the PDH-inhibitory enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 1 (PDK1) and induction of the PDH-activating enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphatase 2 (PDP2). The resulting combined activation of PDH enhanced the use of pyruvate in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, causing increased respiration and redox stress. Abrogation of OIS, a rate-limiting step towards oncogenic transformation, coincided with reversion of these processes. Further supporting a crucial role of PDH in OIS, enforced normalization of either PDK1 or PDP2 expression levels inhibited PDH and abrogated OIS, thereby licensing BRAFV600E-driven melanoma development. Finally, depletion of PDK1 eradicated melanoma subpopulations resistant to targeted BRAF inhibition, and caused regression of established melanomas. These results reveal a mechanistic relationship between OIS and a key metabolic signalling axis, which may be exploited therapeutically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video sequences exhibit significant nuisance variations (undesired effects) of speed of actions, temporal locations, and subjects’ poses, leading to temporal-viewpoint misalignment when comparing two sets of frames or evaluating the similarity of two sequences. Thus, we propose Joint tEmporal and cAmera viewpoiNt alIgnmEnt (JEANIE) for sequence pairs. In particular, we focus on 3D skeleton sequences whose camera and subjects’ poses can be easily manipulated in 3D. We evaluate JEANIE on skeletal Few-shot Action Recognition (FSAR), where matching well temporal blocks (temporal chunks that make up a sequence) of support-query sequence pairs (by factoring out nuisance variations) is essential due to limited samples of novel classes. Given a query sequence, we create its several views by simulating several camera locations. For a support sequence, we match it with view-simulated query sequences, as in the popular Dynamic Time Warping (DTW). Specifically, each support temporal block can be matched to the query temporal block with the same or adjacent (next) temporal index, and adjacent camera views to achieve joint local temporal-viewpoint warping. JEANIE selects the smallest distance among matching paths with different temporal-viewpoint warping patterns, an advantage over DTW which only performs temporal alignment. We also propose an unsupervised FSAR akin to clustering of sequences with JEANIE as a distance measure. JEANIE achieves state-of-the-art results on NTU-60, NTU-120, Kinetics-skeleton and UWA3D Multiview Activity II on supervised and unsupervised FSAR, and their meta-learning inspired fusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fumarate hydratase (FH) is an enzyme of the tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle) that catalyses the hydration of fumarate into malate. Germline mutations of FH are responsible for hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal-cell cancer (HLRCC). It has previously been demonstrated that the absence of FH leads to the accumulation of fumarate, which activates hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) at normal oxygen tensions. However, so far no mechanism that explains the ability of cells to survive without a functional TCA cycle has been provided. Here we use newly characterized genetically modified kidney mouse cells in which Fh1 has been deleted, and apply a newly developed computer model of the metabolism of these cells to predict and experimentally validate a linear metabolic pathway beginning with glutamine uptake and ending with bilirubin excretion from Fh1-deficient cells. This pathway, which involves the biosynthesis and degradation of haem, enables Fh1-deficient cells to use the accumulated TCA cycle metabolites and permits partial mitochondrial NADH production. We predicted and confirmed that targeting this pathway would render Fh1-deficient cells non-viable, while sparing wild-type Fh1-containing cells. This work goes beyond identifying a metabolic pathway that is induced in Fh1-deficient cells to demonstrate that inhibition of haem oxygenation is synthetically lethal when combined with Fh1 deficiency, providing a new potential target for treating HLRCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Game theory is a mathematical tool developed to understand competitive situations in which rational decision-makers interact to achieve their objectives. Game theory techniques have recently been applied to various engineering design problems in which the action of one component impacts that of any other component. In this article we first provide an overview of different game theory formulations, and then we present a survey on the approaches to ship cabin layout design, outlining several open research issues. To this end, we propose an effective method to facilitate the multidisciplinary decision-making process involved. A non-cooperative game is formulated, and the solution of this game is determined by the Nash equilibrium for the amount of equipment and furniture needed for the respective location and to achieve as high performance as possible in a cabin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microcapsules containing self-healing agents have been introduced into polymer to self-heal the microcracks and toughen the brittle matrix. Poly(urea–formaldehyde) (PUF) microcapsules containing epoxy resins are potential for the self-healing and toughening polymer. The resistance to medium surroundings of microcapsules is required. In the present study, PUF microcapsules containing epoxy resins were prepared by in situ polymerization. The effects of diameter, surface morphology and wall thickness on the permeability and stability of microcapsules in thermal and solvent surroundings were investigated. The morphology of microcapsule was investigated using optical microscope (OM), metalloscope (MS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM), respectively. The composition on the surface of microcapsule was analyzed by using energy dispersive analysis of X-ray (EDAX). The thermal properties of microcapsules were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetry analysis (TGA). The thermal permeability of core increases and the stability of microcapsule decreases with the enhancement of heating temperature mainly due to the expansion of epoxy resins below 251 °C and the decomposition of PUF above 251 °C. At room temperature, the permeability constants of core materials of microcapsules in acetone solvent are small and they are 1.20 × 10−3 m s−1, 1.39 × 10−3 m s−1 and 1.60 × 10−3 m s−1 corresponding to the microcapsules with diameters of 400 ± 50 μm, 230 ± 40 μm and 120 ± 30 μm. Increasing the surface smoothness, diameter and wall thickness can decrease the permeability and improve the stability of microcapsules in thermal and solvent surroundings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  Microcapsules containing healing agents have been used to develop the self-healing polymeric composites. These microcapsules must possess special properties such as appropriate strength and stability in surrounding medium. A new series of microcapsules containing dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) with melamine–formaldehyde (MF) resin as shell material were synthesized by in situ polymerization technology. These microcapsules may satisfy the requirements for self-healing polymeric composites. The chemical structure of microcapsule was identified by using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. The morphology of microcapsule was observed by using optical microscope (OM) and scanning electron microscope. Size distribution and mean diameter of microcapsules were determined with OM. The thermal properties of microcapsules were investigated by using thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. Additionally, the self-healing efficiency was evaluated. The results indicate that the poly(melamine–formaldehyde) (PMF) microcapsules containing DCPD have been synthesized successfully, and their mean diameters fall in the range of 65.2∼202.0 μm when the adjusting agitation rate varies from 150 to 500 rpm. Increasing the surfactant concentration can decrease the diameters of microcapsules. The prepared microcapsules are thermally stable up to 69 C. The PMF microcapsules containing DCPD can be applied to polymeric composites to fabricate the self-healing composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The surface of aramid fibers was modified with a polymer coating — a surface treatment reagent containing epoxy resin. The resulting fibers were examined by using NOL tests, hydroburst tests, and the scanning electron microscopy. The modified fibers had a rougher surface than the untreated ones. The interlaminar shear strength of an aramid-fiber-reinforced epoxy composite was highest when the concentration of polymer coating system was 5%. The translation of fiber strength in an aramid/epoxy composite vessel was improved by 8%. The mechanism of the surface treatment of fibers in improving the mechanical properties of aramid/epoxy composites is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The compound of cage octa(cyclohexylsilsesquioxane)( c-C6H11)8Si8O12 was prepared in higher yield by the hydrolysis and polycondensation of trifunctional monomer ( c-C6H11)Si(OC2H5)3 in the mixtures of solvents of methyl isobutyl ketone and anhydrous ethanol with the concentration hydrochloric acid acting as the catalyst. The effects of reaction conditions, such as monomer concentration, the contents of water and catalyst were investigated. The results show that the better values of these reactive factors were 0.45 mol/L, H2O/XSiY3 = 3/1(molar ratio), Et4NOH/XSiY3 = 3 (molar ratio), respectively. The existence of the higher boiling MIBK favours the higher reaction temperature, which accelerates the formation of octamer, reduces the reaction time and eventually increases the yield. The FTIR spectrum and 1H, 13C, and 29Si NMR spectra show that the compound has the formula of ( c-C6H11)8Si8O12 and the cage structure. The TG curve shows that the cage compound has a higher decomposition temperature, higher primary decomposition temperature and higher thermal residue and that the inorganic Si–O–Si composition does not change during the thermal processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new high-order multi-joint finite element for thin-walled bar was derived from the Hermite interpolation polynomial and minimum potential energy principle. This element's characteristics are that it is of high accuracy and can be used in finite method analysis of bridge, tall mega-structure building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Features a study that measured the mesial-distal and buccal-lingual dimensions of hominoid teeth found in Yuanmou of Yunnan Province, China during 1986 and 1988. Comparisons of tooth sizes and proportions; Statistical analyses of the metric data; Discussion and conclusion.

Background: Venlafaxine (VEN) is a commonly utilized medication for alleviating depression and anxiety disorders. The presence of genetic polymorphisms gives rise to considerable variations in plasma concentrations across different phenotypes. This divergence in phenotypic responses leads to notable differences in both the efficacy and tolerance of the drug. Purpose: A physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for VEN and its metabolite O-desmethylvenlafaxine (ODV) to predict the impact of CYP2D6 and CYP2C19 gene polymorphisms on VEN pharmacokinetics (PK). Methods: The parent-metabolite PBPK models for VEN and ODV were developed using PK-Sim® and MoBi®. Leveraging prior research, derived and implemented CYP2D6 and CYP2C19 activity score (AS)-dependent metabolism to simulate exposure in the drug-gene interactions (DGIs) scenarios. The model's performance was evaluated by comparing predicted and observed values of plasma concentration–time (PCT) curves and PK parameters values. Results: In the base models, 91.1%, 94.8%, and 94.6% of the predicted plasma concentrations for VEN, ODV, and VEN + ODV, respectively, fell within a twofold error range of the corresponding observed concentrations. For DGI scenarios, these values were 81.4% and 85% for VEN and ODV, respectively. Comparing CYP2D6 AS = 2 (normal metabolizers, NM) populations to AS = 0 (poor metabolizers, PM), 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0 (intermediate metabolizers, IM), 1.25, 1.5 (NM), and 3.0 (ultrarapid metabolizers, UM) populations in CYP2C19 AS = 2.0 group, the predicted DGI AUC0-96 h ratios for VEN were 3.65, 3.09, 2.60, 2.18, 1.84, 1.56, 1.34, 0.61, and for ODV, they were 0.17, 0.35, 0.51, 0.64, 0.75, 0.83, 0.90, 1.11, and the results were similar in other CYP2C19 groups. It should be noted that PK differences in CYP2C19 phenotypes were not similar across different CYP2D6 groups. Conclusions: In clinical practice, the impact of genotyping on the in vivo disposition process of VEN should be considered to ensure the safety and efficacy of treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have emphasized the importance of dynamic activity in the development of myelopathy. However, current knowledge of how degenerative factors affect the spinal cord during motion is still limited. This study aimed to investigate the effect of various types of preexisting herniated cervical disc and the ligamentum flavum ossification on the spinal cord during cervical flexion and extension. A detailed dynamic fluid-structure interaction finite element model of the cervical spine with the spinal cord was developed and validated. The changes of von Mises stress and maximum principal strain within the spinal cord in the period of normal, hyperflexion, and hyperextension were investigated, considering various types and grades of disc herniation and ossification of the ligamentum flavum. The flexion and extension of the cervical spine with spinal canal encroachment induced high stress and strain inside the spinal cord, and this effect was also amplified by increased canal encroachments and cervical hypermobility. The spinal cord might evade lateral encroachment, leading to a reduction in the maximum stress and principal strain within the spinal cord in local-type herniation. Although the impact was limited in the case of diffuse type, the maximum stress tended to appear in the white matter near the encroachment site while compression from both ventral and dorsal was essential to make maximum stress appear in the grey matter. The existence of canal encroachment can reduce the safe range for spinal cord activities, and hypermobility activities may induce spinal cord injury. Besides, the ligamentum flavum plays an important role in the development of central canal syndrome. Significance. This model will enable researchers to have a better understanding of the influence of cervical degenerative diseases on the spinal cord during extension and flexion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: P2X3 receptor antagonists hold promising potential as a therapeutic option for patients with refractory or unexplained chronic cough, a condition lacking approved therapies. This study assessed the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics (PK) of HRS-2261, a novel selective P2X3 receptor antagonist, in healthy subjects. Methods: This randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled phase 1 trial of HRS-2261 consisted of three phases: the single ascending dose (SAD) study phase, the food-effect study phase, and the multiple ascending dose (MAD) study phase. In the SAD phase, healthy subjects were randomly assigned to receive a single oral dose of HRS-2261 (25, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1200 mg) or placebo. Subjects in the 200 mg group of the SAD phase progressed directly to the food-effect phase following safety evaluation. In the MAD phase, healthy subjects were randomized to receive HRS-2261 (50, 200, and 400 mg) or placebo twice daily for 14 consecutive days. The primary endpoints were safety and tolerability. Results: A total of 62 and 30 subjects were enrolled in the SAD and MAD phases, respectively, with 12 subjects from the SAD phase transitioning to the food-effect phase. The incidence and severity of adverse events (AEs) were not dose dependent, and most AEs were mild except for one moderate AE (epididymitis, which was not related to treatment) in the 400 mg group. Dysgeusia was reported in nine subjects, including two from the SAD phase, one from the food-effect phase, and six from the MAD phase. The median Tmax and geometric mean t1/2 were 0.9–2.0 h and 4.1–8.5 h in the SAD, and 2.0–2.7 h and 4.6–5.0 h on day 14 in the MAD, respectively. Drug exposures in the SAD and MAD phases were both less than dose proportional. The accumulation of the drug was slight with repeated twice-daily dosing. Food-effect study results showed that food intake did not affect the plasma exposure of HRS-2261. Conclusions: HRS-2261 demonstrated good tolerability, with a low incidence of dysgeusia. The PK profile was favorable. This study supports further development of HRS-2261 as a potential P2X3 receptor antagonist for chronic cough. Trial Registration Number: Clinical trials.gov, identifier: NCT05274516. Trial registration date: March 10, 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strange hadron production in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV is studied in jets and underlying events using the PYTHIA8 event generator. Matching strange hadrons to the jet area and the underlying event area is expected to help us disentangle the strange particles produced in hard and soft processes. The yield and the relative production of strange hadrons dependent on the event multiplicity are investigated with the color reconnection and color rope mechanisms implemented in the PYTHIA8 framework. It is found that the inclusive strange hadron productions can be reasonably described by the color reconnection and color rope combined effects. A significant multiplicity dependent enhancement of the strange baryon production in the jet area is observed induced by the modified string fragmentation mechanisms, indicating the strange baryon enhancement persists in both the hard and the soft process. Multi-strange baryons are found to be more collimated with the jet axis than other strange hadrons in the string fragmentation picture with the jet shape analysis technique. Future experimental examination of these jet related strange hadron productions will provide more insight to the origin of strangeness enhancement in small systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling offers a unique modality to predict age-specific pharmacokinetics. The objective of this study was to assess the ability of PBPK model to predict plasma exposure of oxycodone, a widely used opioid for pain management, in adults and children. Methods: A full PBPK model of oxycodone following intravenous and oral administration was developed using a 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' combined strategy. The model was then extrapolated to pediatrics through a reasonable scaling method. The adult and pediatric model was evaluated using data from 17 clinical PK studies by testing predicted/observed goodness of fit. The mean fold error for PK parameters was calculated. Finally, we used the validated PBPK model to visualize adult-children dose conversion for oxycodone. Results: The developed PBPK model successfully predicted the oxycodone disposition in adults, wherein the predicted versus observed AUC, Cmax, and tmax were within 0.90 to 1.20-fold difference. After scaling anatomy/physiology, protein binding, and clearance, the model showed satisfactory prediction performance for pediatric populations as predicted AUC were within the 1.50-fold range of the observed values. According to the application of PBPK model, we found that different intravenous doses should be given in children of different ages compared to a standard 0.1 mg/kg in adults, while a progressive increasing dose with age growth following oral administration is recommended for children. Conclusions: The current example provides the opportunity for using the PBPK model to guide dose adjustment of oxycodone in the design of future pediatric clinical studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TGFB1, which encodes TGF-β1, a potent cytokine regulating varies cellular processes including immune responses. TGF-β1 plays context-dependent roles in cancers and is increasingly recognized as a therapeutic target to enhance immunotherapy responses. We comprehensively evaluated expression of TGFB1 and its clinical and biological effects across hematological malignancies. TGFB1 expression was first explored using data from the GTEx, CCLE, and TCGA databases. The expression and clinical significances of TGFB1 in hematological malignancies were analyzed using Hemap and our In Silico curated datasets. We also analyzed the relationship between TGFB1 with immune scores and immune cell infiltrations in Hemap. We further assessed the value of TGFB1 in predicting immunotherapy response using TIDE and real-world immunotherapy datasets. TGFB1 showed a hematologic-tissue-specific expression pattern both across normal tissues and cancer types. TGFB1 expression were broadly dysregulated in blood cancers and generally associated with adverse prognosis. TGFB1 expression were associated with distinct TME properties among different blood cancer types. In addition, TGFB1 expression was found to be a useful marker in predicting immunotherapy responses. Our results suggest that TGFB1 is broadly dysregulated in hematological malignancies. TGFB1 might regulate the immune microenvironment in a cancer-type-specific manner, which could be applied in the development of new targeted drugs for immunotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play a role in sepsis-related autophagy. However, the role of circRNAs in autophagy after sepsis-induced cardiomyopathy (SICM) is unknown, so we explored the circRNA expression profiles associated with autophagy in an acute sepsis mouse model. At a dose of 10 mg/kg, mice were intraperitoneally administered with lipopolysaccharides. The myocardial tissue was harvested after 6 h for microarray analysis, qRT-PCR, and western blotting. Gene Ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis were evaluated, and a competing endogenous RNA network was constructed, to evaluate the role of circRNAs related to autophagy in SICM. In total, 1,735 differently expressed circRNAs were identified in the LPS-treated group, including 990 upregulated and 745 downregulated circRNAs. The expression level of the autophagy-specific protein p62 decreased, while the ratio of LC3 II to LC3 I increased. Additionally, 309 mRNAs and 187 circRNAs were correlated with autophagy in myocardial tissue after SICM. Of these, 179 circRNAs were predicted to function as "miRNA sponges". Some distinctive circRNAs and mRNAs found by ceRNA analysis might be involved in autophagy in SICM. These findings provide insights into circRNAs and identified new research targets that may be used to further explore the pathogenesis of SICM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is a new infectious disease first discovered in Ta-pieh Mountains in central China in 2009. It is caused by a novel bunyavirus infection (SFTSV). Since the first discovery of SFTSV, there have been case reports and epidemiological studies on SFTS in several East Asian countries, such as South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and so on. With the rising incidence of SFTS and the rapid spread of the novel bunyavirus around the world, it is clear that the virus has a pandemic potential and may pose a threat to global public health in the future. Early studies have suggested that ticks are an important medium for the transmission of SFTSV to humans; in recent years, it has been reported that there is also human-to-human transmission. In endemic areas, potential hosts include a variety of livestock and wildlife. When people are infected with SFTV, the main clinical manifestations are high fever, thrombocytopenia, leukocytopenia, gastrointestinal symptoms, liver and kidney function damage, and even MODS, with a mortality rate of about 10–30%. This article reviews the latest progress of novel bunyavirus, including virus transmission vector, virus genotypic diversity and epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical manifestation and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The precursors of Nb-Al tape were fabricated by a powder-in-tube (PIT) technique. Supersaturated solid solutions of Nb-Al powder were obtained by high-energy ball milling, followed by a powder-in-tube process to prepare series of Nb3Al precursor tapes. Compared with sintering under normal pressure, the hot-pressing sintering greatly increased the critical current density of the tapes. The results showed that the Nb3Al tapes prepared via the powder-in-tube method and hot-pressed sintering could significantly improve the Jc performance, and the value of Jc (8 K, 0 T) was higher than 6 × 105 A/cm2. The Nb3Al tapes after pressing under the pressure of 20 MPa and sintering at 950 ∘C for 3 h had the best magnetic flux pinning performance, and the sample reached the maximum flux pinning force (Fp,max) of 3.28109 N/m3 in the magnetic field of 2.2 T. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety and depression induced by cancer-related pain disturb quality of life and willingness to survive. As a component of the limbic system, the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is critical for processing negative emotions. The reactive microglial engulfment of synapses may promote depression during adolescence. However, whether microglia phagocytose synapses to mediate cancer pain-induced depression remains unclear. The present study established a bone cancer-pain model to investigate the association between dendritic spine synapses and depressive-like behavior and explore the phagocytic function of microglia in the BLA. We found that tumor-bearing mice experienced postoperative pain-related depression, and their BLAs exhibited reactive microglia, as well as phagocytic synapses. The microglial inhibitor minocycline effectively mitigated depressive behavior, synaptic damage, and the phagocytic function of microglia. Our study implicates microglia-mediated synaptic loss in the BLA may act as the pathological basis of depressive-like behavior in bone cancer pain model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to investigate the viability of using brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) as a primary tool to screen metabolic syndrome (MetS), and to explore the risk factors of MetS in community populations. A total of 1914 subjects completed medical examination in Shanghai. BaPWV was significantly associated with the components of MetS. The area under curve (AUC) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) in total group were 62.50% and 60.00%-65.30% with the appropriate cut-off point being 1435 cm/sec. The AUC (95%CI) of three subgroups (40-50 yrs, 50-60 yrs and over 60 yrs group) were 75.30% (67.48%-83.35%), 63.35% (58.96%-67.60%), 55.37% (51.19%-60.01%), respectively. A clear pattern surfaced in the process of investigation: the younger were the subjects group, the better receiver operating characteristic (ROC) efficacy would emerge; and the higher sensitivity was, the better negative predictive value (NPV) would be. Male gender, high baPWV values, elevated uric acid (UA) and excess hypersensitive C reaction protein (hs-CRP) levels were stayed in the two regression models as the independent risk factors for MetS. We conclude that baPWV may serve as a potential screening tool for MetS at the cut-off point of 1435 cm/sec. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of following combined treatment with parathyroid hormone (1-34) (PTH) and beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) on local bone formation in a rat 3-mm critical-size defect at distal femur. Twelve weeks after bilateral ovariectomy (OVX) and sham operation (sham), all animals were randomly divided into four groups: group OVX, group OVX + β-TCP, group sham, and group sham + β-TCP, then all rats underwent bone defect in the bilateral distal femurs, and β-TCP were implanted into critical-sized defects for group OVX + β-TCP and group sham + β-TCP. After defect operation, all animals were received following subcutaneous injections with PTH (60 μg/kg, three times a week) until death at 4 and 8 weeks. The defected area in distal femurs of rats was harvested for evaluation by histology, micro-CT, and biomechanics. The results of our study show that systemic usage of PTH or local usage of β-TCP can increase the healing of defects in OVX or sham rats. Furthermore, treatments with PTH and β-TCP showed a stronger effect on accelerating the local bone formation than used alone. Osteoporosis can limit the function of PTH and/or β-TCP. The results from our study demonstrate that combination of PTH and β-TCP had an additive effect on local bone formation in non-osteoporosis and/or osteoporosis rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Reconstruction of severe acetabular deficiency is extremely challenging in total hip arthroplasty (THA) revisions. Novel bispherical augments were designed to fill acetabular bone loss and facilitate restoration of hip center of rotation (HCOR). Current study aims to compare the outcomes of bispherical augments and tantalum augments. Methods: Between July 2017 and December 2018, bispherical augments (BA group) were implanted in 25 patients (25 hips) and 22 patients (22 hips) underwent porous tantalum augments (TA group) reconstruction in revision THA. Clinical and radiographic results were evaluated for 25 hips in BA group and 20 hips in TA group at the final follow-up. The mean duration of follow-up was 2.9 years (range, 2.2 ~ 3.7) in BA group and 2.9 years (range, 2.3 ~ 3.8) in TA group. Results: Harris hip scores, HCOR, and leg length discrepancy (LLD) correction did not differ between the treatment groups. The bispherical augments were located more closer to the medial-superior part (zone II) of acetabular shell while the majority of tantalum augments were located at the lateral-superior part (zone I) (P = 0.010). More screws were used in the BA group for augment fixation (mean 2.1 vs. 1.3) (P = 0.000). There was no evidence of loosening or migration in all hips. Only one dislocation occurred in BA group and treated with closed reduction, no recurrence of instability up to the final follow-up. Conclusion: The clinical and radiological outcomes of bispherical augments were comparable with tantalum augments; this technique was a reliable alternative method in severe acetabular deficiency reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]