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Dysregulated glycolysis is one of the mechanisms employed by cancer cells to facilitate growth and metastasis. Here we aimed to characterize the PPFIA4 gene, as a glycolysis-related oncogene in promoting the proliferation and migration of colon cancer cells. Using bioinformatical tools including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA), we found that PPFIA4 expression and methylation levels were higher in colon cancer tissues of different stages than in normal tissues. Higher PPFIA4 level was also positively correlated with poorer survival of patients. PPFIA4 upregulation also correlated with poor prognosis and higher clinical stages of colon cancer patients. Colon cancer cell viability, migration and migration were enhanced after PPFIA4 overexpression. EMT markers and glycolysis were upregulated after PPFIA4 overexpression. PPFIA4 expression was found to be positively correlated with PFKFB3 and ENO2 levels, while knockdown of PFKFB3 and ENO2 reduced cell proliferation, migration, invasion and glycolysis. PPFIA4 upregulation is a potential biomarker in colon cancer which promotes proliferation, migration, invasion and glycolysis. The upregulation of PFKFB3/ENO2 signaling by PPFIA4 is a potential mechanism underlying the oncogenic effects of PPFIA4.

BackgroundLung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer, and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common form. Despite the great advances that has been made in the diagnosis and treatment for LUAD, the pathogenesis of LUAD remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to identify the function of circKEAP1 derived from the exon of KEAP1 in LUAD.MethodsThe expression profiles of circRNAs in LUAD tissues and adjacent non-tumor tissues were analyzed by Agilent Arraystar Human CircRNA microarray. The levels and prognostic values of circKEAP1 in tissues and cancer cell lines were determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Subsequently, the effects of circKEAP1 on tumor growth were investigated by functional experiments in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, the dual luciferase reporter assay, RNA pull-down, and RNA immunoprecipitation experiments were performed to confirm the interaction between circKEAP1 and miR-141-3p in LUAD.ResultsWe found circKEAP1 was significantly downregulated in LUAD tissues and repressed tumor growth both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, circKEAP1 competitively binds to miR-141-3p and relive miR-141-3p repression for its host gene, which activated the KEAP1/NRF2 signal pathway, and finally suppresses the tumor progress. Our findings suggest that circKEAP1 inhibits LUAD progression through circKEAP1/miR-141-3p/KEAP1 axis and it may serve as a novel method for the treatment of LUAD.

An attempt has been made in correspondence to explain the consequences of chemical pollution after the explosion of ammonium nitrate (AN) in Beirut (capital of Lebanon). The effects of chemicals in the air, soil, and water have been discussed. In addition, the study emphasizes on the research to restore the environment and enhanced safety measurements.

Rhamnus crenata Siebold & Zuccarini is deciduous shrub or small tree plant that widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions of East to Southeast Asia. It has a chloroplast genome structure similar to that of other species of Rhamnus. It is 160,454 bp in size, including a large single-copy (LSC) region of 88,884 bp, a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,734 bp and a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 26,418 bp. A total of 122 genes were annotated, including 80 protein-coding genes, 38 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and 4 rRNA genes. The overall GC content is 30.71%. Phylogenetic analysis shows that R. crenata is clustered with R. taquetii and R. globosa.

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a highly malignant tumor with a particularly poor prognosis. The tumor microenvironment (TME) is closely associated with tumorigenesis, progression, and treatment. However, the relationship between TME genes and HCC patient prognosis is poorly understood. Methods In this study, we identified two prognostic subtypes based on the TME using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Gene Expression Omnibus. The Microenvironment Cell Populations-counter method was used to evaluate immune cell infiltration in HCC. Differentially expressed genes between molecular subtypes were calculated with the Limma package, and clusterProfiler was used for Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes functional enrichment analyses to identify genes related to the independent subtypes. We also integrated mRNA expression data into our bioinformatics analysis. Results We identified 4227 TME-associated genes and 640 genes related to the prognosis of HCC. We defined two major subtypes (Clusters 1 and 2) based on the analysis of TME-associated gene expression. Cluster 1 was characterized by increased expression of immune-associated genes and a worse prognosis than Cluster 2. Conclusions The identification of these HCC subtypes based on the TME provides further insight into the molecular mechanisms and prediction of HCC prognosis.

Emerging evidence suggests that the gut microbiota may interact with the host brain and play pivotal roles in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the mechanism underlying reciprocal interactions along the microbiota-gut-brain axis in depression remains unclear. In this study, a murine model of chronic restraint stress (CRS) was established to investigate the metabolic signaling of tryptophan (Trp) neurotransmission at the intestinal and central levels in depression. The results showed that CRS mice displayed depression- and anxiety-like behaviors. Additionally, kynurenine (Kyn) and its metabolites, an important Trp metabolic pathway, were strongly activated in the brain. Intriguingly, the Kyn toxic signaling was exacerbated in the gut, especially in the colon. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), a rate-limiting enzyme responsible for Kyn metabolic pathway initiation, was significantly upregulated in the brain and gut in CRS mice compared with control mice, promoting transfer of Trp metabolic pathway to Kyn signaling. Additionally, administration of IDO inhibitor, 1-methyl-tryptophan (1-MT), partially rescued CRS-induced depression- and anxiety-like changes. Moreover, the enhanced intestinal permeability mediated by CRS allowed toxic metabolites to “leak” into the bloodstream. The microbiome profiles of CRS mice displayed obviously altered taxonomic composition and negative correlations were observed between Enterorhabdus, Parabacteroides and Kyn levels in the brain. Reciprocal crosstalk between the brain and gut was further validated by citalopram treatment, IDO inhibitor and microbiota intervention, which counteracted depression-like behavior, Kyn metabolic signaling and microbiota composition in CRS mice. Meanwhile, Parabacteroides treatment affected Trp metabolism in mouse hippocampus, manifesting as elevated concentration of 5-HT as well as ratio of 5-HT to Trp. These results suggest that long-term stress disrupts Kyn metabolism and endocrine function along the gut-brain axis, accompanied by the disrupted homeostasis of certain microbiota, which collectively contribute to the development of depression-like behavior.

To investigate whether D-dimer level could predict pulmonary embolism (PE) severity and in-hospital death, a total of 272 patients with PE were divided into a survival group (n = 249) and a death group (n = 23). Comparisons of patient characteristics between the 2 groups were performed using Mann-Whitney U test. Significant variables in univariate analysis were entered into multivariate logistic regression analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to determine the predictive value of D-dimer level alone or together with the simplified Pulmonary Embolism Severity Index (sPESI) for in-hospital death. Results showed that patients in the death group were significantly more likely to have hypotension (P = 0.008), tachycardia (P = 0.000), elevated D-dimer level (P = 0.003), and a higher sPESI (P = 0.002) than those in the survival group. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that D-dimer level was an independent predictor of in-hospital death (OR = 1.07; 95% CI, 1.003-1.143; P = 0.041). ROC curve analysis showed that when D-dimer level was 3.175 ng/ml, predicted death sensitivity and specificity were 0.913 and 0.357, respectively; and when combined with sPESI, specificity (0.838) and area under the curve (0.740) were increased. Thus, D-dimer level is associated with in-hospital death due to PE; and the combination with sPESI can improve the prediction level.

In terms of synergistic cancer therapy, biological nanomaterials with a second near-infrared (NIR-II) window response can greatly increase photothermal effects and photoacoustic imaging performance. Herein, we report a novel stimuli-responsive multifunctional drug-loading system which was constructed by integrating miniature gold nanorods (GNR) as the NIR-II photothermal nanorods and cyclic ternary aptamer (CTA) composition as a carrier for chemotherapy drugs. In this system, doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX, a chemotherapy drug) binds to the G-C base pairs of the CTA, which exhibited a controlled release behavior based on the instability of G-C base pairs in the slightly acidic tumor microenvironment. Upon the 1064 nm (NIR-II biowindow) laser irradiation, the strong photothermal and promoted cargo release properties endow gold nanorods@CTA (GNR@CTA) nanoparticles displaying excellent synergistic anti-cancer effect. Moreover, the GNR@CTA of NIR also possesses thermal imaging and photoacoustic (PA) imaging properties due to the strong NIR region absorbance. This work enables to obtaining a stimuli-responsive “all-in-one” nanocarrier, which are promising candidate for bimodal imaging diagnosis and chemo-photothermal synergistic therapy.

To reduce oxygen and carbon impurities while casting silicon, an argon gas diversion system is proposed. A series of two-dimensional global transient numerical simulations are carried out using Fluent software according to the orthogonal experimental design, including heat transfer, convection of silicon melt and argon gas, and the fully coupling transport of impurities. The numerical results show that when the distance between the outer tube outlet and the cover is 10 mm, the backflow is inhibited by lateral outflow, thus the generation of CO is suppressed and the penetration of impurities into the silicon melt is decreased. The larger the flow rate, the more obvious the effect is. When the outer tube outlet is far from the cover, the effect of removing impurities is no longer significant. In addition, too large or too small an inner tube flow rate is not conducive to impurity reduction. The optimal parameter combination of outer tube flow rate, inner tube flow rate, and the distance between outer tube outlet and the cover are determined by the orthogonal experiment. Compared with the original furnace, the average concentration of oxygen and carbon in casting silicon ingots could be decreased by 7.4% and 59.9%, respectively, by using the optimized argon gas diversion system.

Tristetraprolin (TTP), an mRNA binding and decaying protein, plays a significant role in controlling inflammation by decaying mRNAs encoding inflammatory cytokines such as TNFalpha. We aimed to test a hypothesis that TTP in bone marrow (BM) cells regulates atherogenesis by modulating inflammation and lipid metabolism through the modulation of oxidative stress pathways by TTP target genes. In a BM transplantation study, lethally irradiated atherogenic LDLR−/− mice were reconstituted with BM cells from either wild type (TTP+/+) or TTP knockout (TTP−/−) mice, and fed a Western diet for 12 weeks. We made the following observations: (1) TTP−/− BM recipients display a significantly higher systemic and multi-organ inflammation than TTP+/+ BM recipients; (2) BM TTP deficiency modulates hepatic expression of genes, detected by microarray, involved in lipid metabolism, inflammatory responses, and oxidative stress; (3) TTP−/− BM derived macrophages increase production of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS); (4) BM-TTP−/− mice display a significant reduction in serum VLDL/LDL levels, and attenuated hepatic steatosis compared to controls; and (5) Reduction of serum VLDL/LDL levels offsets the increased inflammation, resulting in no changes in atherosclerosis. These findings provide a novel mechanistic insight into the roles of TTP-mediated mRNA decay in bone marrow-derived cells in regulating systemic inflammation, oxidative stress, and liver VLDL/LDL biogenesis.

Purpose: To analyze the influence of perioperative complications in the management of biliary atresia (BA).Methods: A retrospective study was performed using a total of 422 BA patients who underwent Kasai portoenterostomy (KPE) in a single institution between February 2016 and May 2017. Data on patients' clinical characteristics, laboratory examinations, perioperative complications, and outcomes were collected. Unpaired two-tailed t-test and χ2 test were employed for the comparison between BA patients with and without perioperative complications. Cox regression analysis was used to screen the risk factors for 2-years NLS in BA, and their influence on the 2-years NLS was analyzed using Kaplan–Meier survival analysis as well as the log-rank test.Results: The incidence of perioperative complications, 6-months jaundice clearance (JC) and 2-years native liver survival (NLS) rate were 60.4, 59.5, and 56.6%, respectively. Patients with perioperative complications had lower serum albumin (ALB) level, but higher aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) and international normalized ratio (INR) levels when compared with those without perioperative complications (ALB, P < 0.05; APRI, P < 0.01; INR, P < 0.05). Moreover, perioperative complications were correlated with glucocorticoid administration (P = 0.002). Univariate Cox regression analysis showed no relationship between perioperative complications and 2-years NLS (P > 0.05). However, multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated 6-months JC was an independent protective factor for 2-years NLS [P < 0.0001, hazard ratio (HR) = 0.074, 95% confidence interval = 0.05–0.11], and concordance index of this prediction model including age, weight, APRI, glucocorticoid, and 6-months JC was 0.811.Conclusion: Although perioperative complication is common during and after KPE, it had no influence on the prognosis of BA. However, assessment of the serum level of total bilirubin after KPE may serve as an important predictor for the outcome in BA.

Hypertension is a chronic disease that can harm the health of many people. Though hypertension may be caused by many factors, the diet has been recognised as a factor, which can seriously impact hypertension. In this Letter, the authors explore the relationship between the nutritional ingredients and hypertension with machine learning methods. They design a prediction scheme, which is constructed by nutritional ingredients data conversion, feature selection, classifiers etc. To choose the proper classifier, the performance of several classification algorithms are compared. Based on their experimental results, XGboost is used as the classifier in their scheme as it obtains the highest accuracy (84.9%) and [inline-formula].

Introduction: We aimed to assess sex differences in treatment outcomes and adherence comparing men who have sex with women (MSW), men who have sex with men (MSM), and women who have sex with men (WSM), as well as men and women who inject drugs living with HIV on combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Guangdong, China. Methods: We performed a retrospective observational cohort study with data from the National Free Antiretroviral Treatment Program database. We included ART-naive patients aged 18 to 80 years who had contracted HIV through sex or injecting drugs, initiated first-line ART between January 2004 and December 2016, and had at least 60 days of follow-up. Participants were followed for five years. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate all-cause mortality. Cumulative incidence function and Cox proportional hazards models accounting for competing risks were used to evaluate disease progression to AIDS. Modified Poisson regression models were used to evaluate immunological and virological responses and loss to follow-up. Repeated measures analysis was used to evaluate regular CD4+ cell count, HIV viral load monitoring, ART adherence, side effects, and interruption of ART. Findings: We included 26,409 persons living with HIV. 21,779 (82·5%) people acquired HIV through sex (5118 WSM [23·5%], 8506 MSW [39·0%], 8175 MSM [37·5%]), and 4610 people (17·5%) through injection drug use (249 women [5·4%], 4361 men [94·6%]). Among those infected through sex, MSW had increased risks of all-cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1·48, 95% CI 1·20–1·83), progression to AIDS (1·27, 1·09–1·47), virological failure (adjusted incidence rates ratio [aIRR] 1·27, 95% CI 1·09–1·48), and loss to follow-up (1·22, 1·10–1·35) compared to WSM. In contrast, MSM had lower risk of all-cause mortality (aHR 0·49, 95%CI 0·32–0·76), disease progression to AIDS (0·83, 0·68–1·00), and virological failure (aIRR 0·78, 95%CI 0·65–0·94), were more likely to receive regular CD4+ cell count (1·08, 1·07–1·10) and HIV viral load monitoring (1·13, 1·12–1·15), were less likely to report missing ART doses (0·54, 0·49–0·61), interrupt ART (0·34, 0·26–0·44), or be lost to follow-up (0·56, 0·49–0·65) compared to WSM. Men who inject drugs were almost twice as likely as women who inject drugs to die (aHR 1·72, 95%CI 1·03–2·85), experience disease progression to AIDS (2·05, 1·18–3·57), virological failure (aIRR 1·81, 95%CI 1·19–2·76), report ART side effects (1·78, 1·43–2·22), and interruptions in ART (2·29, 1·50–3·50). Interpretation: Our findings highlight the importance of identifying potentially at-risk MSW and promoting HIV education and testing among them. Particular attention is warranted among men who inject drugs to improve timely HIV diagnosis, drug interaction management, and retention in treatment. Additional research from rural settings is needed to assess the long-term treatment outcomes and adherence in MSM with HIV.

In this paper, a novel approach of voxelization modelling-based Finite Element (FE) simulation and process parameter optimization for Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is presented. In the approach, firstly, a general meshing method based on voxelization modelling and automatic voxel element sorting is developed. Then, FE based simulation for the FFF process is conducted by combining the ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) with the element birth and death technique. During the simulation, the influence of key process parameters on the temperature field, including scanning speed, molding chamber temperature and nozzle temperature, is analyzed in detail. Furthermore, an experimental platform with an adjustable molding chamber temperature for the FFF parts is established. Case studies for making Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS)-based parts were carried out to validate the approach. Results showed that among the process parameters, the molding chamber temperature had the most significant effect on the warping deformation of the FFF parts. The optimal parameters for the FFF process with ABS under the analyzed conditions were 50 mm/s for the scanning speed, 80 °C for the molding chamber temperature of, and 180 °C for the nozzle temperature, respectively. Keywords: Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), Process parameter optimization, Voxelization, Finite element (FE) simulation

Objective: The relationship between diabetes and all- and cause-specific mortality in individuals with common cancers (breast, colorectal, and prostate) remains both under-researched and poorly understood.Methods: Cancer survivors (N = 37,993) from the National Health Interview Survey with linked data retrieved from the National Death Index served as our study participants. Cox proportional-hazards models were used to assess associations between pre- and post-diabetes and all-cause and cause-specific mortality.Results: Over a median follow-up period of 13 years, 2,350 all-cause, 698 cancer, and 506 CVD deaths occurred. Among all cancer survivors, patients with diabetes had greater risk of: all-cause mortality [hazard ratio (HR) 1.35, 95% CI = 1.27–1.43], cancer-specific mortality (HR: 1.14, 95% CI = 1.03–1.27), CVD mortality (HR: 1.36, 95% CI = 1.18–1.55), diabetes related mortality (HR: 17.18, 95% CI = 11.51–25.64), and kidney disease mortality (HR: 2.51, 95% CI = 1.65–3.82), compared with individuals without diabetes. The risk of all-cause mortality was also higher amongst those with diabetes and specific types of cancer: breast cancer (HR: 1.28, 95% CI = 1.12–1.48), prostate cancer (HR: 1.20, 95% CI = 1.03–1.39), and colorectal cancer (HR: 1.29, 95% CI = 1.10–1.50). Diabetes increased the risk of cancer-specific mortality among colorectal cancer survivors (HR: 1.36, 95% CI = 1.04–1.78) compared to those without diabetes. Diabetes was associated with higher risk of diabetes-related mortality when compared to non-diabetic breast (HR: 9.20, 95% CI = 3.60–23.53), prostate (HR: 18.36, 95% CI = 6.01–56.11), and colorectal cancer survivors (HR: 12.18, 95% CI = 4.17–35.58). Both pre- and post-diagnosis diabetes increased the risk of all-cause mortality among all cancer survivors. Cancer survivors with diabetes had similar risk of all-cause and CVD mortality during the second 5 years of diabetes and above 10 years of diabetes as compared to non-diabetic patients.Conclusions: Diabetes increased the risk of all-cause mortality among breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer survivors, not for pre- or post-diagnosis diabetes. Greater attention on diabetes management is warranted in cancer survivors with diabetes.

At present, research on the internal structures of asphalt mixtures has mostly focused on the statistical analysis of their mesostructural components such as aggregates, voids, and asphalt mortars, in addition to the verification of the mechanical behaviour of the mixture through simulations. Furthermore, the capacity of the research has not risen to a level where a design method to guide the design and optimisation of the asphalt mixture gradation has been formulated. After an in-depth analysis of the existing evaluation parameters and standards for the asphalt mixture skeleton, this study proposes a new method for precise designing a dense skeleton asphalt mixture (DSAM) based on meso parameter. The results indicate that the application of digital image processing (DIP) techniques to adjust the gradation increases the average coordination number (n¯c) and reduces the ratio of the quantity of coarse aggregate without contact point to the total quantity of coarse aggregate (C value). This can effectively improve the meso parameters of the mixture so that the quality of the main skeleton is significantly enhanced; the process also has higher precision and demands less test work. VCAmix(IMAGE) ≤ VCADRC and n¯c>1.6 while C

In order to improve the working efficiency of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and the processing efficiency of fulfilling orders in intelligent warehouses, a novel parallel ant colony optimization algorithm for warehouse path planning is proposed. Through the interaction of pheromones among multiple subcolonies, the coevolution of multiple subcolonies is realized and the operational capability of the algorithm is improved. Then, a multiobjective function with the object of the shortest path and the minimum number of turns of the AGV is established. And the path satisfying this objective function is obtained by the proposed algorithm. In addition, the path is further smoothed by reducing the number of intermediate nodes. The results show that the stability and convergence rate of the algorithm are faster and more stable, compared to other algorithms, in generating paths for different complexity maps. The smoothing treatment of the path significantly reduces the number of turns and the path length in the AGV driving process.

MicroRNA 155 (miR-155) plays important roles in the regulation of the development and functions of a variety of immune cells. We previously revealed a vital role of miR-155 in regulating the function of dendritic cells (DCs) in breast cancer. miR-155 deficiency in DCs impaired their maturation, migration, cytokine production, and ability to activate T cells. In the current study, to exploit the therapeutic value of miR-155 for breast cancer, we examined the impact of overexpression of miR-155 on antitumor responses generated by DC vaccines. We boosted miR-155 expression in DCs by generating a miR-155 transgenic mouse strain (miR-155tg) or using lentivirus transduction. DCs overexpressing miR-155 exhibited enhanced functions in response to tumor antigens. Using miR-155 overexpressing DCs, we generated a DC vaccine and found that the vaccine resulted in enhanced antitumor immunity against established breast cancers in mice, demonstrated by increased effector T cells in the mice, suppressed tumor growth, and drastically reduced lung metastasis. Our current study suggests that in future DC vaccine development for breast cancer or other solid tumors, introducing forced miR155 overexpression in DCs via various approaches such as viral transduction or nanoparticle delivery, as well as including other adjuvant agents such as TLR ligands or immune stimulating cytokines, may unleash the full therapeutic potential of the DC vaccines.

Three new metabolites, including a cyclic tetrapeptide asperhiratide (1), an ecdysteroid derivative asperhiratine (2), and a sesquiterpene lactone asperhiratone (3), were isolated and identified from the soft coral-derived fungus Aspergillus hiratsukae SCSIO 5Bn1003, together with 10 known compounds. Their structures were elucidated via spectroscopic analysis, X-ray diffraction analysis, and electronic circular dichroism calculations. In addition, the absolute configuration of 1 was determined by Marfey’s technique and an analysis of the acid hydrolysates using a chiral phase HPLC column. Among all the compounds, 6 and 8 showed medium cytotoxic activities against four tumor cell lines (SF-268, HepG-2, MCF-7, and A549), with IC50 values ranging from 31.03 ± 3.04 to 50.25 ± 0.54 µM. Meanwhile, they strongly inhibited α-glucosidase activities, with IC50 values of 35.73 ± 3.94 and 22.00 ± 2.45 µM, which were close to and even stronger than the positive control acarbose (IC50 = 32.92 ± 1.03 µM). Compounds 6–8 showed significant antibacterial activities against Bacillus subtilis, with MIC values of 10.26 ± 0.76 µM, 17.00 ± 1.25 µM, and 5.30 ± 0.29 µM, respectively. Compounds 9 and 12 exhibited potent radical scavenging activities against DPPH, with IC50 values of 12.23 ± 0.78 µM and 7.38 ± 1.16 µM. In addition, asperhiratide (1) was evaluated for anti-angiogenic activities in the in vivo zebrafish model, which showed a weak inhibitory effect on intersegmental vessel (ISV) formation.

Skeleton-based human action recognition has attracted extensive attention due to the robustness of the human skeleton data in the field of computer vision. In recent years, there is a trend of using graph convolutional networks (GCNs) to model the human skeleton into a spatio-temporal graph to explore the internal connections of human joints that has achieved remarkable performance. However, the existing methods always ignore the remote dependency between joints, and fixed temporal convolution kernels will lead to inflexible temporal modeling. In this paper, we propose a multi-scale adaptive aggregate graph convolution network (MSAAGCN) for skeleton-based action recognition. First, we designed a multi-scale spatial GCN to aggregate the remote and multi-order semantic information of the skeleton data and comprehensively model the internal relations of the human body for feature learning. Then, the multi-scale temporal module adaptively selects convolution kernels of different temporal lengths to obtain a more flexible temporal map. Additionally, the attention mechanism is added to obtain more meaningful joint, frame and channel information in the skeleton sequence. Extensive experiments on three large-scale datasets (NTU RGB+D 60, NTU RGB+D 120 and Kinetics-Skeleton) demonstrate the superiority of our proposed MSAAGCN.

Room-temperature solid-state single photon emitters in the telecom range are suitable for quantum communication. Here, the authors observe defects in high-purity 3C-SiC epitaxy layers grown on a silicon substrate, with good characteristics in terms of brightness, emission’s polarization and photostability.

Abstract Background Multidrug resistance (MDR) is often responsible for the failure of chemotherapy treatment, and current strategies for cancer MDR are not adequately satisfying as to their efficacy and safety. In this study, we sought to determine the anti-MDR effects of ultrasound (US) irradiation and its underlying mechanisms against drug-resistance. Methods MDR variant MCF-7/ADR cell lines and endothelial cell lines were used to determine the appropriate ultrasound intensity for in vitro experiments. MCF-7/ADR cell and HEPG2/ADM cells were used to assess the anti-MDR effect of US irradiation. Intracellular adriamycin (ADM) accumulation, Cell viability, cell proliferation and cell apoptosis were evaluated after ADM + US treatment or ADM treatment alone. MCF-7/ADR xenograft mice were used to investigate the appropriate ultrasound intensity for in vivo experiments and its effect on the long-term prognosis. Underlining mechanisms by which ultrasound exposure reversing MDR phenotype were investigated both in vitro and in vivo. Results Combination of ADM and 0.74 W/cm2 US irradiation enhanced ADM intracellular concentration and nuclear accumulation in MCF-7/ADR and HEPG2/ADM cells, compared to those treated with ADM alone. Enhanced cellular ADM uptake and nuclei localization was associated with increased cytotoxicity of ADM to ADM-resistant cells, lower ADM-resistant cell viability and proliferative cell ratio, and higher apoptotic cell ratio. More importantly, US exposure increased the effectiveness of ADM to inhibit tumor growth in MCF-7/ADR xenograft mice. Mechanistically, US exposure promoted ADM accumulation in MDR cells mainly through down-regulation of P-glycoprotein (P-gp), which is dependent on US-induced intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. US-induced oxidative stress promoted miR-200c-3p and miR-34a-3p expression by forming miR-200c/34a/ZEB1 double-negative feedback loop. Finally, US-induced miR-200c/34a overexpression decreased P-gp expression and reversed MDR phenotype. Conclusion US irradiation could reverse MDR phenotype by activating ROS-ZEB1-miR200c/34a-P-gp signal pathway. Our findings offer a new and promising strategy for sensitizing cells to combat MDR and to improve the therapeutic index of chemotherapy.

Software homology plays an important role in intellectual property protection, malware analysis, and network attack traceback. Among many methods proposed by researchers, the structure-based method has been proved to have better detection and anti-obfuscation capabilities, but it is inefficiency on space-time complexity and difficult to be applied to large-scale software homology analysis. In this paper, we propose a parallel method to extract function call graph from source codes, and a new software structure information comparison algorithm. The approach transforms function call graph into the corresponding motifs as the features of the software, and calculates homology score by the algorithm which is quick and accurate for large-scale software based on software motifs. According to experiments on large-scale source codes, binary executable files and obfuscated software, the accuracy of homology detection is 90.00% for non-obfuscated software and 80.00% for obfuscated software.

Time division synchronization orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (TDS-OFDM) has been attractive due to its fast synchronization and efficient spectral efficiency over conventional cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and zero padding OFDM. However, inter-block interference (IBI) affects its performance because of delay over multipath channels. To evade IBI, dual pseudo-random noise (DPN) sequences have been introduced that causes to reduce spectral and energy efficiency. But, DPN is unprepared for underwater acoustic (UWA) communication because of battery-based nature and limited bandwidth. To overcome these issues, this paper exploits compressive sensing theory algorithm for obtaining the time-varying channel state information by utilizing sparse property of UWA channels. In this paper, the IBI free region is utilized to estimate accurate UWA channel impulse response and mitigate its interference. Look-ahead backtracking orthogonal matching pursuit-based sparse channel estimation technique is proposed for underwater TDS-OFDM in a real sparse time-varying multipath channel (channel taps are randomly distributed). Furthermore, Doppler-shift of UWA channel is estimated and compensated by PN sequence in time domain. The performance of the proposed technique is evaluated and demonstrated through numerical computation of bit error rate (BER) and mean square error (MSE) using Monte Carlo iterations. Simulation analysis confirms the superiority of the proposed scheme not only in terms of BER and MSE over the conventional ones but also achieve high energy and spectral efficiency.

This study aimed to explore the therapeutic effects of Dendrobium officinale polysaccharide (DOP), an active ingredient isolated from the water extract of Dendrobium officinale, in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced type 2 diabetic BALB/c mice and its potential mechanisms. Our results showed that DOP had beneficial effects in ameliorating hyperglycemia, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. Additionally, DOP promoted glycogen synthesis via regulating the expression of glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK-3β), glycogen synthase (GS) and glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) in the liver or muscle. Moreover, DOP reduced the blood glucose levels via the regulation of glucose metabolizing enzyme activity including pyruvate kinase (PK), hexokinase (HK) and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) in the liver. Furthermore, mechanistic studies illustrated that DOP could up-regulate the expression of PI3K/Akt signaling proteins both in vivo and in vitro. Our findings revealed that DOP improves glucose metabolism disorder by promoting glycogen synthesis and regulating the activity of glucose metabolism enzymes.

Three novel cyclic hexapeptides, sclerotides C–E (1–3), and a new lipodepsipeptide, scopularide I (4), together with a known cyclic hexapeptide sclerotide A (5), were isolated from fermented rice cultures of a soft coral-derived fungus: Aspergillus sclerotiorum SCSIO 41031. The structures of the new peptides were determined by 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic analysis, Marfey’s method, ESIMS/MS analysis, and single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Scopularide I (4) exhibited acetylcholinesterase inhibitory activity with an IC50 value of 15.6 μM, and weak cytotoxicity against the human nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line HONE-EBV with IC50 value of 10.1 μM.

Due to the complexity and unique features of the hydroacoustic channel, ship-radiated noise (SRN) detected using a passive sonar tends mostly to distort. SRN feature extraction has been proposed to improve the detected passive sonar signal. Unfortunately, the current methods used in SRN feature extraction have many shortcomings. Considering this, in this paper we propose a new multi-stage feature extraction approach to enhance the current SRN feature extractions based on enhanced variational mode decomposition (EVMD), weighted permutation entropy (WPE), local tangent space alignment (LTSA), and particle swarm optimization-based support vector machine (PSO-SVM). In the proposed method, first, we enhance the decomposition operation of the conventional VMD by decomposing the SRN signal into a finite group of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and then calculate the WPE of each IMF. Then, the high-dimensional features obtained are reduced to two-dimensional ones by using the LTSA method. Finally, the feature vectors are fed into the PSO-SVM multi-class classifier to realize the classification of different types of SRN sample. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the recognition rate of the proposed method overcomes the conventional SRN feature extraction methods, and it has a recognition rate of up to 96.6667%.

Abstract Background Programmed cell death 5 (PDCD5) is an apoptosis-related gene cloned from TF-1 cells whose primary biological functions are to promote apoptosis and immune regulation. The effects and mechanisms exerted by key mediators of arthritic inflammation remain unclear in PDCD5 transgenic (PDCD5 tg) mice. Results In the current study, PDCD5 tg mice inhibited the progression of adjuvant-induced arthritis, specifically decreasing clinical signs and histological damage, compared with arthritis control mice. Additionally, the ratio of CD4+IFN-γ+ cells (Th1) and CD4+IL-17A+ cells (Th17), as well as the mRNA expression of the pro-inflammatory mediators IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-17A and TNF-α, were decreased in PDCD5 tg mice, while CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells and the anti-inflammatory mediators IL-4 and IL-10 were increased. Furthermore, PDCD5 tg mice demonstrated reduced serum levels of IFN-γ, IL-6, IL-17A and TNF-α and increased levels of IL-4. Conclusions Based on our data, PDCD5 exerts anti-inflammatory effects by modifying the T lymphocytes balance, inhibiting the production of pro-inflammatory mediators and promoting the secretion of anti-inflammatory cytokines, validating PDCD5 protein as a possible treatment for RA.

In this study, the high-temperature oxidation behavior of a series of AlTiNiCuCox high-entropy alloys (HEAs) was explored. The AlTiNiCuCox (x = 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, 1.25, 1.5) series HEAs were prepared using a vacuum induction melting furnace, in which three kinds of AlTiNiCuCox (x = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5) alloys with different Co contents were oxidized at 800 °C for 100 h, and their oxidation kinetic curves were determined. The microstructure, morphology, structure, and phase composition of the oxide film surface and cross-sectional layers of AlTiNiCuCox series HEAs were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive spectrometry (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The influence of Co content on the high-temperature oxidation resistance of the HEAs was discussed, and the oxidation mechanism was summarized. The results indicate that, at 800 °C, the AlTiNiCuCox (x = 0.5, 1.0, 1.5) series HEAs had dense oxide films and certain high-temperature oxidation resistance. With increasing Co content, the high-temperature oxidation resistance of the alloys also increased. With increasing time at high temperature, there was a significant increase in the contents of oxide species and Ti on the oxide film surface. In the process of high-temperature oxidation of AlTiNiCuCox series HEAs, the interfacial reaction, in which metal elements and oxygen in the alloy form ions through direct contact reaction, initially dominated, then the diffusion process gradually became the dominant oxidation factor as ions diffused and were transported in the oxide film.

The connection section between cyclones and backpass is an important configuration in multi-cyclone circulating fluidized bed boilers (CFB). In this work, the resistance coefficient of different connection modes, and connection resistance distribution from each cyclone outlet to backpass (connection branch) in one mode are defined and calculated, in order to investigate their effects on furnace solids suspension density distribution and circulation rates. Three connection modes with different overall resistance coefficients were tested experimentally and analyzed by a 1.5-dimensional model in a four-cyclone scaling CFB apparatus. Both experimental and theoretical results show that, with larger overall resistance of a connection, there are more solids suspended in the furnace bottom and fewer in the top section. The investigation of the C-type connection has revealed that when the branch resistance of the connection decreases from branch No. 1–4, the solids suspension density and circulation rate from corresponding solids recycle loops (No. 1–4) increase. Moreover, the non-uniformity of connection branch resistance distribution will lead to uneven lateral solids suspension density distribution and circulation rates allocation. This effect is enhanced by growing superficial velocity.

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) has emerged as a significant pathogen causing large outbreaks in China for the past 3 years. Developing an EV71 vaccine is urgently needed to stop the spread of the disease; however, the adaptive immune response of humans to EV71 infection remains unclear. We examined the neutralizing antibody titers in HFMD patients and compared them to those of asymptomatic healthy children and young adults. We found that 80% of HFMD patients became positive for neutralizing antibodies against EV71 (GMT = 24.3) one day after the onset of illness. The antibody titers in the patients peaked two days (GMT = 79.5) after the illness appeared and were comparable to the level of adults (GMT = 45.2). Noticeably, the antibody response was not correlated with disease severity, suggesting that cellular immune response, besides neutralizing antibodies, could play critical role in controlling the outcome of EV71 infection in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), a common contagious disease that usually affects children, is normally mild but can have life-threatening manifestations. It can be caused by enteroviruses, particularly Coxsackieviruses and human enterovirus 71 (HEV71) with highly variable clinical manifestations. In the spring of 2008, a large, unprecedented HFMD outbreak in Fuyang city of Anhui province in the central part of southeastern China resulted in a high aggregation of fatal cases. In this study, epidemiologic and clinical investigations, laboratory testing, and genetic analyses were performed to identify the causal pathogen of the outbreak. Of the 6,049 cases reported between 1 March and 9 May of 2008, 3023 (50%) were hospitalized, 353 (5.8%) were severe and 22 (0.36%) were fatal. HEV71 was confirmed as the etiological pathogen of the outbreak. Phylogenetic analyses of entire VP1 capsid protein sequence of 45 Fuyang HEV71 isolates showed that they belong to C4a cluster of the C4 subgenotype. In addition, genetic recombinations were found in the 3D region (RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, a major component of the viral replication complex of the genome) between the Fuyang HEV71 strain and Coxsackievirus A16 (CV-A16), resulting in a recombination virus. In conclusion, an emerging recombinant HEV71 was responsible for the HFMD outbreak in Fuyang City of China, 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a reactive molecular dynamic (ReaxFF-MD) study using the newly parameterized ReaxFF-lg reactive force field to explore the initial decomposition mechanism of 3-Nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO) under shock loading (shock velocity >6 km/s). The new ReaxFF-lg parameters were trained from massive quantum mechanics data and experimental values, especially including the bond dissociation curves, valence angle bending curves, dihedral angle torsion curves, and unimolecular decomposition paths of 3-Nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO), 1,3,5-Trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX), and 1,1-Diamino-2,2-dinitroethylene (FOX-7). The simulation results were obtained by analyzing the ReaxFF dynamic trajectories, which predicted the most frequent chain reactions that occurred before NTO decomposition was the unimolecular NTO merged into clusters ((C2H2O3N4)n). Then, the NTO dissociated from (C2H2O3N4)n and started to decompose. In addition, the paths of NO2 elimination and skeleton heterocycle cleavage were considered as the dominant initial decomposition mechanisms of NTO. A small amount of NTO dissociation was triggered by the intermolecular hydrogen transfer, instead of the intramolecular one. For α-NTO, the calculated equation of state was in excellent agreement with the experimental data. Moreover, the discontinuity slope of the shock-particle velocity equation was presented at a shock velocity of 4 km/s. However, the slope of the shock-particle velocity equation for β-NTO showed no discontinuity in the shock wave velocity range of 3–11 km/s. These studies showed that MD by using a suitable ReaxFF-lg parameter set, could provided detailed atomistic information to explain the shock-induced complex reaction mechanisms of energetic materials. With the ReaxFF-MD coupling MSST method and a cheap computational cost, one could also obtain the deformation behaviors and equation of states for energetic materials under conditions of extreme pressure.

In recent years, crowded stampede incidents have occurred frequently, resulting in more and more serious losses. The common cause of such incidents is that when large-scale populations gather in a limited area, the population is highly unstable. In emergency situations, only when the crowd reaches the safe exit as soon as possible within a limited evacuation time to complete evacuation can the loss and casualties be effectively reduced. Therefore, the safety evacuation management of people in public places in emergencies has become a hot topic in the field of public security. Based on the analysis of the factors affecting the crowd path selection, this paper proposes an improved path-planning algorithm based on BEME (Balanced Evacuation for Multiple Exits). And pedestrian evacuation simulation is carried out in multi-exit symmetrical facilities. First, this paper optimizes the update method of the GSDL list in the BEME algorithm as the basis for evacuating pedestrians to choose an exit. Second, the collision between pedestrians is solved by defining the movement rule and collision avoidance strategy. Finally, the algorithm is compared with BEME and traditional path-planning algorithms. The results show that the algorithm can further shorten the global evacuation distance of the symmetrical evacuation scene, effectively balance the number of pedestrians at each exit and reduce the evacuation time. In addition, this improved algorithm uses a collision avoidance strategy to solve the collision and congestion problems in path planning, which helps to maximize evacuation efficiency. Whether the setting of the scene or the setting of the exit, all studies are based on symmetric implementation. This is more in line with the crowd evacuation in the real scene, making the experimental results more meaningful.

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) greatly influences the transformation of nutrients and pollutants in the environment. To investigate the effects of pyrolysis temperatures on the composition and evolution of pyroligneous acid (PA)-derived DOM, DOM solutions extracted from a series of PA derived from eucalyptus at five pyrolysis temperature ranges (240–420 °C) were analysed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy, and fluorescence spectroscopy. Results showed that the dissolved organic carbon content sharply increased (p < 0.05) with an increase in pyrolysis temperature. Analysis of the dissolved organic matter composition showed that humic-acid-like substances (71.34–100%) dominated and other fluorescent components (i.e., fulvic-acid-like, soluble microbial by-products, and proteinlike substances) disappeared at high temperatures (>370 °C). The results of two-dimensional correlation spectroscopic analysis suggested that with increasing pyrolysis temperatures, the humic-acid-like substances became more sensitive than other fluorescent components. This study provides valuable information on the characteristic evolution of PA-derived DOM.

Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) is a key regulator of mitosis. Here, the authors show that Plk1 activates the pentose phosphate pathway in cancer cells by directly phosphorylating glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) and that such activation is critical for cell cycle progression and cancer cell growth.

Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center (WHMFC) at Huazhong University of Science and Technology is one of the top-class research centers in the world, which can offer pulsed fields up to 90.6 T with different field waveforms for scientific research and has passed the final evaluation of the Chinese government in 2014. This paper will give a brief introduction of the facility and the development status of pulsed magnetic fields research at WHMFC. In addition, it will describe the application development of pulsed magnetic fields in both scientific and industrial research.

Solitary pulmonary nodules (SPN) in digital radiography (DR) images often have unclear contours and infiltration, which make it a challenging task for traditional segmentation models to get satisfactory segmentation results. To overcome this challenge, this paper has proposed an adaptive SPN segmentation model for DR images based on random walks segmentation and sequential filter. First, the SPN image is decomposed to get the cartoon component, which is used to acquire a set of seeds. Second, the seeds selection tactic is employed to optimize the scope of walking pixels and reduce the number of seeds, which could reduce the computational cost. Finally, we incorporate the sequential filter and construct the new representation of the weight and the probability matrices. In this paper, by using a data set of 724 SPN cases, the proposed method was tested and compared with four different models, and five kinds of evaluation indicators were given to evaluate the effect of segmentation. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method performs well on the blurred edge, as it could get relatively accurate results.

With the development of code obfuscation and application repackaging technologies, an increasing number of structural information-based methods have been proposed for malware detection. Although, many offer improved detection accuracy via a similarity comparison of specific graphs, they still face limitations in terms of computation time and the need for manual operation. In this paper, we present a new malware detection method that automatically divides a function call graph into community structures. The features of these community structures can then be used to detect malware. Our method reduces the computation time by improving the Girvan-Newman algorithm and using machine learning classification instead of a similarity comparison of subgraphs. To evaluate our method, 5040 malware samples and 8750 benign samples were collected as an experimental data set. The evaluation results show that the detection accuracy of our method is higher than that of three well-known anti-virus software and two previous control flow graph-based methods for many malware families. The runtime performance of our method exhibits a clear improvement over the GN algorithm for community structure generation.

With the sharp increase in mobile apps, modular design and functional reuse are commonly adopted. The inter-component communication (ICC) mechanism in Android allows apps to exchange data with other apps and components, resulting in large amounts of security issues, such as component hijacking vulnerabilities, privilege escalation and spoofing attacks. Although ICC has been extensively studied in previous work, none of the previous approaches is practically scalable to simultaneously analyze a large number of Android apps, giving the combinational explosion of possible inter-component (and inter-app) communications. In this paper, we first propose an explorative study to analyze the ICC-based interaction for a large amount of Android apps. Then we propose CRSPR, a PageRank-like topic-aware app ranking approach to highlight influential Android apps for ICC analysis. The experimental results show that CRSPR is better than the basic counting approach as well as the traditional PageRank-based approach, which further demonstrate that CRSPR is useful for highlighting influential Android apps.

Disanthus cercidifolius subsp. longipes is a rare and endangered plant species. In our study, the complete chloroplast genome was assembled by using high-throughput DNA sequencing data. The whole CP genome is 158,076 bp in length, comprising of a large single-copy region of 87,148 bp, a small single-copy region of 18,300 bp, and two inverted repeat regions of 26,314 bp each. There are 136 genes in the genome, including 86 protein-coding genes, 40 transfer RNA genes, eight ribosomal RNA genes, and two pseudogenes (ndhK and ycf1). Phylogenetic results demonstrated that D. cercidifolius subsp. longipes grouped with other Hamamelidaceae species, with a support rate of 100%.

Clematis guniuensis is a new plant species in China, which distributes in both provinces of Zhejiang and Anhui with extremely small population. The whole chloroplast (CP) genome was assembled by NovoPlasty using high-throughput sequencing data generated by an Illumina Hiseq X Ten platform. The circular chloroplast genome is 159,682 bp in length, and comprises a large single copy of 79,461 bp, a small single copy of 49,156 bp, and two inverted repeats of 31,064 bp each. The CP genome contains 137 genes, including 89 protein-coding genes, eight rRNA genes, 36 tRNA genes, and four pseudogenes. All the pseudogenes were infA, rpl32, ycf1, and ndhK. Phylogenetic analysis results indicated that C. guniuensis was sister to C. trichotoma, with a support rate of 100%.

We report the crystal and electronic structures of a noncentrosymmetric quasi-two-dimensional (2D) candidate of topological semimetal AuTe2Br. The Fermi surface of this layered compound consists of 2D-like, topological trivial electron and nontrivial hole pockets, which host a Dirac cone along the kz direction. Our transport measurements on the single crystals show highly anisotropic, compensated low-density electrons and holes, both of which exhibit ultrahigh mobility at a level of 105 cm2 V−1 s−1 at low temperature. The highly mobile, compensated carriers lead a nonsaturated, parabolic magnetoresistance as large as 3 × 105 in single-crystalline AuTe2Br in a magnetic field up to 58 T.

Background Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) as a diagnostic or prognostic marker has been widely studied in patients with lung cancer. However, the relationship between serum CEA and tumor metastasis in lung cancer remains controversial. This study aimed to investigate the ability of serum CEA to assess tumor metastasis in lung cancer patients. Methods We performed a retrospective analysis of 238 patients diagnosed with lung cancer from January to December 2016 at pneumology department of Dazhou Central Hospital (Dazhou, China). Serum CEA levels were quantified in each patient at the time of diagnosis of lung cancer. Metastasis was confirmed by computed tomography (CT), and/or positron emission tomography (PET) and/or surgery or other necessary detecting methods. Results Of the 213 patients eligible for final analysis, 128 were diagnosed with metastasis and 85 were diagnosed without metastasis. Compared to non-metastatic patients, the serum CEA was markedly higher in patients with metastasis (p

Tyrosine autophosphorylation plays a crucial regulatory role in the kinase activities of fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs), and in the recruitment and activation of downstream intracellular signaling pathways. Biophysical and biochemical investigations of FGFR kinase domains in membrane environments offer key insights into phosphorylation mechanisms. Hence, we constructed nickel chelating nanodiscs based on a 22-residue peptide. The spontaneous anchoring of N-terminal His6-tagged FGFR1c kinase domain (FGFR1K) onto peptide nanodiscs grants FGFR1K orientations occurring on native plasma membranes. Following membrane incorporation, the autophosphorylation of FGFR1K, as exemplified by Y653 and Y654 in the A-loop and the total tyrosine phosphorylation, increase significantly. This in vitro reconstitution system may be applicable to studies of other membrane associated phenomena.

Three pairs of new spirocyclic alkaloid enantiomers eurotinoids A–C (1–3), as well as a known biogenetically related racemate dihydrocryptoechinulin D (4) were isolated from a marine-derived fungus Eurotium sp. SCSIO F452. Their structures were determined by spectroscopic analyses and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) calculations. Compounds 1 and 2 represent the first two “meta” products from a non-stereoselective [4 + 2] Diels-Alder cycloaddition presumably between an enone group of a diketopiperazine alkaloid and a diene group of a benzaldehyde derivative via a new head-to-tail coupling mode biosynthetically, while 3 and 4 were “ortho” products. Their enantiomers exhibited different antioxidative and cytotoxic activities. The modes of action were investigated by a preliminary molecular docking study.

Alcohol-induced chronic liver disease (ALD) is becoming the most common liver disease in the world. However, there are no effective, universally accepted therapies for ALD. The etiology of ALD remains blurry so far. Historical evidence has demonstrated a link between the liver and gut microbiota. But it is difficult to distinguish the effect of gut microbiota changes caused by alcohol consumption in humans since the microbiota change detected in humans is complicated by diet and environmental factors. Due to the genetic, physiological, metabolic, and behavioral similarities to humans, the rhesus monkey provides excellent translational validity in preclinical studies, and the diet and environmental conditions can be controlled well in rhesus monkey. In our study, we explored the relationship between ALD and the gut microbiome in the rhesus monkeys with alcoholic liver steatosis. Our results showed that there was a change of the bacterial community structure in monkeys with ALD. Differences of the relative abundances of gut microbiota at phylum, order, family, genus, and species levels were observed between control monkeys and monkeys with ALD, and different pathways enriched in the monkeys with ALD were identified by metagenomic function analysis. Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia tended to increase whereas Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria decreased in the fecal microbiota of ALD group compared to the control group. Lactobacillales and Lactobacillus significantly decreased in ALD monkeys compared with normal monkeys, Streptococcus was lower in the ALD group compared with the control group. The non-human primate model of ALD will be useful for exploration of the microbiome markers as diagnosis and potentially prognosis for ALD. The ALD model will benefit the development of new therapeutic procedures for treating ALD and provide safety and efficacy evaluation for clinical application.

This review describes recent advances in the use of magnetic-plasmonic particles (MPPs) for bacteria detection by Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS). Pathogenic bacteria pollution has always been a major threat to human health and safety. SERS spectroscopy has emerged as a powerful and promising technique for sensitive and selective detection of pathogen bacteria. MPPs are considered as a versatile SERS platform for their excellent plasmonic properties and good magnetic responsiveness. Improved preparation method and typical characterization technique of MPPs are introduced, focusing on the thin and continuous metallic shell covering process. Consequently, the SERS-based sensing methods for bacteria identification were discussed, including the label-free and label-based methods. Finally, an overview of the current state of the field and our perspective on future development directions are given.

This study is conducted to examine the ignition sensitivity and explosion severity differences among different ranks of coal dust and reveal the causes underlying these differences. A G–G furnace, a Hartmann tube, and a 20 L explosion tank are used to test MIT, MIE, Pmax, (dp/dt)max, and other parameters of three different ranks of coal dust. SEM analysis is carried out on the coal dust before and after explosion to compare and trace their microstructure changes. The results indicate that the lower the rank of the coal, the more likely the dust cloud to be ignited, the faster the explosion flame propagated, and the greater the explosion severity. The main drivers behind the ignition sensitivity and explosion severity differences among different ranks of coal dust are the volatile content and pyrolytic property of the coal.