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Glucocorticoids (GCs) are known to regulate several physiological processes and are the mainstay in the management of inflammatory eye diseases. The long-term use of GC causes raised intraocular pressure (IOP) or ocular hypertension (OHT) in about 30–50% of the susceptible individuals depending on the route of administration, and can lead to steroid-induced secondary glaucoma. The present study aims to understand the role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in differential glucocorticoid (GC) responsiveness in human trabecular meshwork (HTM) cells using small RNA sequencing. The human organ-cultured anterior segment (HOCAS) model was used to identify whether donor eyes were from GC-responders (GC-R; n = 4) or GC-non-responders (GC-NR; n = 4) following treatment with either 100 nM dexamethasone (DEX) or ethanol (ETH) for 7 days. The total RNA was extracted from cultured HTM cells with known GC responsiveness, and the differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMIRs) were compared among the following five groups: Group #1: ETH vs. DEX-treated GC-R; #2: ETH vs. DEX-treated GC-NR; #3: overlapping DEGs between Group #1 and #2; #4: Unique DEMIRs of GC-R; #5: Unique DEMIRs of GC-NR; and validated by RT-qPCR. There were 13 and 21 DEMIRs identified in Group #1 and Group #2, respectively. Seven miRNAs were common miRNAs dysregulated in both GC-R and GC-NR (Group #3). This analysis allowed the identification of DEMIRs that were unique to GC-R (6 miRNAs) and GC-NR (14 miRNAs) HTM cells, respectively. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis identified enriched pathways and biological processes associated with differential GC responsiveness in HTM cells. This is the first study to reveal a unique miRNA signature between GC-R and GC-NR HTM cells, which raises the possibility of developing new molecular targets for the management of steroid-OHT/glaucoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulmonary lobe segmentation is an important prerequisite for accurately quantifying pulmonary damage in many pulmonary diseases and planning treatment. However, due to the incomplete lobar structures and morphological changes caused by diseases, the lobe segmentation still encounters great challenges. In this study, a Learnable Interpolation and Extrapolation Network (LIE‐Net) is proposed to form complete and consecutive fissure surfaces by learning to extract information of the fissures from existing fissure points and absent points (unsegmented points belonging to fissures) to predict the z coordinate of the absent fissure points. The completed pulmonary fissures are further used for accurate pulmonary lobe segmentation. Specifically, LIE‐Net takes the coordinate information of existing fissure points (their (x, y, z) coordinates) and absent fissure points (their (x, y) coordinates) as two independent inputs, and predicts the z coordinates of absent points. The proposed LIE‐Net makes voxel‐wise predictions based on the spatial structure characteristics of the lung fissure, and is able to provide a consecutive fissure surface in space. According to the evaluation of radiologists, the lobe segmentation performance was remarkably enhanced in approximately 76% of patients in our additional dataset after the application of LIE‐Net, especially for those cases with large‐scale missing fissures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While public Wi-Fi hotspots provide ubiquitous Internet access to mobile users, they can also generate revenues for venue owners and mobile advertisers by disseminating advertisements. There have been some research efforts in promoting Wi-Fi monetization from different perspectives, but most of them ignore users' tolerance towards watching advertisements. Indeed, tolerance plays a fundamental role in Wi-Fi advertising, as it directly influences the effectiveness of advertisements and the long-term profits of advertisers. To address this issue, we study Wi-Fi advertisement scheduling by considering both the tolerance of users in viewing advertisements and resource constraints of Wi-Fi hotspots for broadcasting advertisements. With the goal of maximizing the overall accumulative interests of users, we formulate a mixed integer programming problem for Wi-Fi advertisement scheduling. We prove that the objective function of this problem is monotone and submodular, subject to a knapsack constraint and a partition matroid constraint. On this basis, we solve it by proposing a novel greedy swap algorithm, which has a 1 − e − 2 2 -approximation performance guarantee. Through extensive synthetic and trace-driven evaluations, we show that the proposed algorithm effectively improves users' interests towards different Wi-Fi advertisements and achieves robust results near to the optimal solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sensing quality is critical for crowdsensing networks. However, it is still challenging to achieve reliable and accurate quantification on sensing quality. As most existing methods only quantify individual-level sensing quality, they cannot be simply extended to measure network-level sensing quality. Meanwhile, there are two critical challenges for the non-trivial quantifications of network-level sensing quality. First, it is quite daunting to accurately measure the sensing quality, due to the uncertainties in crowdsensing, such as random noise in sensing data and complicated inference of information. Second, it is incredibly difficult to conduct repeatable experiments for multiple times, with the natural dynamics of crowdsensing networks as well as the uncontrollable behaviors of crowdsensing participants. To address the above challenges, in this work, we devise a novel quantification metric to measure the uncertain sensing quality of crowdsensing networks. The proposed metric is based on the confidence interval, exploiting the asymptotic normality property of unbiased estimations. We further leverage the Fisher information in crowdsensing data and successfully derive the confidence interval without redundant multiple computations on repeated experiments. The trace-driven evaluations demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve remarkably accurate quantifications on the network-level sensing quality, outperforming the existing works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protein interaction is critical molecular regulatory activity underlining cellular functions and precise cell fate choices. Using TWIST1 BioID-proximity-labeling and network propagation analyses, we discovered and characterized a TWIST-chromatin regulatory module (TWIST1-CRM) in the neural crest cells (NCC). Combinatorial perturbation of core members of TWIST1-CRM: TWIST1, CHD7, CHD8, and WHSC1 in cell models and mouse embryos revealed that loss of the function of the regulatory module resulted in abnormal differentiation of NCCs and compromised craniofacial tissue patterning. Following NCC delamination, low level of TWIST1-CRM activity is instrumental to stabilize the early NCC signatures and migratory potential by repressing the neural stem cell programs. High level of TWIST1 module activity at later phases commits the cells to the ectomesenchyme. Our study further revealed the functional interdependency of TWIST1 and potential neurocristopathy factors in NCC development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments of all stripes have attempted to transgress ordinary legal limits and infringe upon rights and liberties under the cover of emergency powers. Are repressive policies adopted under emergency law less likely to comply with extant legal limits, as compared to repressive policies adopted under normal law? What are the mechanisms by which the potential abuse of emergency powers can be constrained? To answer these questions, we develop a game-theoretic model that builds upon the fact that political rulers rely on security agents to execute their repressive policies. We show that rulers always prefer to make policy under emergency law while security agents actually prefer the legal regime that incentivizes rulers to choose a policy more likely to comply with ordinary legal limits. Consequently, there is a potential endogenous constraint on the abuse of emergency powers given that rulers must rely on security agents to implement their repressive decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been known to be involved in multiple diverse diseases, including osteoarthritis (OA). This study aimed to explore the role of differentiation antagonizing non-protein coding RNA (DANCR) in OA and identify the potential molecular mechanisms. The expression of DANCR in cartilage samples from patients with OA was detected using quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. The effects of DANCR on the viability of OA chondrocytes and apoptosis were explored using cell counting kit 8 assay and flow cytometry assay, respectively. Additionally, the interaction among DANCR, miR-577, and SphK2 was explored using dual-luciferase reporter and RIP assays. The present study found that DANCR was significantly upregulated in patients with OA. Functional assays demonstrated that DANCR inhibition suppressed the proliferation of OA chondrocytes and induced cell apoptosis. The study also showed that DANCR acted as a competitive endogenous RNA to sponge miR-577, which targeted the mRNA of SphK2 to regulate the survival of OA chondrocytes. In conclusion, the study revealed that lncRNA DANCR might promote the proliferation of OA chondrocytes and reduce apoptosis through the miR-577/SphK2 axis. Thus, lncRNA DANCR might be considered as a potential therapeutic target for OA treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly (ether sulfone)/Polyvinyl formal ultrafiltration membranes (PES/PVFM membranes) were fabricated via the synergy of surface segregation and non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS). PES was utilized as bulk membrane materials and PVFM was utilized as surface segregation modifiers (SSM). The phase separation of PES and the surface segregation behavior of PVFM were controlled by the hydrophobic and hydrogen bond interactions between PES and PVFM. On one hand, the strong interactions delayed the phase separation of PES and promoted the development of membrane pores, increasing the membrane fluxes remarkably. On the other hand, the strong interactions anchored hydrophilic PVFM on the membrane surfaces, endowing the membranes durable antifouling performance. The hydrophobic interaction was estimated by Guerout-Elford-Ferry equation and the hydrogen bond interaction was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The structures of PES/PVFM membranes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and the gravimetric method. The surface segregation of PVFM was explored by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The PES/PVFM membranes exhibited high water fluxes (up to 1000 Lm −2 h −1 bar −1 ), high flux recovery ratio (up to 98%) and stable hydrophilicity (unchanged after incubated in deionized water for 30 days). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TWIST1, a basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor is essential for the development of cranial mesoderm and cranial neural crest-derived craniofacial structures. We have previously shown that, in the absence of TWIST1, cells within the cranial mesoderm adopt an abnormal epithelial configuration via a process reminiscent of a mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET). Here, we show by gene expression analysis that loss of TWIST1 in the cranial mesoderm is accompanied by a reduction in the expression of genes that are associated with cell-extracellular matrix interactions and the acquisition of mesenchymal characteristics. By comparing the transcriptional profiles of cranial mesoderm-specific Twist1 loss-of-function mutant and control mouse embryos, we identified a set of genes that are both TWIST1-dependent and predominantly expressed in the mesoderm. ChIP-seq was used to identify TWIST1-binding sites in an in vitro model of a TWIST1-dependent mesenchymal cell state, and the data were combined with the transcriptome data to identify potential target genes. Three direct transcriptional targets of TWIST1 ( Ddr2, Pcolce and Tgfbi ) were validated by ChIP-PCR using mouse embryonic tissues and by luciferase assays. Our findings reveal that the mesenchymal properties of the cranial mesoderm are likely to be regulated by a network of TWIST1 targets that influences the extracellular matrix and cell-matrix interactions, and collectively they are required for the morphogenesis of the craniofacial structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategy of parties regarding which issues to emphasize during electoral campaigns is an important aspect of electoral competition. In this article, we advance research on electoral competition by developing a multidimensional model of electoral competition in which parties compete for electoral support by raising the electoral salience of position issues. We show that parties have incentives to advertise an issue on which the opponent has a more popular position or an issue on which neither party has electoral advantage. We also show that the party with the lower equilibrium vote share prefers to emphasize more controversial issues, while the party with the higher equilibrium vote share prefers to emphasize more consensual issues on its electoral agenda. The analysis provides a theoretical foundation for moving toward a more complete understanding of the content of campaign communication on issues on which voters disagree about which policies ought to be implemented. It also provides novel empirical predictions about how the structure of public opinion impacts the campaign strategy of parties, which can foster further empirical research on electoral campaigns and issue selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface grafting and surface segregation are two dominant methods for antifouling membrane fabrication. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) has been demonstrated as the most popular surface modifier in surface grafting method, but has been less utilized in surface segregation method. In this study, antifouling ultrafiltration membranes were prepared via the non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS), using polyethersulfone (PES) as membrane matrix, PEG as both surface modifier and pore forming agent, and m -trihydroxybenzene (MTB) as hydrogen bond donor, respectively. The hydrogen bonding interaction between PES and PEG mediated by MTB was verified by Raman spectra and FT-IR spectra analysis, and the surface segregation behavior of PEG manipulated by hydrogen bonding interaction was explored by water contact angle and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The enhanced antifouling performance of PES/PEG–MTB ultrafiltration membranes was verified by the increased flux recovery ratio in fouling resistance experiment. Moreover, the residence stability of PEG on membrane surface was confirmed by a long-term test of incubating membranes in deionized water. This study provided a novel and generic approach to fabricate antifouling ultrafiltration membranes by surface segregation method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyvinyl formal (PVF) blend ultrafiltration membranes were fabricated by non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) method with different casting solution composition. The PVC/PVF membranes were characterized and evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), water contact angle measurement and performance measurement. The results showed that PVF played the role of pore formation agent during the NIPS process, and both of porosity and the mean pore size of the membranes were increased with the increased dosage of PVF. Simultaneously, PVF was enriched to membrane surface via spontaneous surface segregation and the membrane surface hydrophilicity was greatly elevated, which implied the remarkably enhanced antifouling property. The robust residence of PVF on the membrane surface was confirmed by a long-term test of incubating membranes in deionized water, which revealed the stable antifouling property of PVC/PVF membranes. Therefore, PVF could be explored as a potential versatile modifier for fabricating high performance ultrafiltration membranes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstracts: The composite nanofiltration membranes were prepared via interfacial polymerization of tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) and 1,3,5-benzenetricarbonyl trichloride (TMC). The improved performance of the composite nanofiltratiom membranes by adding calcium chloride in aqueous phase during the interfacial polymerization was verified in terms of pure water permeability, rejection of different solutes including dyes and inorganic salts and chlorine resistance. The results showed that the pure water permeability of composite nanofiltration membranes would acquire a remarkable increase with a slight decrease in solute rejections under the optimized addition of CaCl2. The addition of CaCl2 also dramatically enhanced the chloride resistance of composite nanofiltration membranes in comparison with the control membranes prepared without CaCl2 added. Therefore, inorganic salts like CaCl2 could be considered as a potential additive to enhance the performance of composite nanofiltration membranes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

It has recently been described that aging in C. elegans is accompanied by the progressive development of morphological changes in the nervous system. These include novel outgrowths from the cell body or axonal process, as well as blebbing and beading along the length of the axon. The formation of these structures is regulated by numerous molecular players including members of the well-conserved insulin/insulin growth factor-like (IGF)-1 signaling and mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase pathways. This review summarizes the recent literature on neuronal aging in C. elegans, including our own findings, which indicate a role for protein with tau-like repeats (PTL-1), the homolog of mammalian tau and MAP2/4, in maintaining neuronal integrity during aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary 1. This is a concise review of the field of ion pumping from the perspective of the authors. 2. The period covered spans the discovery of Na+ and K+ concentration gradients across animal cell membranes by Carl Schmidt in the 1850s, through the isolation of the Na+/K+-ATPase by Skou in 1957 (for which he was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry), to the publication of the first crystal structure of the enzyme in 2007 and beyond. 3. Contributions of the authors' research group to the resolution of the questions of the mechanism of the allosteric role of ATP within the Na+/K+-ATPase reaction cycle and how protomeric versus diprotomeric states of the enzyme influence its kinetics are discussed within the context of the research field. 4. The results obtained indicate that the Na+/K+-ATPase has a single ATP binding site, which can be catalytic or allosteric in different parts of the enzyme's reaction cycle. 5. The long-running controversy over whether P-type ATPases function as protomers or diprotomers can be resolved in the case of the Na+/K+-ATPase by an ATP-induced dissociation of (αβ)2 diprotomers into separate αβ protomers. 6. Kinetic data suggest that protein-protein interactions between the two αβ protomers within an (αβ)2 diprotomer result in a much lower enzymatic turnover (i.e. a lower gear) when only one of the α-subunits of the diprotomer has bound ATP. The inactive αβ protomer within the diprotomer can be thought of as causing a drag on the active protomer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of vision loss worldwide, characterised with irreversible optic nerve damage and progressive vision loss. Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is a subset of glaucoma, characterised by normal anterior chamber angle and raised intraocular pressure (IOP). Reducing IOP is the main modifiable factor in the treatment of POAG, and the trabecular meshwork (TM) is the primary site of aqueous humour outflow (AH) and the resistance to outflow. The structure and the composition of the TM are key to its function in regulating AH outflow. Dysfunction and loss of the TM cells found in the natural ageing process and more so in POAG can cause abnormal extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation, increased TM stiffness, and increased IOP. Therefore, repair or regeneration of TM's structure and function is considered as a potential treatment for POAG. Cell transplantation is an attractive option to repopulate the TM cells in POAG, but to develop a cell replacement approach, various challenges are still to be addressed. The choice of cell replacement covers autologous or allogenic approaches, which led to investigations into TM progenitor cells, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as potential stem cell source candidates. However, the potential plasticity and the lack of definitive cell markers for the progenitor and the TM cell population compound the biological challenge. Morphological and differential gene expression of TM cells located within different regions of the TM may give rise to different cell replacement or regenerative approaches. As such, this review describes the different approaches taken to date investigating different cell sources and their differing cell isolation and differentiation methodologies. In addition, we highlighted how these approaches were evaluated in different animal and ex vivo model systems and the potential of these methods in future POAG treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wireless device-free human sensing is an emerging technique of Internet of Things, which holds great potential for ubiquitous location-based services and human-interaction applications. Although existing studies can detect human appearance, they still neglect to further identify whether a user is approaching a sensor or not, which is critical for fine-grained recognition of human behaviors. In this paper, we first conduct comprehensive experiments to measure relationships between signal fading and human positions. The experimental results show that signal fading stepwise changes with different distances of the human to a sensor. Moreover, the signal fading is worse when the human is located closer to an antenna of the sensor. Motivated by these observations, we propose NSee, a novel system for device-free near-field human sensing without site-survey fingerprints. Specifically, we cluster signal fading features of different antennas by a Gaussian mixture model, and further propose a cluster identification algorithm to identify clusters in correspondence to different near-field subareas of human appearance. Based on cluster characteristics, NSee can recognize near-field human presence with online sensing. We implement a prototype of NSee system based on a commercial WiFi card with multiple antennas. Extensive experimental results illustrate that the proposed system can achieve an averaged accuracy of 90% in device-free near-field human recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronary artery lesions (CALs) are the most common complications of Kawasaki disease (KD) and play a crucial role in determining the prognosis of the disease. Consequently, the early identification of children with KD who are at risk of developing coronary artery damage is vitally important. We sought to investigate the relationship between the Systemic Immune-Inflammation Index (SII) and CALs in patients with KD and to assess its predictive value. We carried out a retrospective review and analysis of medical records for KD patients treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University between January 2017 and January 2023. We utilized single-variable tests, binary logistic regression analysis, ROC curve analysis, restricted cubic spline tests, and curve fitting to evaluate the association between SII and CALs. In our study, 364 patients were included, with 63 (17.3%) presenting with CALs at the time of admission. The binary logistic regression analysis indicated that SII was a significant risk factor for CALs at admission, evident in both unadjusted and models adjusted for confounders. The ROC curve analysis revealed an AUC (Area Under the Curve) value of 0.789 (95%CI 0.723–0.855, P < 0.001) for SII's predictive ability regarding CALs at admission. A consistent positive linear relationship between SII and the risk of CALs at admission was observed in both the raw and adjusted models. Our research findings suggest that SII serves as a risk factor for CALs and can be used as an auxiliary laboratory biomarker for predicting CALs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting objects from images captured by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is a highly demanding task. It is also considered a very challenging task due to the typically cluttered background and diverse dimensions of the foreground targets, especially small object areas that contain only very limited information. Multi-scale representation learning presents a remarkable approach to recognizing small objects. However, this strategy ignores the combination of the sub-parts in an object and also suffers from the background interference in the feature fusion process. To this end, we propose a Fine-grained Target Focusing Network (FiFoNet) which can effectively select a combination of multi-scale features for an object and block background interference, which further revitalizes the differentiability of the multi-scale feature representation. Furthermore, we propose a Global–Local Context Collector (GLCC) to extract global and local contextual information and enhance low-quality representations of small objects. We evaluate the performance of the proposed FiFoNet on the challenging task of object detection in UAV images. A comparison of the experiment results on three datasets, namely VisDrone2019, UAVDT, and our VisDrone_Foggy, demonstrates the effectiveness of FiFoNet, which outperforms the ten baseline and state-of-the-art models with remarkable performance improvements. When deployed on an edge device NVIDIA JETSON XAVIER NX, our FiFoNet only takes about 80 milliseconds to process an drone-captured image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glaucoma is a complex neurodegenerative disease resulting in progressive optic neuropathy and is a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) is the predominant form affecting 65.5 million people globally. Despite the prevalence of POAG and the identification of over 120 glaucoma related genetic loci, the underlaying molecular mechanisms are still poorly understood. The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signalling pathway is implicated in the molecular pathology of POAG. To gain a better understanding of the role TGF-β2 plays in the glaucomatous changes to the molecular pathology in the trabecular meshwork, we employed RNA-Seq to delineate the TGF-β2 induced changes in the transcriptome of normal primary human trabecular meshwork cells (HTM). We identified a significant number of differentially expressed genes and associated pathways that contribute to the pathogenesis of POAG. The differentially expressed genes were predominantly enriched in ECM regulation, TGF-β signalling, proliferation/apoptosis, inflammation/wound healing, MAPK signalling, oxidative stress and RHO signalling. Canonical pathway analysis confirmed the enrichment of RhoA signalling, inflammatory-related processes, ECM and cytoskeletal organisation in HTM cells in response to TGF-β2. We also identified novel genes and pathways that were affected after TGF-β2 treatment in the HTM, suggesting additional pathways are activated, including Nrf2, PI3K-Akt, MAPK and HIPPO signalling pathways. The identification and characterisation of TGF-β2 dependent differentially expressed genes and pathways in HTM cells is essential to understand the patho-physiology of glaucoma and to develop new therapeutic agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 3D FE model has been developed to investigate the crack propagation properties of flange-stiffened plate structure in a sleeve used for loading transition, according to practical observations of the crack morphology. The stress intensity factor (SIF) was applied to analyze the crack propagation properties along crack tip in different positions of the sleeve; simulation models including either one crack or multiple cracks were studied. Results showed that crack formation had insignificant influence on the structural effective stress and deformation variations. The faces of the crack formed at the bolt hole edge were opened, meanwhile the crack possessed the highest potential to grow, while cracks in the connecting fillet between flange and stiffened plate and the flange mounting interface were less likely to propagate. Compared with the one-crack model, when multiple cracks co-existed there were limited changes on the crack respective propagation properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. About 1/3 of tibial plateau fractures are associated with proximal fibula fractures, but most proximal fibula fractures are often ignored. The aim of this study was to precisely explain the classification and treatment strategies of six injury types of the fibular column associated with tibial plateau fractures. Methods. Patients with ipsilateral proximal fibula and tibial plateau fractures treated in our hospital were retrospectively reviewed from Aug 2007 to Mar 2020. Two experienced surgeons and two radiologists divided fibular column injury into 6 injury types according to the AO classification and four-column nine-segment classification. The treatment scheme (surgically treated or conservatively treated) was also recorded. Results. In total, 355 proximal fibula fractures were included. Type 2 fibular head fracture was the most common type of injury in 122, and the segregate of superior tibiofibular syndesmosis was the rarest type in 3. In avulsion injury proximal of fibular pattern, the proportion of patients who need surgical intervention is the highest. Conclusions. Six injury types in the four-column nine-segment classification covered all types of bony and soft tissue injuries of the fibular column and concisely explained the injury mechanism. The classification is helpful for the precise judgement and decision-making of the concomitant fibular column injuries in tibial plateau fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crowd counting, i.e. , estimating the number of people in crowded areas, has attracted much interest in the research community. Although many attempts have been reported, crowd counting remains an open real-world problem due to the vast density variations and severe occlusion within the interested crowd area. In this paper, we propose a novel Pyramid Density-Aware Attention based network, abbreviated as PDANet, which leverages the attention, pyramid scale feature, and two branch decoder modules for density-aware crowd counting. The PDANet utilizes these modules to extract features of different scales while focusing on the relevant information and suppressing the misleading information. We also address the variation of crowdedness levels among different images with a Density-Aware Decoder (DAD) modules. For this purpose, a classifier is constructed to evaluate the density level of the input features and then passes them to the corresponding high and low density DAD modules. Finally, we generate an overall density map by considering the summation of low and high crowdedness density maps. Meanwhile, we employ different losses aiming to achieve a precise density map for the input scene. Extensive evaluations conducted on the challenging benchmark datasets well demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed PDANet in terms of the accuracy of counting and generated density maps over the well-known state-of-the-art approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposed holistic feature aggregation to learn multi-level feature interactions. • Proposed another early aggregation scheme to aggregate and propagate multi-modal encoder features • Proposed factorized gated attention to modulate feature aggregation actions. • Conducted experiments on eight benchmark datasets. Two-stream UNet based architectures are widely used in deep RGB-D salient object detection (SOD) models. However, UNet only adopts a top-down decoder network to progressively aggregate high-level features with low-level ones. In this paper, we propose to enrich feature aggregation via holistic aggregation paths and an extra bottom-up decoder network. The former aggregates multi-level features holistically to learn abundant feature interactions while the latter aggregates improved low-level features with high-level features, thus promoting their representation ability. Aiming at the two-stream architecture, we propose another early aggregation scheme to aggregate and propagate multi-modal encoder features at each level, thereby improving the encoder capability. We also propose a factorized attention module to efficiently modulate the feature aggregation action for each feature node with multiple learned attention factors. Experimental results demonstrate that all of the proposed components can gradually improve RGB-D SOD results. Consequently, our final SOD model performs favorably against other state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spontaneous stacking of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets for the adsorptive remediation of wastewater has been severely restricting their inherent adsorption ability from being brought into full play. Herein, hydrosols of carbon nanotubes/graphene oxide (CNTs/GO) sealed in dialysis bags were utilized for the highly efficient and re-pollution-free removal of trace Gd(III) from water for the first time. The effects of mass ratio between CNTs and GO (M CNTs : M GO ), pH value and contact time on Gd(III) adsorption of CNTs/GO hybrid hydrosol (M CNTs : M GO  = 1:6) as well as its adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics were studied by comparison with GO hydrosol. The pH-dependent desorption and regeneration of the CNTs/GO hybrid hydrosol were also investigated. The results showed that CNTs/GO hybrid hydrosols with M CNTs : M GO from 1:8 to 1:2 exhibited the remarkable synergistic enhancement effect. The CNTs/GO hybrid hydrosol with M CNTs : M GO  = 1:6 had the theoretical maximum Gd(III) adsorption capacity of 534.76 mg·g −1 (pH = 5.9, t  = 60 min, T  = 303 K) with a leap of 86.42% compared to GO and remained the sorption capacity of 347.83 mg·g −1 at the fourth cycle, showing the excellent regeneration performance. Moreover, the adsorption of Gd(III) on CNTs/GO hybrid hydrosols agreed well with the pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir isotherm adsorption model. In prospect, CNTs/GO hybrid hydrosols in dialysis bags promises of extensive application in the highly efficient and re-pollution free elimination of metal ions from water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This cross-sectional study aims to investigate the flexible flatfoot (FFF) prevalence and related factors in school-aged children.Methods: A total of 1059 children aged 6-13 years were included. Dynamic footprints according to the FootScan system were collected from both feet. The relationship of FFF with age, gender, side, and body mass index (BMI) was investigated.Results: FFF percentage decreased from 39.5% at 6 years to 11.8% at 12 years and reached a plateau at 12-13 years. Overweight (OR 1.35, 95%CI 1.03-1.77, P = 0.03) and obese (OR 2.43, 95%CI 1.81-3.26, P＜0.01) showed a positive correlation with percentage of FFF children. No correlation was found between FFF prevalence and gender or side.Conclusions: FFF prevalence decreases with age and reaches a plateau at 12-13 years. Moreover, FFF prevalence is positively correlated with increased BMI and body height. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Astilbin is an active flavonoid compound isolated from Rhizoma Smilacis Glabrae . It has been widely used as an anti-hepatic, anti-arthritic, and anti-renal injury agent. However, its safety has not yet been established. The objective of this study was to evaluate 4-week repeated oral toxicity and genotoxicity of astilbin. We examined oral toxicity in Sprague-Dawley rats after daily oral administration of astilbin at 50, 150, and 500 mg/kg for 4 weeks. Negative control animals received the same volume of the solvent. Astilbin administration did not lead to death, body weight gain, food consumption, or adverse events. There were no significant differences in toxicity between the astilbin and control group; we observed no toxic effects on hematological or urinalysis parameters, biochemical values, organ weight, or histopathological findings. We assessed the genotoxicity of astilbin with the Ames test (TA97a, TA98, TA100, TA102, and TA1535), chromosomal aberration assay (using Chinese hamster ovary cells), and mammalian micronucleus test (in mice). We found no genotoxicity in any tested strains. The no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) for astilbin in the 4-week repeated oral toxicity study in rats was greater than 500 mg/kg body weight/day, regardless of gender. Results also suggested that astilbin does not have genotoxicity potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ossification of the ligamentum flavum (OLF) is a disease of heterotopic ossification in spinal ligaments. The key of the OLF pathogenesis is the differentiation of fibroblasts into osteoblasts. In this study, we explored the role of miR-615-3p in the osteogenic differentiation of human LF cells. The expression of miR-615-3p was detected during the osteogenic differentiation of hFOB1.19 human osteoblasts, human BMSCs, and human LF cells. The qPCR results showed that miR-615-3p was being decreased during the osteogenic differentiation of these cell lineages. Then, both gain- and loss-function experiments, respectively performed by single-strand miR-615-3p mimic and antagomir, revealed that miR-615-3p negatively regulated the osteogenesis of hLF cells, manifested by a lighter staining degree with Alizarin Red and a decreased level of osteogenic marker genes, including alkaline phosphatase (ALP), RUNX2, osterix (ostx), osteocalcin (OCN), and osteopontin (OPN). Subsequently, our data on bioinformatic analysis, 3′-UTR luciferase activity assay, and protein level detection indicated that miR-615-3p directly targeted and suppressed the expression of FOXO1 and GDF5. Furthermore, knockdown of either FOXO1 or GDF5 could inhibit the osteogenic differentiation of hLF cells, which displayed a similar effect with the miR-615-3p mimic. In conclusion, miR-615-3p negatively regulates the osteogenic differentiation of hLF cells through post-transcriptionally suppressing osteogenic regulators GDF5 and FOXO1. It can be regarded as a potential target for human OLF therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a safety evaluation, we evaluated the potential genotoxicity of sodium formononetin-3′-sulphonate (Sul-F) using bacterial reverse mutation assay, chromosomal aberrations detection, and mouse micronucleus test. In bacterial reverse mutation assay using five strains of Salmonella typhimurium (TA97, TA98, TA100, TA102 and TA1535), Sul-F (250, 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 μg/plate) did not increase the number of revertant colonies in any tester strain with or without S9 mix. In a chromosomal assay using Chinese hamster lung fibroblast (CHL) cells, there were no increases in either kind of aberration at any dose of Sul-F (400, 800, and 1600 μ g/mL) treatment groups with or without S9 metabolic activation. In an in vivo bone marrow micronucleus test in ICR mice, Sul-F at up to 2000 mg/kg (intravenous injection) showed no significant increases in the incidence of micronucleated polychromatic erythrocytes, and the proportion of immature erythrocytes to total erythrocytes. The results demonstrated that Sul-F does not show mutagenic or genotoxic potential under these test conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Endocardial cells lining the heart lumen are coronary vessel progenitors during embryogenesis. Re-igniting this developmental process in adults could regenerate blood vessels lost during cardiac injury, but this requires additional knowledge of molecular mechanisms. Here, we use mouse genetics and scRNA-seq to identify regulators of endocardial angiogenesis and precisely assess the role of CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling. Time-specific lineage tracing demonstrated that endocardial cells differentiated into coronary endothelial cells primarily at mid-gestation. A new mouse line reporting CXCR4 activity—along with cell-specific gene deletions—demonstrated it was specifically required for artery morphogenesis rather than angiogenesis. Integrating scRNA-seq data of endocardial-derived coronary vessels from mid- and late-gestation identified a Bmp2-expressing transitioning population specific to mid-gestation. Bmp2 stimulated endocardial angiogenesis in vitro and in injured neonatal mouse hearts. Our data demonstrate how understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying endocardial angiogenesis can identify new potential therapeutic targets promoting revascularization of the injured heart. [Display omitted] • Endocardium gives rise to coronary vessels primarily at mid-gestation development • Bmp2 stimulates Vegf-A-dependent coronary angiogenesis from endocardium • Bmp2 overexpression reactivates endocardial angiogenesis in injured neonatal heart • Cxcl12/Cxcr4 signaling mediates endocardium-derived artery morphogenesis Identifying how coronary blood vessels develop from their progenitors could inspire therapies promoting revascularization of diseased hearts deprived of blood flow. D'Amato et al. show that Bmp2 stimulates coronary vessel development from endocardial cells in embryonic hearts and that forced Bmp2 expression after birth reactivates endocardial-derived vascularization in injured neonatal hearts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed major innovations in mobile crowdsourcing networks. For selfish participants, conventional methods resort to incentive mechanism design for resource utilization, which might overlook the inherent equilibrium property among mobile users. In contrast to these proposals, we investigate the problem that whether or not the selfish users could be enabled to endorse stable task sharing with balanced allocations without incentive mechanism designs. Before making a positive answer to this problem, we need to address the following challenge, i.e., users have to make their balancing decisions with only very limited and dynamic local load information, which could possibly incur longer convergence time and imbalanced task allocations. In tackling this difficulty, we propose two distributed selfish load balancing schemes, the max-weight best response policy for strong information scenario, where load information could be sufficiently collected; and the proportional allocation policy for weak information scenario. We make experimental studies to validate proposed schemes. In our simulation study with real trace data, the proposed schemes converge fast in many typical settings with fairly good balancing performance. As for data traces from RollerNet (Tournoux et al., The accordion phenomenon 2009), the performance of load balancing and convergence property are further validated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a green approach to prepare both porous and dense antifouling membranes was developed through solvent-free bulk polymerization of the casting solution containing 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and pre-dispersed silica nanoparticles in two glass sheets under pressure. Porous polyHEMA membranes were prepared via removing the silica nanoparticles embedded in the polymer matrix. Dense poly(HEMA/MAA)/SiO 2 membranes were fabricated by adding methacrylic acid (MAA) as co-monomer without removing the silica nanoparticles. Membrane thickness could be conveniently controlled by varying the distance between the two slide glasses. Field emission scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and water contact angle measurement were employed to characterize the morphology and surface chemical composition of the resultant membranes. The porous polyHEMA membranes exhibited high efficiency in purification of bovine serum albumin (BSA) from BSA/yeast solution while the dense poly(HEMA/MAA)/SiO 2 membranes exhibited high rejection of orange GII. Both porous membranes and dense membranes exhibited strong hydrophilicity as a result of hydrophilic monomer HEMA, leading to good antifouling properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thin film composite (TFC) nanofiltration membranes with good structural stability were prepared by interfacial polymerization under the mediation of polydopamine (PD). Polyethersulfone (PES) support layer was firstly modified by PD prior to the interfacial polymerization of piperazine (PIP) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) to form polyamide active layer. PD played the following two important roles: (1) rendering the PES support layer with the reactive groups to enhance the interfacial strength between the support layer and active layer; (2) rendering the PES support layer with higher hydrophilicity to facilitate interfacial polymerization. The TFC membrane prepared under optimal conditions exhibited a flux of 22.8 L/(m 2 h) while the rejection of Na 2 SO 4 reached 93.5% under 0.2 MPa. Particularly, the TFC membrane exhibited good structural stability (less than 5% decline in salt rejection) as tested by alcohol treatment due to the strong interactions between the active layer and the modified PES support layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A new kind of fluorinated polyamine was successfully synthesized and grafted onto the polyamide membrane surface to fabricate an antifouling nanofiltration membrane with low surface free energy. The surface composition of the fluorinated polyamide nanofiltration membrane was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The membrane cross-section morphology was observed by a field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The presence of perfluoroalkyl groups on the membrane surface significantly lowered the surface free energy from 60.0 to 44.4mJ/m2. The filtration experiment results indicated that the surface fluorination did not lower the separation performance of the polyamide nanofiltration membrane significantly. The antifouling experiment results demonstrated that the fluorinated polyamide nanofiltration membranes exhibited superior antifouling property, that is, high flux recovery ratio (~98.5%) and low total flux decline ratio (~11%) during protein aqueous solution and humic acid aqueous solution filtration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the present study, an in situ approach to pH and temperature responsive membranes is developed. The membrane matrix is formed through bulk polymerization and crosslinking of liquid monomer 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) while the membrane pores are formed by the templating of inorganic particles. The functional monomers methacrylic acid (MAA) and N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) are incorporated into membrane casting solution in order to confer membranes with pH and temperature responsive properties. The poly(HEMA/MAA) membranes exhibit a reversible pH-dependent water flux, while the poly(HEMA/NIPAAm) membranes exhibit a reversible temperature-dependent water flux. The flux of the poly(HEMA/MAA) membrane increased by 70% when pH was decreased from 10.0 to 2.0, while the flux poly(HEMA/NIPAAm) membrane increased by 150% when temperature was increased from 20 to 45 °C. The protein adsorption and antifouling performance of the poly(HEMA/MAA) and poly(HEMA/NIPAAm) membranes also exhibit pH and temperature responsive properties. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In this study, a solvent-free approachto antifouling membranes is tentatively presented. The membrane bulkmatrix is formed through bulk polymerization of liquid monomer 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) in the absence of an organic solvent. The membranepores are formed via removal of silica particles generated from thesol–gel process of tetraethyl orthosilicate. The membraneshave a homogeneous structure and acquire water flux around 1020 Lm–2h–1at 0.1 MPa. The ratesof rejection of the yeast and oil droplet for all the polyHEMA membranesare above 97.0 and 99.0%, respectively. The polyHEMA membranes exhibitstrong hydrophilic and excellent fouling resistance properties asa result of hydrophilic HEMA. The flux recovery ratio is as high as91.0% using protein as a foulant. After the fluorine-containing additivedodecafluoroheptyl methacrylate (DFHM) had been blended in a castingsolution, the poly(HEMA/DFHM) membranes possess an amphiphilic surfaceand exhibit excellent fouling resistance as well as fouling releaseproperties. The flux recovery ratio is >90%, and the total fluxdecline ratio is as low as 11.7% using an oil/water emulsion as thefoulant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe PROPER-seq (protein-protein interaction sequencing) to map protein-protein interactions (PPIs) en masse. PROPER-seq first converts transcriptomes of input cells into RNA-barcoded protein libraries, in which all interacting protein pairs are captured through nucleotide barcode ligation, recorded as chimeric DNA sequences, and decoded at once by sequencing and mapping. We applied PROPER-seq to human embryonic kidney cells, T lymphocytes, and endothelial cells and identified 210,518 human PPIs (collected in the PROPER v.1.0 database). Among these, 1,365 and 2,480 PPIs are supported by published co-immunoprecipitation (coIP) and affinity purification-mass spectrometry (AP-MS) data, 17,638 PPIs are predicted by the prePPI algorithm without previous experimental validation, and 100 PPIs overlap human synthetic lethal gene pairs. In addition, four previously uncharacterized interaction partners with poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP1) (a critical protein in DNA repair) known as XPO1, MATR3, IPO5, and LEO1 are validated in vivo. PROPER-seq presents a time-effective technology to map PPIs at the transcriptome scale, and PROPER v.1.0 provides a rich resource for studying PPIs. [Display omitted] • PROPER-seq maps protein-protein interactions (PPIs) en masse through DNA sequencing • PROPER-seq reveals more than 200,000 previously uncharacterized human PPIs • PROPER-seq validates more than 17,000 computationally predicted human PPIs • The hubs of the human protein interactome tend to be synthetic lethal genes Johnson et al. introduce PROPER-seq for large-scale and time-effective mapping of protein-protein interactions (PPIs) in various cell types based on DNA sequencing. Collected in PROPER v.1.0, PROPER-seq adds more than 200,000 previously uncharacterized PPIs to the reference human protein interactome and provides experimental support to more than 17,000 computationally predicted human PPIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is a major risk factor for the development of primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG). This is from an increased aqueous humour (AH) outflow resistance through the trabecular meshwork (TM). The pathogenic mechanisms leading to the increase in TM outflow resistance are poorly understood but are thought to be from a dysregulation of the TM extracellular matrix (ECM) environment. ECM modification and turnover are crucial in regulating the resistance to aqueous outflow. ECM turnover is influenced by a complex interplay of growth factors such as transforming growth factors (TGFβ) family and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). Elevated TGFβ2 levels result in an increase in ECM deposition such as fibronectin leading to increased resistance. Fibronectin is a major component of TM ECM and plays a key role in its maintenance. Thrombospondins (TSP)-1 and −2 are important regulators of the ECM environment. TSP-1 has been implicated in the pathogenesis of POAG through activation of TGFβ2 within the TM. TSP-2 does not contain the catalytic domain to activate latent TGFβ, but is able to mediate the activities of MMP 2 and 9, thereby influencing ECM turnover. TSP-2 knock out mice show lower IOP levels compared to their wild type counterparts, suggesting the involvement of TSP-2 in the pathogenesis of POAG but its role in the pathogenesis of POAG remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of TSP-2 in trabecular meshwork ECM regulation and hence the pathogenesis of POAG. TSP-1 and TSP-2 expressions in immortalised glaucomatous TM cells (GTM3) and primary human non-glaucomatous (NTM) and glaucomatous cells (GTM) were determined by immunocytochemistry, immuno-blot analysis and qPCR following treatment with TGFβ2 and Dexamethasone. The level of ECM protein fibronectin was determined in TM cells using immuno-blot analysis following treatment with TSP-1 or -2. TM cells secrete TSP-1 and -2 under basal conditions at the protein level and TSP-2 mRNA and protein levels were increased in response to TGFβ2 three days post treatment. Exogenous treatment with TSP-2 up-regulated the expression of fibronectin protein in GTM3 cells, primary NTM and GTM cells. TSP-1 did not affect fibronectin protein levels in GTM3 cells. This suggests that the role of TSP-2 might be distinct from that of TSP-1 in the regulation of the TM cell ECM environment. TSP-2 may be involved in the pathogenesis of POAG and contribute to increased IOP levels by increasing the deposition of fibronectin within the ECM in response to TGFβ2. • Raised IOP is a major risk factor for POAG resulting from dysregulation of TM ECM. • TGFβ2 plays a key role in the pathogenesis of POAG by modulating TM ECM. • TSP-1 and -2 are important regulators of the ECM and increased by TGFβ2 in the TM. • ECM protein Fibronectin is increased by TSP-2 in human TM cells. • TSP-2 may be involved in the pathogenesis of POAG by modulating fibronectin levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]