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Abstract Background Osteocytes are critical mechanosensory cells in bone, and mechanically stimulated osteocytes produce exosomes that can induce osteogenesis. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important constituents of exosomes, and some miRNAs in osteocytes regulate osteogenic differentiation; previous studies have indicated that some differentially expressed miRNAs in mechanically strained osteocytes likely influence osteoblastic differentiation. Therefore, screening and selection of miRNAs that regulate osteogenic differentiation in exosomes of mechanically stimulated osteocytes are important. Results A mechanical tensile strain of 2500 με at 0.5 Hz 1 h per day for 3 days, elevated prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) levels and nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity of MLO-Y4 osteocytes, and promoted osteogenic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 osteoblasts. Fourteen miRNAs differentially expressed only in MLO-Y4 osteocytes which were stimulated with mechanical tensile strain, were screened, and the miRNAs related to osteogenesis were identified. Four differentially expressed miRNAs (miR-1930-3p, miR-3110-5p, miR-3090-3p, and miR-3058-3p) were found only in mechanically strained osteocytes, and the four miRNAs, eight targeted mRNAs which were differentially expressed only in mechanically strained osteoblasts, were also identified. In addition, the mechanically strained osteocyte-derived exosomes promoted the osteoblastic differentiation of MC3T3-E1 cells in vitro, the exosomes were internalized by osteoblasts, and the up-regulated miR-3110-5p and miR-3058-3p in mechanically strained osteocytes, were both increased in the exosomes, which was verified via reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). Conclusions In osteocytes, a mechanical tensile strain of 2500 με at 0.5 Hz induced the fourteen differentially expressed miRNAs which probably were in exosomes of osteocytes and involved in osteogenesis. The mechanically strained osteocyte-derived exosomes which contained increased miR-3110-5p and miR-3058-3p (two of the 14 miRNAs), promoted osteoblastic differentiation.

PURPOSEThe current meta-analysis aimed to compare the diagnostic performance of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) with 18F-FDG PET/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) lymph node metastasis staging.METHODSWe searched the PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases for relevant articles between November 1992 and September 2022. Studies evaluating the head-to-head comparison of 18F-FDG PET/CT and 18F-FDG PET/MRI for lymph node metastasis in patients with NSCLC were included. The quality of each study was assessed using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Performance Studies-2 tool.RESULTSThe analysis includes six studies with a total of 434 patients. The pooled sensitivity of 18F-FDG PET/CT and 18F-FDG PET/MRI was 0.78 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.59-0.90] and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.68-0.93), and the pooled specificity was 0.87 (95% CI: 0.72-0.94) and 0.87 (95% CI: 0.80-0.92), respectively. The accuracy of 18F-FDG PET/CT and 18F-FDG PET/MRI was 0.81 (95% CI: 0.71-0.90) and 0.84 (95% CI: 0.75-0.92), respectively. When the pre-test probability was set at 50%, the post-test probability for 18F-FDG PET/CT could increase to 85%, and the post-test probability for 18F-FDG PET/MRI could increase to 87%.CONCLUSION18F-FDG PET/CT and 18F-FDG PET/MRI have similar diagnostic performance in detecting lymph node metastasis in NSCLC. However, the results of this study were from a small sample study, and further studies with larger sample sizes are needed.

BackgroundThe relationship between dietary factors and hernias is currently unclear.MethodsThe UK Biobank was used to extract dietary factors that were used as exposures, including intake of alcohol, non-oily fish, beef, fresh fruit, oily fish, salad/raw vegetables, dried fruit, coffee, cereal, salt, tea, water, cooked vegetables, cheese, Lamb/mutton, pork, poultry, processed meat, and bread. The FinnGen biobank was used to obtain GWAS data on hernias as outcomes. The main analysis of this study was performed using the weighted median, MR-Egger, and IVW methods. Cochran’s Q test was utilized to assess heterogeneity. To find potential outliers, the MR-PRESSO method was used. Leave-one-out analysis was employed to assess the IVW method’s robustness.ResultsAlcoholic consumption per week (OR: 0.614; p = 0.00614) reduced the risk of inguinal hernia. Alcohol intake frequency (OR: 1.309; p = 0.0477) increased the risk of ventral hernia (mainly including incisional hernia and parastomal hernia). The intake of non-oily fish (OR: 2.945; p = 0.0214) increased the risk of inguinal hernia. Salt added to food (OR: 1.841; p = 0.00267) increased the risk of umbilical hernia. Cheese intake (OR: 0.434; p = 0.000536) and dried fruit intake (OR: 0.322; p = 0.00716) decreased the risk of ventral hernia, while cooked vegetable intake (OR: 4.475; p = 0.0380) increased the risk of ventral hernia. No causal relationships were found with hernias from other dietary factors.ConclusionInguinal, umbilical, and ventral hernias are all related to dietary factors.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have gained widespread popularity due to their ease of deployment and high agility in various applications. In scenarios such as search missions and target tracking, conducting complex and computation-intensive tasks in multi-UAV systems have become essential. Recent investigations have explored the integration of collaborative centralized learning (CL) and federated learning (FL) into multi-UAV systems. However, CL methods raise privacy concerns and may suffer from communication delays, while FL methods demand high UAV-side computation capability. To address these challenges, split learning (SL) emerges as a promising alternative, offering reduced learning iteration time and improved accuracy in resource-constrained edge clients. In this study, we leverage SL and Stitch-able Neural Network (SN-NET) to propose a novel Stitch-able Split Learning (SSL) approach for multi-UAV systems. The proposed SSL approach is capable of tackling challenges in terms of device instability and model heterogeneity that associated in multi-UAV systems. Comparative simulations are conducted, evaluating its performance against CL, FL, traditional SL and SFLV1 (SplitFed Learning V1) approaches to establish its superiority.

A particle size inversion method based on whale optimization algorithm (WOA) is presented. In the experiment, the small angle forward scattering measurement system is used to conduct experimental research on the inversion of bubble particle size. WOA is used to invert and simulate the bubbles that follow a certain distribution, adding different levels of random noise to verify the stability of the algorithm. The results verify the feasibility and stability of applying WOA to particle size inversion.

Abstract Background Quercus aliena is a major montane tree species of subtropical and temperate forests in China, with important ecological and economic value. In order to reveal the species’ population dynamics, genetic diversity, genetic structure, and association with mountain habitats during the evolutionary process, we re-sequenced the genomes of 72 Q. aliena individuals. Results The whole chloroplast and nuclear genomes were used for this study. Phylogenetic analysis using the chloroplast genome dataset supported four clades of Q. aliena, while the nuclear dataset supported three major clades. Sex-biased dispersal had a critical role in causing discordance between the chloroplast and nuclear genomes. Population structure analysis showed two groups in Q. aliena. The effective population size sharply declined 1 Mya, coinciding with the Poyang Glaciation in Eastern China. Using genotype–climate association analyses, we found a positive correlation between allele frequency variation in SNPs and temperature, suggesting the species has the capacity to adapt to changing temperatures. Conclusion Overall, this study illustrates the genetic divergence, genomic variation, and evolutionary processes behind the demographic history of Q. aliena.

IntroductionVolume conduction models of the human head are used in various neuroscience fields, such as for source reconstruction in EEG and MEG, and for modeling the effects of brain stimulation. Numerous studies have quantified the accuracy and sensitivity of volume conduction models by analyzing the effects of the geometrical and electrical features of the head model, the sensor model, the source model, and the numerical method. Most studies are based on simulations as it is hard to obtain sufficiently detailed measurements to compare to models. The recording of stereotactic EEG during electric stimulation mapping provides an opportunity for such empirical validation.MethodsIn the study presented here, we used the potential distribution of volume-conducted artifacts that are due to cortical stimulation to evaluate the accuracy of finite element method (FEM) volume conduction models. We adopted a widely used strategy for numerical comparison, i.e., we fixed the geometrical description of the head model and the mathematical method to perform simulations, and we gradually altered the head models, by increasing the level of detail of the conductivity profile. We compared the simulated potentials at different levels of refinement with the measured potentials in three epilepsy patients.ResultsOur results show that increasing the level of detail of the volume conduction head model only marginally improves the accuracy of the simulated potentials when compared to in-vivo sEEG measurements. The mismatch between measured and simulated potentials is, throughout all patients and models, maximally 40 microvolts (i.e., 10% relative error) in 80% of the stimulation-recording combination pairs and it is modulated by the distance between recording and stimulating electrodes.DiscussionOur study suggests that commonly used strategies used to validate volume conduction models based solely on simulations might give an overly optimistic idea about volume conduction model accuracy. We recommend more empirical validations to be performed to identify those factors in volume conduction models that have the highest impact on the accuracy of simulated potentials. We share the dataset to allow researchers to further investigate the mismatch between measurements and FEM models and to contribute to improving volume conduction models.

Abstract The liver is one of the most ordinary metastatic sites of gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma and significantly affects its prognosis. Therefore, this study tried to construct a nomogram that can be applied to predict the likelihood of liver metastases from gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. 3001 eligible patients diagnosed with gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma between 2010 and 2015 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were involved in the analysis. Patients were randomly divided into a training cohort and an internal validation cohort using R software, with an allocation ratio of 7:3. According to the consequences of univariate and multivariate logistic regression, we constructed a nomogram for predicting the risk of liver metastases. The discrimination and calibration ability of the nomogram was appraised by the C-index, ROC curve, calibration plots, and decision curve analysis (DCA). We also used Kaplan–Meier survival curves to compare differences in overall survival in patients with gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with and without liver metastases. Liver metastases developed in 281 of 3001 eligible patients. The overall survival of patients with gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with liver metastases before and after propensity score matching (PSM) was obviously lower than that of patients without liver metastases. Six risk factors were finally recognized by multivariate logistic regression, and a nomogram was constructed. The C-index was 0.816 in the training cohort and 0.771 in the validation cohort, demonstrating the good predictive capacity of the nomogram. The ROC curve, calibration curve, and decision curve analysis further demonstrated the good performance of the predictive model. The nomogram can accurately predict the likelihood of liver metastases in gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma patients.

The Quercus variabilis, a deciduous broadleaved tree species, holds significant ecological and economical value. While a chromosome-level genome for this species has been made available, it remains riddled with unanchored sequences and gaps. In this study, we present a nearly complete comprehensive telomere-to-telomere (T2T) and haplotype-resolved reference genome for Q. variabilis. This was achieved through the integration of ONT ultra-long reads, PacBio HiFi long reads, and Hi-C data. The resultant two haplotype genomes measure 789 Mb and 768 Mb in length, with a contig N50 of 65 Mb and 56 Mb, and were anchored to 12 allelic chromosomes. Within this T2T haplotype-resolved assembly, we predicted 36,830 and 36,370 protein-coding genes, with 95.9% and 96.0% functional annotation for each haplotype genome. The availability of the T2T and haplotype-resolved reference genome lays a solid foundation, not only for illustrating genome structure and functional genomics studies but also to inform and facilitate genetic breeding and improvement of cultivated Quercus species.

The seeds of Tilia miqueliana Maxim. exhibit deep dormancy, which is categorized as combinational dormancy. This study utilized a comprehensive treatment involving magnetic fields, gibberellin (GA3), and cold stratification to promote the release of seed physiological dormancy and enhance germination rates. After being soaked in 98% H2SO4 for 15 min, mature seeds of Tilia were exposed to magnetic field treatments (150 MT, 250 MT) for different durations (25 min, 45 min, 65 min, and 85 min), as well as GA3 solution soaking (concentration: 0 μmol·L−1, 1443 μmol·L−1). Subsequently, cold stratification (0–5 °C) was applied to investigate the effects of these treatments on seed dormancy release and nutrient transformation. The results indicated that the comprehensive treatment involving magnetic field, GA3 solution soaking, and cold stratification effectively released the physiological dormancy of Tilia seeds and improved germination rates. Among the treatments, M150T85G1443 (magnetic field intensity: 150 MT, magnetic field treatment time: 85 min, GA3 soaking concentration: 1433 μmol·L−1) exhibited the most favorable outcome. After 75 days of cold stratification following the comprehensive treatments, the germination rate of M150T85G1443 seeds reached 89%. Additionally, the levels of storage substances such as starches and crude fats within the seeds decreased, while the utilization of soluble sugars and soluble proteins increased. The M150T85G1443 treatment exhibited the highest degree of variation, leading to gradual increases in metabolic activities of the seeds and a transition from dormancy to germination.

BackgroundNo existing comprehensive Mendelian randomization studies have focused on how obesity affects respiratory diseases.MethodsBMI and waist circumference, mainly from the UK Biobank, and 35 respiratory diseases from the FinnGen Biobank were subjected to Mendelian randomization analyses. In this study, the inverse variance weighting method was used as the predominant analysis method and was complemented by MR-Egger and weighted median methods. Horizontal pleiotropy and potential outliers were detected by employing the MR-PRESSO method.Results:This study indicated that obesity rises the possibility of acute upper respiratory infections (BMI: OR=1.131, p

β-Glucans are a group of heterogeneous glucose polymers that possess immunomodulatory activities. The complex nature of their structures, uncertainty regarding the doses, and variable immune effects pose a challenge to comprehensive understanding. In this study, we investigated the immune responses and apoptosis effects in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) head kidney macrophages (MФ) upon exposure to two β-Glucans (Paramylon and Laminarin) at low and high doses. Our results demonstrate that Paramylon elicits more robust immune responses than Laminarin, albeit with a dose-limiting effect. We also observed that the high-dose Paramylon induces apoptosis, whereas no such effect was detected in Laminarin treatment. Mechanistically, high-dose Paramylon activates the intrinsic apoptosis pathway, with significantly up-regulation of intrinsic apoptosis-related genes and impaired mitochondrial function. On the other hand, Laminarin triggers metabolic reprogramming in MФ, resulting in the enrichment of the metabolite α-Ketoglutarate, which protects the MФ from apoptosis. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of identifying the optimal dose range for β-Glucans, based on sources or structures, to achieve maximal immunomodulatory effects. These results have important implications for the design and optimization of β-Glucans-based drugs or adjuvants in immunotherapies.

Background: Germline HLA class I molecule supertypes are shown to correlate with response to anti-PD-1 therapy. Here, we investigate the significance of germline HLA-A and HLA-B supertypes in tumour microenvironment of non-small-cell lung cancer. Methods: Totally 278 NSCLC patients were collected retrospectively. HLA genotyping was conducted using next-generation sequencing. The evaluation of tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes was performed by multiplex immunohistochemistry assay. Correlations among HLA supertypes, tumour infiltrating lymphocytes, and clinicopathological characteristics were assessed. Results: HLA-A03 and HLA-B62 were the supertypes with the highest proportions, at 69.1% and 52.2%, respectively. HLA-A02 or HLA-B62, but not HLA-A03, associated with higher PD-L1+ tumour and stromal cells levels, CD68+ cells, and CD68+PD-L1+ cells. Patients with both HLA-A02 and HLA-B62 supertypes displayed significantly higher PD-L1+ cells, CD68+ cells, and CD8+ cells levels than patients with other supertypes (P = 0.0301, P = 0.0479, P = 0.0192). These cells collectively constitute a hot but immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment. Accordingly, patients with both HLA-A02 and HLA-B62 supertypes had short progression-free survival after surgery (HR = 2.27, P = 0.0373). Conclusions: The HLA-A02B62 supertype could serve as a possible indicator of poor prognosis in early-stage lung cancer. However, it may also act as a favorable prognostic factor for immunotherapy, given its association with a PD-L1-positive tumour microenvironment.

BackgroundArtificial intelligence (AI) discrimination models using single radioactive variables in recognition algorithms of lung nodules cannot predict lung cancer accurately. Hence, we developed a clinical model that combines AI with blood test variables to predict lung cancer.MethodsBetween 2018 and 2021, 584 individuals (358 patients with lung cancer and 226 individuals with lung nodules other than cancer as control) were enrolled prospectively. Machine learning algorithms including lasso regression and random forest (RF) were used to select variables from blood test data, Logistic regression analysis was used to reconfirm the features to build the nomogram model. The predictive performance was assessed by performing the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis as well as calibration, clinical decision and impact curves. A cohort of 48 patients was used to independently validate the model. The subgroup application was analyzed by pathological diagnosis.FindingsA total of 584 patients were enrolled (358 lung cancers, 61.30%,226 patients for the control group) to establish the model. The integrated model identified eight potential factors including carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), AI score, Pro-Gastrin Releasing Peptide (ProGRP), cytokeratin 19 fragment antigen21-1(CYFRA211), squamous cell carcinoma antigen(SCC), indirect bilirubin(IBIL), activated partial thromboplastin time(APTT) and age. The area under the curve (AUC) of the nomogram was 0.907 (95% CI, 0.881-0.929). The decision and clinical impact curves showed good predictive accuracy of the model. An AUC of 0.844 (95% CI, 0.710 - 0.932) was obtained for the external validation group.ConclusionThe nomogram model integrating AI and clinical data can accurately predict lung cancer, especially for the squamous cell carcinoma subtype.

BackgroundPrevious research has found a link between dietary factors and asthma. However, few studies have analyzed the relationship between dietary factors and asthma using Mendelian randomization. Methods: The IEU Open GWAS project (https://gwas.mrcieu.ac.uk/) was the source of exposure and outcome datasets. The exposure datasets included Alcoholic drinks per week, Alcohol intake frequency, Processed meat intake, Poultry intake, Beef intake, Non-oily fish intake, Oily fish intake, Pork intake, Lamb/mutton intake, Bread intake, Cheese intake, Cooked vegetable intake, Tea intake, Fresh fruit intake, Cereal intake, Salad/raw vegetable intake, Coffee intake, and Dried fruit intake. The weighted median, MR-Egger, and Inverse Variance Weighted methods were used as the main methods of Mendelian randomization analysis. Heterogeneity and pleiotropic analysis were performed to ensure the accuracy of the results.ResultsAlcohol intake frequency (after removing outliers OR: 1.217; 95% CI: 1.048-1.413; p=0.00993) was related to an increased risk of Asthma. Fresh fruit intake (OR: 0.489; 95% CI: 0.320-0.748; p=0.000954) and Dried fruit intake (after removing outliers OR: 0.482; 95% CI: 0.325-0.717; p= 0.000312) were discovered as protective factors. Other dietary intakes found no causal relationship with asthma.ConclusionThis study found that dried fruit intake and fresh fruit intake were associated with a reduced risk of asthma, and alcohol intake frequency was associated with an increased risk of asthma. This study also found that other factors included in this study were not associated with asthma.

Alniaria alnifolia (Siebold and Zucc.) Rushforth, 2018 (alternative name: Sorbus alnifolia) belongs to the genus Alniaria of the family Rosaceae and is widely distributed in northern China, Korea, and Japan. It is an essential resource used in the construction, pharmaceuticals, and food industries. It is also used to treat various diseases, such as fever, hyperglycemia, rash, asthma, bronchitis, constipation, leprosy, anemia, and other skin ailments. In this study, we sequenced a sample of A. alnifolia and determined its complete chloroplast genome. The chloroplast genome of A. alnifolia has a circular structure with a length of 159,855 bp, which includes a small single-copy region (19,409 bp), a large single-copy region (87,628 bp), and two inverted repeats (26,409 bp). The sequence had 130 genes, including 85 protein-coding genes, eight rRNA genes, and 37 tRNA genes, and the overall GC content was 36.6%. The genes trnK-UUU, rps16, trnG-UCC, atpF, rpoC1, trnL-UAA, trnV-UAC, petB, petD, rpl16, rpl2, ndhB, trnI-GAU, trnA-UGC, and ndhA contained one intron; genes clpP and ycf3 contained two introns. Phylogenetic results showed that A. alnifolia had the closest relationship with Sorbus folgneri (MK161058).

Submarine pipelines are the main means of transporting oil and gas produced offshore. The present work proposed a deep learning technology to identify damage caused by characteristic events and abnormal events using pipeline images collected by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). The EfficientNet and You Only Look Once (YOLO) models were used in this study to classify images and detect events. The results show that the EfficentNet model achieved the highest classification accuracy at 93.57 percent, along with a recall rate of 88.57 percent. The combining of the EfficentNet and YOLOv5 models achieved a higher accuracy of detecting submarine pipeline events and outperformed any other methods. A new decision-making system that integrates the operation and maintenance of the model is proposed and a convenient operation is realized, which provides a new construction method for the rapid inspection of submarine pipelines. Overall, the results of this study show that images acquired via ROVs can be applied to deep learning models to examine submarine pipeline events. The deep learning model is at the core of establishing an effective decision support system for submarine pipeline inspection and the overall application framework lays the foundation for practical application.

This study aims to investigate the desiccation sensitivity characteristics and the critical moisture content of the recalcitrant Quercus variabilis seed. Additionally, cryopreservation of the recalcitrant seeds were studied. Wild-collected Q. variabilis seeds were used in this research. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was employed to evaluate the critical moisture content and germination indices at different moisture contents were measured. The initial moisture content of the seeds and embryonic axes decreased from 33.1% and 40.9%, respectively, to 10.0%, accompanied by a germination rate decrease of 95.6% and 90.0% to 6.3% and 60.0%, respectively. The theoretical critical moisture content of the embryonic axis was calculated to be 11.55%. As dehydration progressed, drastic changes were observed in the antioxidant enzyme system. Initially, the levels of PRO and SOD in the seeds increased and then decreased, while the levels of POD and MDA consistently increased. The cryopreservation of the embryonic axis was achieved using vitrification. The embryonic axis with a moisture content of 10% had a 15% survival rate when pretreated with PVS2 for 60 min prior to cryopreservation. The results demonstrated that the cryopreservation of the Q. variabilis embryonic axis is possible, but the method needs adjustment to increase the recovery survival rate.

Clematis is one of the large worldwide genera of the Ranunculaceae Juss. Family, with high ornamental and medicinal value. China is the modern distribution centre of Clematis with abundant natural populations. Due to the complexity and high morphological diversity of Clematis, the genus is difficult to classify systematically, and in particular, the phylogenetic position of the endangered Clematis acerifolia is highly controversial. The use of the mitochondrial complete genome is a powerful molecular method that is frequently used for inferring plants phylogenies. However, studies on Clematis mitogenome are rare, thus limiting our full understanding of its phylogeny and genome evolution. Here, we sequenced and annotated the C. acerifolia mt genome using Illumina short- and Nanopore long-reads, characterized the species first complete mitogenome, and performed a comparative phylogenetic analysis with its close relatives. The total length of the C. acerifolia mitogenome is 698,247 bp and the main structure is multi-branched (linear molecule 1 and circular molecule 2). We annotated 55 genes, including 35 protein-coding, 17 tRNA, and 3 rRNA genes. The C. acerifolia mitogenome has extremely unconserved structurally, with extensive sequence transfer between the chloroplast and mitochondrial organelles, sequence repeats, and RNA editing. The phylogenetic position of C. acerifolia was determined by constructing the species mitogenome with 24 angiosperms. Further, our C. acerifolia mitogenome characteristics investigation included GC contents, codon usage, repeats and synteny analysis. Overall, our results are expected to provide fundamental information for C. acerifolia mitogenome evolution and confirm the validity of mitochondrial analysis in determining the phylogenetic positioning of Clematis plants.

Bone is sensitive to mechanical stimulation and plays a loading-bearing role in the human body. However, regulation of bone biomechanical properties in chronic hypergravity environments is still unclear. In this study, male Wistar rats exposed to chronic hypergravity environments (4×g, 8×g, 10×g, and 20×g) for 4 weeks were set as the hypergravity groups, and rats exposed to the normal gravity as the control group. Morphology parameters and bone remodeling factors were obtained by means of micro-CT, Western blot, and q-PCR. Mechanical properties of femurs were measured utilizing three points bending test and creep test and were fitted into a viscoelastic-viscoplastic constitutive equation. The results indicate osteoporosis occurred in femurs of hypergravity groups. Accordingly, the protein and gene expressions of bone remodeling factors (OPG, RANKL, runx2) in hypergravity groups were significantly different from that in the control group, demonstrating that bone formation level increased and bone resorption level decreased. Meanwhile, mechanical properties of femurs in hypergravity groups showed that Young's modulus of femurs in the 20×g group was significantly higher than that in the control group. The viscoelastic-viscoplastic properties of bone tissue were changed in hypergravity environments. Among them, the 8×g group was closest to the control group in morphology and mechanical properties. To sum up, the biomechanical response regulation of rat femur under 4-20×g chronic hypergravity environments was presented. Hypergravity environments could lead to osteoporosis. The balance between bone formation and bone resorption would be disrupted in hypergravity groups due to bone adaptation. 20×g environment has a significant effect on elastic modulus on femurs. Due to the difference in biomechanical response of femurs, the viscoelastic-viscoplastic characteristics of femurs have a nonlinear relationship with hypergravity values. Bone tissue was least affected by 8×g hypergravity in morphology and mechanical properties.

Identification of the evolution history and genetic diversity of a species is important in the utilization of novel genetic variation in this species, as well as for its conservation. Pistacia chinensis is an important biodiesel tree crop in China, due to the high oil content of its fruit. The aim of this study was to uncover the genetic structure of P. chinensis and to investigate the influence of intraspecific gene flow on the process of domestication and the diversification of varieties. We investigated the genetic structure of P. chinensis, as well as evolution and introgression in the subpopulations, through analysis of the plastid and nuclear genomes of 39 P. chinensis individuals from across China. High levels of variation were detected in the P. chinensis plastome, and 460 intraspecific polymorphic sites, 104 indels and three small inversions were identified. Phylogenetic analysis and population structure using the plastome dataset supported five clades of P. chinensis. Population structure analysis based on the nuclear SNPs showed two groups, clearly clustered together, and more than a third of the total individuals were classified as hybrids. Discordance between the plastid and nuclear genomes suggested that hybridization events may have occurred between highly divergent samples in the P. chinensis subclades. Most of the species in the P. chinensis subclade diverged between the late Miocene and the mid-Pliocene. The processes of domestication and cultivation have decreased the genetic diversity of P. chinensis. The extensive variability and structuring of the P. chinensis plastid together with the nuclear genomic variation detected in this study suggests that much unexploited genetic diversity is available for improvement in this recently domesticated species.

Quercus variabilis (Fagaceae) is an ecologically and economically important deciduous broadleaved tree species native to and widespread in East Asia. It is a valuable woody species and an indicator of local forest health, and occupies a dominant position in forest ecosystems in East Asia. However, genomic resources from Q. variabilis are still lacking. Here, we present a high-quality Q. variabilis genome generated by PacBio HiFi and Hi-C sequencing. The assembled genome size is 787 Mb, with a contig N50 of 26.04 Mb and scaffold N50 of 64.86 Mb, comprising 12 pseudo-chromosomes. The repetitive sequences constitute 67.6% of the genome, of which the majority are long terminal repeats, accounting for 46.62% of the genome. We used ab initio, RNA sequence-based and homology-based predictions to identify protein-coding genes. A total of 32,466 protein-coding genes were identified, of which 95.11% could be functionally annotated. Evolutionary analysis showed that Q. variabilis was more closely related to Q. suber than to Q. lobata or Q. robur. We found no evidence for species-specific whole genome duplications in Quercus after the species had diverged. This study provides the first genome assembly and the first gene annotation data for Q. variabilis. These resources will inform the design of further breeding strategies, and will be valuable in the study of genome editing and comparative genomics in oak species.

Phoebe sheareri is an excellent roadside tree with a wide distribution range and high ornamental value. Excessive moisture can affect the external morphology, the microstructure, and the ultrastructure of the leaf. Little is known at present regarding the leaf structure of P. sheareri under waterlogging stress. In this paper, the external morphology of leaves, the microstructure of leaf epidermis, and the ultrastructure of mesophyll cells of P. sheareri seedlings under waterlogging stress and drainage were dynamically observed. Waterlogging stress contributed to the yellowing and wilting of P. sheareri seedling leaves, the gradual closing of leaf epidermal stomata, increasing density of leaf stomata, gradual loosening of the arrangement of leaf cell structure, and merging of leaf palisade tissue cells. Waterlogging stress forced the structure of the chloroplast membranes to blur, gradually causing swelling, and deformation, with plasmolysis occurring in severe cases. During waterlogging, the basal lamellae were disorganized, and the mitochondrial membrane structure was damaged. The damaged state of the leaves was not relieved after drainage. Waterlogging stress not only inhibited the growth of leaves, but also accelerated the closure of stomata, disordered the arrangement of palisade tissue and spongy tissue gradually, and damaged the internal organelles of mesophyll cells.

Underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) is acknowledged as a useful way to transmit data in the ocean for short-distance applications. Carrying a UWOC device on mobile platforms is quite practical in ocean engineering, which is helpful to exploit its advantages. In application, such a platform needs a camera to observe the surroundings and guide its action. Since the majority of ocean is always dark, active illumination is necessary to imaging. When UWOC works in such an environment, its performance is affected by the illumination light noise. In this paper, we study the influence of underwater LED illumination on bidirectional UWOC with the Monte Carlo method. We simulate forward noise from LED illumination to the opposite receiver in the cooperative terminal, and the backscattering noise on the adjacent receiver in the same terminal. The results show that the forward noise is reduced with the increase of theabsorption coefficient, scattering coefficient, transmitting distance, and separated distance between receiver and the optical axis of LED. However, it becomes greater with the field of view (FOV) of the receiver. The backscattering noise is reduced with the increase of the absorption coefficient and separated distance between receiver and LED. However, it becomes greater with the FOV and scattering coefficient, while it has little relation with transmitting distance. In order to reduce these two kinds of noises, besides inserting an optical filter in the receivers and narrowing their FOV, the optical axis of LED light should keep away from the receivers. The results in this paper are helpful for UWOC application.

It has been well documented that the auditory system in the superior temporal cortex is responsible for processing basic auditory sound features, such as sound frequency and intensity, while the prefrontal cortex is involved in higher-order auditory functions, such as language processing and auditory episodic memory. The temporal auditory cortex has vast forward anatomical projections to the prefrontal auditory cortex, connecting with the lateral, medial, and orbital parts of the prefrontal cortex. The connections between the auditory cortex and the prefrontal cortex thus help in localizing, recognizing, and comprehending external auditory inputs. In addition, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is believed to be a core region of episodic memory retrieval and is one of the most important regions in the default mode network (DMN). However, previous neural evidence with regard to the comparison between basic auditory processing and auditory episodic memory retrieval mainly comes from fMRI studies. The specific neural networks and the corresponding critical frequency bands of neuronal oscillations underlying the two auditory functions remain unclear. In the present study, we reported results of direct cortical stimulations during stereo-electro-encephalography (SEEG) recording in a patient with drug-resistant epilepsy. Electrodes covered the superior temporal gyrus, the operculum and the insula cortex of bilateral hemispheres, the prefrontal cortex, the parietal lobe, the anterior and middle cingulate cortex, and the amygdala of the left hemisphere. Two types of auditory hallucinations were evoked with direct cortical stimulations, which were consistent with the habitual seizures. The noise hallucinations, i.e., “I could hear buzzing noises in my head,” were evoked with the stimulation of the superior temporal gyrus. The episodic memory hallucinations “I could hear a young woman who was dressed in a red skirt saying: What is the matter with you?,” were evoked with the stimulation of MPFC. The patient described how she had met this young woman when she was young and that the woman said the same sentence to her. Furthermore, by analyzing the high gamma power (HGP) induced by direct electrical stimulation, two dissociable neural networks underlying the two types of auditory hallucinations were localized. Taken together, the present results confirm the hierarchical processing of auditory information by showing the different involvements of the primary auditory cortex vs. the prefrontal cortex in the two types of auditory hallucinations.

Liquidambar formosana Hance is a common deciduous broad-leaved tree known for its fast growth rate and adaptability. However, excessive logging has substantially reduced the area of natural forest patches of L. formosana, and seedling regeneration is essential for the long-term continuation of L. formosana populations. To explore the effects of light intensity on the seedling emergence and early growth of L. formosana, a controlled experiment was conducted under three light-intensity treatments (20%, 60%, and 100% of full sunlight, i.e., the photosynthetic photon flux densities (PPFDs) were 223.93 ± 7.54, 670.94 ± 30.14, and 1119.61 ± 23.19 μmol·m−2·s−1, respectively). The seedling emergence percentage, mean germination time, germination synchrony, vitality index, survival percentage, emergence index, morphological characteristics, and biomass allocation under different light intensities were analyzed. The seedling vitality index and survival percentage significantly differed among the treatments and were the lowest under 20% light intensity. With increased light intensity, the seedling mean germination time and germination synchrony increased and then decreased, and the opposite was true for the emergence index. With the increased light intensity, the seedling height, stem diameter, and root length significantly increased. The total, root, stem, and leaf biomasses reached maximum values under full sunlight. With the increased light intensity, the leaf biomass ratio increased, whereas the root biomass, stem biomass, and root–shoot ratios decreased. Our results indicated that the poor light environment under the canopy is not conducive to the survival and growth of L. formosana seedlings and may be among the primary reasons for low seedling establishment.

Electrospinning is considered to be an efficient method to prepare piezoelectric thin films because of its ability to transform the phase of the polymers. A core-sheath structure can endow fibers with more functions and properties. In this study, fibers with a core-sheath structure were prepared using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) included with nanoparticles (NPs) as the shell layer and polycaprolactone (PCL) as the core layer. Their mechanical and piezoelectric properties were studied in detail. During the course of the electrospinning process, PVDF was demonstrated to increase the amount of its polar phase, with the help of nanoparticles acting as a nucleating agent to facilitate the change. PCL was chosen as a core material because of its good mechanical properties and its compatibility with PVDF. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) assessments revealed that the fibers have a core-sheath structure, and shell layers were loaded with nanoparticles. Mechanical testing showed that the core layer can significantly improve mechanical properties. The XRD patterns of the core-sheath structure fibers indicated the β phase domain the main component. Piezoelectric testing showed that the doped nanoparticles were able to enhance piezoelectric performances. The increases of mechanical and piezoelectric properties of core-sheath structure fibers provide a feasible application for wearable electronics, which require flexibility and good mechanical properties.

In the context of climate change in recent years, the fate of woody plant seed has an important impact on forest regeneration. Seed mass is an important reproductive strategy of plants. There are huge differences between gymnosperms (mainly conifers) and angiosperms (flowering plants) in terms of reproduction and hydraulic strategies; however, little is known about changes in seed mass along climate aridity gradients between taxonomical groups such as gymnosperms and angiosperms, which limit our understanding on the fate of woody plants under warming-induced climate drying. We collected seed mass data from a total of 2575 woody plant individuals, including 145 species of gymnosperms and 1487 species of angiosperms, across different climatic zones in China. We mapped the distribution pattern of gymnosperm and angiosperm seed mass in China, with angiosperms being maximal near the 400 mm iso-precipitation line. Our phylogenetic analysis results show that seed mass exhibited significant phylogenic signals (p < 0.001) and was also strongly influenced by functional traits (growth type, fruit type, and dispersal mode). The results of linear regression and hierarchical partitioning analysis showed a stronger correlation between gymnosperm seed mass and environmental factors, and a higher independent aridity index effect on gymnosperm seed mass than angiosperm seed mass. The different patterns of seed mass along a climate aridity gradient between gymnosperms and angiosperms may point to different future fates for these two taxonomic groups, while the higher sensitivity of gymnosperm seed mass to environmental conditions may reduce their reproductive rate under the background of climate warming and drying.

Self-organizing networks provide rapid and convenient networking for many situations and have gained extensive research. With the progress of researches, security issues have attracted people's attention. There is no central node in self-organizing networks, and therefore the traditional key distribution methods based on public infrastructure do not work. The standardized pre-shared keys have predictable security risks. The physical-layer secret key generation has become a technology worth considering due to its lightweight, security, and decentralization. However, most of the previous work has focused on two devices, and remains a challenge to expand the pairwise key into the group key. Since the channel reciprocity only exists between two devices, some information would be exchanged on the unencrypted channel, causing information leakage. This paper designs a secure communication system in self-organizing networks. It adopts an adaptive quantizer to generate the pairwise keys and proposes DORCE, Difference Of quantization Results at one deviCE. The authenticated users share the group key via the difference between pairwise keys. The algorithm is implemented in a mesh topology, which is suitable for self-organizing networks because users' joining and leaving will not have a great impact on the network topology. The algorithm's Key Achievable Rate is up to 4 bits. Experimental results demonstrate that DORCE can generate the group keys in seconds. The Key Generation Rate is above 10 bits per second, enabling a group key generation to be used in a communication system for self-organizing networks. All the generated keys pass the NIST Statistical Test Suite.

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are forecasted to increase to 20 billion by the year 2020. Questions are arising as where the bandwidth and radio channels come from to make it all work. It is a common belief that the spectrum under 6GHz is easy to use for various IoT applications. However, currently it has been almost fully allocated to different kinds of systems, some of which suffer from an extremely low spectrum utilization ratio. To this end, spectrum sharing approach has been proposed recently, which dynamically redistributes the incumbents' underutilized spectrum to secondary users and exchanges for profit. To incentivize the incumbent to share the spectrum in efficient and profitable ways, auction based mechanisms are extensively discussed. Most of the existing researches propose to share the spectrum by utilizing truthful auction mechanism, in which the secondary users' dominant strategies are to bid their true valuations. However in reality, exposing true valuation is very risky and thus keeping user's bidding value confidential is of great importance. In this paper, we propose an efficient privacy preserving spectrum sharing framework for IoT by utilizing ElGamal cyptosystem. The proposed scheme hides the user's bid from both the auctioneer and other users. By extensive evaluation results, we show that the proposed framework could achieve good spectrum utilization efficiency and user satisfactory ratio, at the cost of acceptable communication and computation overheads.

Chemokines are a superfamily of chemotactic cytokines that regulate cell activation, inflammation, and immune defense. In this study, chemokine CXCL10 from Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) was identified and characterized. The open reading frame of OnCXCL10 is 408 bp encoding polypeptides of 135 amino acids. The amino acid sequence analysis of CXCL10 confirms homology with other species and contains four conserved cysteine residues. Spatial mRNA expression analysis revealed that OnCXCL10 was highly expressed in spleen, and widely exhibited in other tissues including liver, intestine and head kidney. Following in vivo challenges with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), Streptococcus agalactiae and, Poly I: C separately, the expressions of OnCXCL10 were observed significantly elevated in liver, spleen, and head kidney. The transcriptional up-regulation of OnCXCL10 was also demonstrated in head kidney monocytes/macrophages after in vitro stimulations with LPS, S. agalactiae and Poly I: C. Furthermore, mRNA expression analysis revealed that OnCXCL10 could involved in C1q-mediated intracellular signaling pathways. Taken together, these studies indicated that CXCL10 played an important role in response to pathogen infection and C1q-mediated immune regulation of monocytes/macrophages in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus).

Chronic diabetic wounds are one of the main complications of diabetes, manifested by persistent inflammation, decreased epithelialization motility, and impaired wound healing. This will not only lead to the repeated hospitalization of patients, but also bear expensive hospitalization costs. In severe cases, it can lead to amputation, sepsis or death. Electrospun nanofibers membranes have the characteristics of high porosity, high specific surface area, and easy functionalization of structure, so they can be used as a safe and effective platform in the treatment of diabetic wounds and have great application potential. This article briefly reviewed the pathogenesis of chronic diabetic wounds and the types of dressings commonly used, and then reviewed the development of electrospinning technology in recent years and the advantages of electrospun nanofibers in the treatment of diabetic wounds. Finally, the reports of different types of nanofiber dressings on diabetic wounds are summarized, and the method of using multi-drug combination therapy in diabetic wounds is emphasized, which provides new ideas for the effective treatment of diabetic wounds.

The halophilic aquatic bacterium Vibrio campbellii is an important aquatic pathogen, capable of causing vibriosis in shrimp and fish resulting in significant economic losses. In a previous work, essential oils (EOs) extracts from Melaleuca alternifolia, Litsea citrata, and Eucalyptus citriodora were found to inhibit the growth of V. campbellii in vitro. This study aimed to determine in vivo EOs’ potential protective effect towards gnotobiotic brine shrimp Artemia franciscana, challenged with V. campbellii. The study showed that brine shrimp larvae supplemented with EOs of M. alternifolia (0.0008%) and L. citrata (0.002%) displayed significantly increased survival against V. campbellii. The results indicated that supplementation of these EOs increased the expression of immune-related genes (either in the presence or absence of the pathogen), probably contributing to enhanced protection. Furthermore, in vitro studies indicated that some EOs modulated the expression of virulence factors including swimming motility, biofilm formation, and gelatinase and lipase activity, while flow cytometry data and regrowth assay indicated that these EOs do not exhibit antimicrobial activity as V. campbellii grew at the tested concentrations [M. alternifolia (0.0008%) and L. citrata (0.002%)]. Our findings suggest that EOs extracted from M. alternifolia and L. citrata, can modulate virulence factor production and immunological responses and might hence become part of an intervention strategy to control vibriosis in a fish or shrimp aquaculture setting, a hypothesis that needs to be validated in the future.

ObjectiveMacrophages function as key orchestrators in the pathogenesis of acute lung injury (ALI). The current study sets out to investigate the molecular mechanism of transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ1) in the regulation of M1 alveolar macrophage polarization in ALI by modulating DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1), along with the microRNA (miR)-124/Pellino 1 (PELI1)/interferon regulatory factor 5 (IRF5) axis.MethodsFirst, ALI mouse models were established, and the proportion of M1 and M2 macrophages in mouse lung tissues was detected using flow cytometry. The targeting relationship between miR-124 and PELI1 was verified with the help of a dual luciferase gene reporter assay. Following TGFβ1 knockdown, RT-qPCR and Western blot assay were performed to analyze the expression patterns of TGFβ1, DNMT1, miR-124, and PELI1 and M1/M2 polarization markers in the lung tissues of ALI mice. Immunofluorescence was further employed to detect nuclear translocation of IRF5 in macrophages.ResultsThe polarization of M1 macrophages was found to be positively correlated with the severity of lung injury. TGFβ1, DNMT1, PELI1 were highly expressed, while miR-124 was down-regulated in ALI mice, and IRF5 was primarily distributed in the nucleus. TGFβ1 promoted the polarization of M1 alveolar macrophages by up-regulating DNMT1. Furthermore, DNMT1 down-regulated the expression of miR-124, which led to enhancement of M1 alveolar macrophage polarization. Meanwhile, over-expression of miR-124 inhibited the nuclear translocation of IRF5 and suppressed M1 alveolar macrophage polarization. On the other hand, over-expression of PELI1 reversed the above trends.ConclusionCollectively, our findings indicated that TGFβ1 can promote the expression of DNMT1, which down-regulates miR-124 to activate PELI1 and nuclear translocation of IRF5, thereby aggravating ALI in mice.

Background/Aims: Phenotypic switching of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) plays a vital role in the development of vascular diseases. All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is known to regulate VSMC phenotypes. However, the underlying mechanisms remain completely unknown. Here, we have investigated the probable roles and underlying mechanisms of the novel C2H2 zinc finger transcription factor ZFP580 on ATRA-induced VSMC differentiation. Methods: VSMCs were isolated, cultured, and identified. VSMCs were infected with an adenovirus encoding ZFP580 or Ad-siRNA to silence ZFP580. The expression levels of ZFP580, SMα-actin, SM22α, SMemb, RARα, RARβ, and RARγ were assayed by Q-PCR and western blot. A rat carotid artery injury model and morphometric analysis of intimal thickening were also used in this study. Results: ATRA caused a significant reduction of VSMC proliferation and migration in a doseand time-dependent manner. Moreover, it promoted VSMC differentiation by enhancing expression of differentiation markers and reducing expression of dedifferentiation markers. This ATRA activity was accompanied by up-regulation of ZFP580, with concomitant increases in RARα expression. In contrast, silencing of the RARα gene or inhibiting RARα with its antagonist Ro41-5253 abrogated the ATRA-induced ZFP580 expression. Furthermore, ATRA binding to RARα induced ZFP580 expression via the PI3K/Akt and ERK pathways. Adenovirusmediated overexpression of ZFP580 promoted VSMC differentiation by enhancing expression of SM22α and SMα-actin and reducing expression of SMemb. In contrast, silencing ZFP580 dramatically reduced the expression of differentiation markers and increased expression of dedifferentiation markers. The classic rat carotid artery balloon injury model demonstrated that ZFP580 inhibited proliferation and intimal hyperplasia in vivo. Conclusion: The novel zinc finger transcription factor ZFP580 facilitates ATRA-induced VSMC differentiation by the RARα-mediated PI3K/Akt and ERK signaling pathways. This might represent a novel mechanism of regulation of ZFP580 by ATRA and RARα, which is critical for understanding the biological functions of retinoids during VSMC phenotypic modulation.

Hyperlipidemia, an important risk factor for cardiovascular and end-stage renal diseases, often aggravates renal injury and compromises kidney function. Here, histological analysis of human kidney samples revealed that high lipid levels induced the development of renal fibrosis. To elucidate the mechanism underlying lipid nephrotoxicity, we used two types of mouse models (Apoe−/− and C57BL/6 mice fed a 45 and 60% high-fat diet, respectively). Histological analysis of kidney tissues revealed high-lipid-induced renal fibrosis and inflammation; this was confirmed by examining fibrotic and inflammatory marker expression using Western blotting and real-time polymerase chain reaction. Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (OX-LDL) significantly induced the fibrotic response in HK-2 tubular epithelial cells. RNA-sequencing and Gene Ontology analysis of differentially expressed mRNAs in OX-LDL-treated HK-2 tubular epithelial cells and real-time PCR validation in Apoe−/− mice showed that the expression of thrombospondin-1 (THBS1) in the high-fat group was significantly higher than that of the other top known genes, along with significant overexpression of its receptor CD47. THBS1 knockdown cells verified its relation to OX-LDL-induced fibrosis and inflammation. Liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry and STRING functional protein association network analyses predicted that THBS1/CD47 modulated the interaction between γ-catenin and E-cadherin and was involved in epithelial–mesenchymal transition, which was supported by immunoprecipitation and immunohistochemistry. CD47 downregulation following transfection with small-hairpin RNA in OX-LDL-treated tubular epithelial cells and treatment with anti-CD47 antibody restored the expression of E-cadherin and attenuated renal injury, fibrosis, and inflammatory response in OX-LDL-treated cells and in type 2 diabetes mellitus. These findings indicate that CD47 may serve as a potential therapeutic target in long-term lipid-induced kidney injury.

Vibrio campbellii is one of the major bacterial pathogens for animals reared in aquaculture, affecting both vertebrates and invertebrates, and causes significant economic losses. It is now evident that the expressions of virulence factors in this pathogen are regulated by the density of the bacterial population. This type of regulation, termed quorum sensing (QS), is mediated by extracellular signal molecules called autoinducers. In this study, the impact of sodium ascorbate (NaAs) on the virulence of V. campbellii was investigated under both in vitro and in vivo conditions, to develop a natural anti-infective strategy to contain V. campbellii infection in aquacultured animals. Results showed that NaAs significantly decreased swimming motility, biofilm production, and the production of virulence enzymes, such as lipase, caseinase, phospholipase, and hemolysin in V. campbellii. Consistent with this, pretreatment of V. campbellii with NaAs before inoculation into the rearing water resulted in significantly increased survival of gnotobiotic brine shrimp larvae, when compared to larvae challenged with untreated V. campbellii. Furthermore, NaAs could interfere with QS-regulated bioluminescence in V. campbellii, suggesting the QS-inhibitory activity largely determines the protective effect of NaAs toward the brine shrimp. In essence, due to the potent anti-virulence effects observed in in vitro studies and the clinical brine shrimp-V. campbellii infection model, NaAs constitute a promising novel strategy for the control of V. campbellii infections in aquaculture.

β-Glucans are a heterogeneous group of glucose polymers with a common structure comprising a main chain of β-(1,3) and/or β-(1,4)-glucopyranosyl units, along with side chains with various branches and lengths. β-Glucans initiate immune responses via immune cells, which become activated by the binding of the polymer to specific receptors. However, β-glucans from different sources also differ in their structure, conformation, physical properties, binding affinity to receptors, and thus biological functions. The mechanisms behind this are not fully understood. This mini-review provides a comprehensive and up-to-date commentary on the relationship between β-glucans' structure and function in relation to their use for immunomodulation.

Recent advances in self-interference cancellation techniques have enabled in-band full-duplex (IBFD) transmission, which can double ergodic capacity and reduce end-to-end delay. However, how to solve the channel contention problem in IBFD radios with inter-node interference and asymmetric traffic is still a challenge. This paper presents pFD-MAC, a novel polling-based traffic-aware medium access control (MAC) protocol for centralized full-duplex wireless networks. To solve the channel contention problem and fully utilize the channel resources under full-duplex mode, we first design a novel polling-based transmission mechanism and make comprehensive investigations on the effect of polling profile in full-duplex communication. By characterizing the inter-node interference into a directed non-conflict graph, we study the polling profile generation problem in which our objective is to minimize the packet transmission time. The problem is then theoretically formulated and proved to be NP-hard, which means it cannot be solved in polynomial time. Thus, we develop a heuristic traffic-aware algorithm and apply it to work with the packet transmission procedure in parallel. Full-duplex communication opportunities are highly exploited by parallelly organizing per-node upstream/downstream traffic according to the generated polling profile. Moreover, to achieve fairness without sacrificing throughput, deficit round robin algorithm has been applied with respect to the access time considering concurrent transmission time. Simulation results reveal that our proposed protocol can achieve improved performance in terms of throughput and transmission delay while maintaining fairness, compared with two state-of-the-art centralized MAC protocols.

The complete chloroplast genome of Hovenia dulcis was sequenced with Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform. It was a typical quadruple structure as other plants of Hovenia with 162,962 bp in length, including a large single-copy (LSC: 90,900 bp) region and a small single-copy (SSC: 18,920 bp) which were separated by a pair of inverted repeats (IRa, b: 26,571 bp) region. The overall GC content is 36.6%. A total of 130 genes was annotated which contained 85 protein-coding genes including the Trans splicing gene of rps12, 37 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. ML phylogenetic analysis compared with 6 expressed chloroplast genomes of Rhamnaceae revealed that H. dulcis was closely related to the species of Zizyphus, and which were clustered into a group with Z. jujuba, Z. mauritiana and Z. spina-christi. Hovenia dulcis was relatively distant to other species of Berchemiella and Rhamnus, which were clustered into another group.

The brain uses its intrinsic dynamics to actively predict observed sensory inputs, especially under perceptual ambiguity. However, it remains unclear how this inference process is neurally implemented in biasing perception of ambiguous inputs towards the predicted percepts. The process of perceptual inference can be well illustrated by the phenomenon of bistable apparent motion in the Ternus display, in which subjective perception spontaneously alternates between element motion (EM) and group motion (GM) percepts depending on whether two consecutively presented frames are grouped over time or not. The frequency of alpha-band oscillations has long been hypothesized to gate the temporal window of perceptual grouping over time. Under this hypothesis, variation in the intrinsic alpha frequency should predict perceptual outcome of the bistable Ternus display. Moreover, we hypothesize that the perception system employs this prior knowledge on intrinsic alpha frequency to resolve perceptual ambiguity, by shifting perceptual inference towards the predicted percepts. Using electroencephalography and intracranial recordings, we showed that both between and within subjects, lower prestimulus alpha frequencies (PAFs) predicted the EM percepts since the two frames fell in the same alpha cycle and got temporally integrated, while higher PAFs predicted the GM percepts since the two frames fell in different alpha cycles. Multivariate decoding analysis between the EM percepts with lower PAFs and the GM percepts with higher PAFs further revealed a representation of the subsequently reported bistable percept in the neural signals shortly before the actual appearance of the second frame. Therefore, perceptual inference, based on variation in intrinsic PAFs, biases poststimulus neural representations by inducing preactivation of the predicted percepts. In addition, enhanced prestimulus blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals and network dynamics in the frontoparietal network, together with reduced prestimulus alpha power, upon perceiving the EM percepts suggest that temporal grouping is an attention-demanding process.

In recent years, Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication brings more and more attention from industry (e.g., Google and Uber) and government (e.g., United States Department of Transportation). These Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technologies are widely adopted in future autonomous vehicles. However, security issues have not been fully addressed in V2V and V2I systems, especially in key distribution and key management. The physical layer key generation, which exploits wireless channel reciprocity and randomness to generate secure keys, provides a feasible solution for secure V2V/V2I communication. It is lightweight, flexible, and dynamic. In this paper, the physical layer key generation is brought to the V2I and V2V scenarios. A LoRa-based physical key generation scheme is designed for securing V2V/V2I communications. The communication is based on Long Range (LoRa) protocol, which is able to measure Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in long-distance as consensus information to generate secure keys. The multi-bit quantization algorithm, with an improved Cascade key agreement protocol, generates secure binary bit keys. The proposed schemes improved the key generation rate, as well as to avoid information leakage during transmission. The proposed physical layer key generation scheme was implemented in a V2V/V2I network system prototype. The extensive experiments in V2I and V2V environments evaluate the efficiency of the proposed key generation scheme. The experiments in real outdoor environments have been conducted. Its key generation rate could exceed 10 bit/s on our V2V/V2I network system prototype and achieve 20 bit/s in some of our experiments. For binary key sequences, all of them pass the suite of statistical tests from National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Background and objective Lung cancer is a common malignant tumor. The aim of this study is to assess the short-term effect of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy and thoracotomy lobectomy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Methods Cochrane Library, Embase, Pubmed, CBM, CNKI, VIP, and so on, were searched by computer. Randomized controlled trials comparing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy and thoracotomy lobectomy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer were collected. Two reviewers independently assessed the quality of included studies and extracted data. We analyzed the data using Review Manager (Version 5.0). Results Five randomized controlled trials totaling 537 patients were included. The results of meta analysis were as follows: statistically significant difference was found in operating time (SMD=0.27, 95%CI: 0.10–0.44), chest tube drainage flow (SMD=-0.23, 95%CI: -0.45–-0.01), postoperative hospital stay (SMD=-0.25, 95%CI: -0.46–-0.05), and postoperative complications (SMD=0.51, 95%CI: 0.32–0.80). No statistically significant difference was found in the harvested lymph nodes (SMD=-0.01, 95%CI: -0.22–0.19) between video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy and thoracotomy lobectomy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Conclusion Compared with thoracotomy lobectomy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, the amount of harvested lymph nodes was almost the same, but the amount of blood loss, operating time, chest tube drainage flow, and postoperative hospital stay were different.