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Grain boundaries (GBs) play a crucial role on the structural stability and mechanical properties of Cu and its alloys. In this work, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are employed to study the effects of Fe solutes on the formation energy, excess volume, dislocations and melting behaviors of GBs in CuFe alloys. It is illustrated that Fe solute affects the structural stability of Cu GBs substantially, the formation energy of GBs is reduced, but the thickness and melting point of GBs are increased, that is, the structural stability of Cu GBs is significantly improved owing to the Fe solutes. A strong scaling law exists between the formation energy, excess volume, thickness and melting point of GBs. Therefore, Fe solid solute plays an important role in the characteristics of GBs in bi-crystal Cu.

Among the most significant solutions suggested for estimating energy consumption and cooling load, one can refer to enhancing energy efficiency in non-residential and residential buildings. A structure's characteristics must be considered when estimating how much heating and cooling is required. To design and develop energy-efficient buildings, it can be helpful to research the characteristics of connected structures, such as the kinds of cooling and heating systems needed to ensure sui interior air quality. As an important part of energy consumption and demand of buildings, the assessment of cooling load conditions from the envelope of large buildings has not been comprehensively understood yet. In the present paper, a new conceptual system has been developed to anticipate cooling load in the sector of residential buildings. Also, the paper briefly describes the major models of the developed system to maintain continuity and concentrate on the prediction model of the cooling load. To predict cooling load, authors have modelled two methods of artificial neural network (ANN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) in conjunction with teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO). This article aims to illustrate how artificial intelligence (AI) approaches play an essential role in addressing the mentioned necessity and help estimate the optimal design parameters for various stations. The value of the multiple determination coefficient is also determined. The values of the training R2 (coefficient of multiple determination) are 0.96446 and 0.97585 for TLBO-MLP and TLBO-ANFIS in the training stage and 0.95855 and 0.9721 in the testing stage, respectively, with an unknown dataset which is acceptable. The training RMSE values for TLBO-MLP and TLBO-ANFIS are 0.0685 and 0.11176 for training and 0.07074 and 0.12035 for testing, respectively, for the unknown dataset, which is acceptable. The lowest RMSE value and the higher R2 value indicate the favourable accuracy of the TLBO-MLP technique. According to the high value of R2 (97%) and the low value of RMSE, TLBO-MLP can predict residential buildings’ cooling load.

Modeling, validating, and simulating are three essential parts in investigating the heat mitigation benefits of urban trees (BUT). Therefore, 81 relevant studies from the last ten years are reviewed, analyzed, and summarized in this study. Three main ways for urban trees to adjust the environment are summarized, including shade creation and radiation modification, cooling effects of transpiration, and airflow blocking and modification effects. Research works are analyzed with regard to four categories: (1) heat and moisture exchange mechanisms and their mathematical modeling; (2) verification of modeling predictions based on measurements; (3) thermal performance simulation and prediction; and (4) environmental assessment and human thermal comfort analyses. Future research opportunities are discussed: (1) conduct real-time and in-depth measurements to analyze the mechanisms of heat and moisture transfer of trees in different areas; (2) develop tree radiation attenuation, airflow resistance, and transpiration models to accurately describe heat and moisture transfer processes in the urban environment; and (3) establish a three-dimensional numerical simulation method that can accurately simulate the urban thermal environment with trees. This review provides researchers with an overview and potential research opportunities on the thermal effects of urban trees.

Identification of B-cell epitopes (BCEs) plays an essential role in the development of peptide vaccines and immuno-diagnostic reagents, as well as antibody design and production. In this work, we generated a large benchmark dataset comprising 124,879 experimentally supported linear epitope-containing regions in 3567 protein clusters from over 1.3 million B cell assays. Analysis of this curated dataset showed large pathogen diversity covering 176 different families. The accuracy in linear BCE prediction was found to strongly vary with different features, while all sequence-derived and structural features were informative. To search more efficient and interpretive feature representations, a ten-layer deep learning framework for linear BCE prediction, namely NetBCE, was developed. NetBCE achieved high accuracy and robust performance with the average area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.8455 in five-fold cross-validation through automatically learning the informative classification features. NetBCE substantially outperformed the conventional machine learning algorithms and other tools, with more than 22.06% improvement of AUC value compared to other tools using an independent dataset. Through investigating the output of important network modules in NetBCE, epitopes and non-epitopes tended to be presented in distinct regions with efficient feature representation along the network layer hierarchy. The NetBCE is freely available at https://github.com/bsml320/NetBCE.

Flame retardant modification of leaf fibers was carried out to solve the technical problem of poor fire resistance of plant fibers and improve the utilization rate of urban fallen leaves in building materials. The modification scheme adopts three flame retardants, i.e., ammonium polyphosphate (APP), magnesium hydroxide (MH), and aluminum hydroxide (ATH), and two covering layers, i.e., pure acrylic polymer lotion and water glass (Na2O · nSiO2) solution. The modified leaf fiber's combustion behavior and pyrolysis properties were tested and analyzed. The physical and mechanical characteristics, as well as the thermal insulation qualities, of leaf fiber cement-based composites (LFCC) were studied at high temperatures. The findings revealed that the three flame retardants had an effect on the chemical structure of leaf fibers. In comparison to leaf fibers without flame-retardant modification, flame-retardant-modified leaf fibers have a much greater thermal stability. and its LOI is greater than 27.0%, which is a fire-retardant material. Except for the sample with water glass as the modified cover layer, at high temperatures, the composite flame-retardant fiber LFCC's mass-loss rate is lower compared with fibers without flame-retardant modification or fibers modified with only one kind of flame-retardant. In the composite flame-retardant modified fiber LFCC, the samples with better strength at high temperature are those with ATH replacing 30% and 50% MH. The thermal conductivity of LFCC is negatively correlated with the range of temperature change.

AimWe sought to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture in treating the main symptoms of primary Sjögren’s syndrome, specifically dryness, pain, and fatigue.MethodsA total of 120 patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome were randomized in a parallel-group, controlled trial. Participants received acupuncture or sham acupuncture for the first 8 weeks, then were followed for 16 weeks thereafter. The primary outcome was the proportion of participants with a ≥ 30% reduction in ≥ 2 of 3 numeric analog scale scores for dryness, pain, and fatigue. The secondary outcomes included the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Sjögren’s Syndrome Patient-reported Index (ESSPRI); the EULAR Sjögren’s Syndrome Disease Activity Index; the Schirmer test score; unstimulated saliva flow; serum immunoglobulin G, A, and M concentrations; the Medical Outcome Study Short Form 36 score; salivary gland ultrasound imaging; and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale score.ResultsThe proportions of patients meeting the primary endpoint were 28.33% (17/60) in the acupuncture group and 31.66% (19/60) in the sham group, without a statistically significant difference (P = 0.705). The IgG concentration at week 16 and the homogeneity in ultrasonography of the salivary glands at week 8 showed significant differences between the 2 groups (P = 0.0490 and P = 0.0334, respectively). No other differences were observed between the 2 groups. ESSPRI and unstimulated saliva flow were improved in both groups compared to baseline, albeit with a significant difference between them.ConclusionIn patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome, acupuncture did not satisfactorily improve symptoms compared to placebo. However, interesting discoveries and possible underlying reasons were demonstrated and discussed, which may be useful to studies in the future.Clinical Trial Registration[www.ClinicalTrials.gov], identifier [NCT02691377].

The concentrations of small microplastics (diameter

Phosphorylation plays an important role in the regulation of molecular circadian clocks. Here the authors utilize multi-omics data from flies to describe the circadian kinome and identify GASKET as a potentially important regulator within the circadian kinase network.

As an important protein acylation modification, lysine succinylation (Ksucc) is involved in diverse biological processes, and participates in human tumorigenesis. Here, we collected 26,243 non-redundant known Ksucc sites from 13 species as the benchmark data set, combined 10 types of informative features, and implemented a hybrid-learning architecture by integrating deep-learning and conventional machine-learning algorithms into a single framework. We constructed a new tool named HybridSucc, which achieved area under curve (AUC) values of 0.885 and 0.952 for general and human-specific prediction of Ksucc sites, respectively. In comparison, the accuracy of HybridSucc was 17.84%–50.62% better than that of other existing tools. Using HybridSucc, we conducted a proteome-wide prediction and prioritized 370 cancer mutations that change Ksucc states of 218 important proteins, including PKM2, SHMT2, and IDH2. We not only developed a high-profile tool for predicting Ksucc sites, but also generated useful candidates for further experimental consideration. The online service of HybridSucc can be freely accessed for academic research at http://hybridsucc.biocuckoo.org/.

In eukaryotes, protein phosphorylation is specifically catalyzed by numerous protein kinases (PKs), faithfully orchestrates various biological processes, and reversibly determines cellular dynamics and plasticity. Here we report an updated algorithm of Group-based Prediction System (GPS) 5.0 to improve the performance for predicting kinase-specific phosphorylation sites (p-sites). Two novel methods, position weight determination (PWD) and scoring matrix optimization (SMO), were developed. Compared with other existing tools, GPS 5.0 exhibits a highly competitive accuracy. Besides serine/threonine or tyrosine kinases, GPS 5.0 also supports the prediction of dual-specificity kinase-specific p-sites. In the classical module of GPS 5.0, 617 individual predictors were constructed for predicting p-sites of 479 human PKs. To extend the application of GPS 5.0, a species-specific module was implemented to predict kinase-specific p-sites for 44,795 PKs in 161 eukaryotes. The online service and local packages of GPS 5.0 are freely available for academic research at http://gps.biocuckoo.cn.

The received signal of passive radar based on mobile communication signals contains direct and multipath interference (DMI) signals from multiple co-channel base stations (CCBS). The direct signal spatial spectrum of each CCBS should be obtained first to eliminate the co-channel interference. The performance of the traditional spatial spectrum estimation algorithms based on uniform linear array (ULA) is related to the number of array elements. In the complex co-channel interference environment, the array requires an ultra-large number of array elements and the spatial spectrum estimation resolution is poor. This paper proposes a method for estimating the direct signal spatial spectrum of the CCBS by fusing coprime array and compressive sensing. Firstly, an augmented virtual array signal is constructed by using the second-order statistics of the received signals of the coprime array and then the compressive sensing algorithm is used to estimate the spatial spectrum of the direct signal of the CCBS. The proposed method can achieve higher resolution and higher-degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) performance than traditional ULA by using the same number of array elements. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulation analysis and experimental data.

Glaciers and glacial lakes in the Bosula Mountain Range need special attention, because their instability may cause disastrous consequences to the downstream settlements and the Sichuan-Tibet Road. The latter is a pivotal traffic line in the Southeast Tibetan Plateau. In order to investigate the state of glaciers and glacial lakes in the Bosula Mountain Range, we estimated the changes in glacier/glacial lake boundaries, glacier surface elevation, and glacier flow velocity between 2000 and 2021 based on multisource remote sensing data. Our results showed that, from the period 2000–2013 to the period 2013–2021, the average shrinking rate of glacier area increased from 0.99 km2/a to 1.74 km2/a, and the average expanding rate of glacial lake area increased from 0.04 km2/a to 0.06 km2/a. From the period 1990–2011 to the period 2015–2019, the average thinning rate of glaciers increased from 0.83 m/a to 1.58 m/a. These results indicate the Bosula Mountain Range is one of the fastest melting glacierized regions in the High Mountain Asia, and the factors that account for this may include quick temperature rise, abundant summer rainfall, and thin debris cover. In spite of strong ice melting, the observed changes in glacier boundaries, surface elevation, and flow velocity show no sign of surge activity, and the frequency of glacier lake outburst has not increased since 1989. Currently, three proglacial lakes that expanded quickly during 2000–2021 are now prominent hazards. They are directly threatened by accidental ice calving and ice avalanche, and their outburst could cause considerable damage to the downstream settlements and the Sichuan-Tibet Road.

Abstract Approximately 15% of human cancers are estimated to be attributed to viruses. Virus sequences can be integrated into the host genome, leading to genomic instability and carcinogenesis. Here, a new deep convolutional neural network (CNN) model is developed with attention architecture, namely DeepVISP, for accurately predicting oncogenic virus integration sites (VISs) in the human genome. Using the curated benchmark integration data of three viruses, hepatitis B virus (HBV), human herpesvirus (HPV), and Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV), DeepVISP achieves high accuracy and robust performance for all three viruses through automatically learning informative features and essential genomic positions only from the DNA sequences. In comparison, DeepVISP outperforms conventional machine learning methods by 8.43–34.33% measured by area under curve (AUC) value enhancement in three viruses. Moreover, DeepVISP can decode cis‐regulatory factors that are potentially involved in virus integration and tumorigenesis, such as HOXB7, IKZF1, and LHX6. These findings are supported by multiple lines of evidence in literature. The clustering analysis of the informative motifs reveales that the representative k‐mers in clusters could help guide virus recognition of the host genes. A user‐friendly web server is developed for predicting putative oncogenic VISs in the human genome using DeepVISP.

In this paper, a new type of unit dew-point evaporative cooler with fibrous membrane was designed and constructed. The effects of three air state parameters (temperature, humidity, air velocity) on the outlet air temperature, wet-bulb efficiency and dew-point efficiency were studied, as well as the regional adaptability in four typical cities in China. The porous fibrous membrane can be used to improve the moisture permeability and diffusion characteristics of the wet channel. It was found that the wicking height rate of the porous fibrous membrane was 0.203 cm/min, the diffusivity rate was 0.118 cm2/s, which was better than the performance of Kraft Paper. The usage of this novel device in Urumqi and Lanzhou, as regions with lower relative humidity, showed better regional adaptability than in Beijing and Shanghai with higher relative humidity. When the inlet air velocity was 1 m/s, the temperature decreased from 33.4 °C to 24.2 °C and 31.3 °C–24.5 °C respectively in the former area, while, decreased from 33.6 °C to 28.1 °C and 34.6 °C–29.5 °C respectively in the latter area. With the inlet air velocity increasing from 1 m/s to 3 m/s, the outlet air temperature would rise, and the wet-bulb efficiency and dew-point efficiency would decrease, but the cooling capacity would increase.

Various posttranslational modifications (PTMs) participate in nearly all aspects of biological processes by regulating protein functions, and aberrant states of PTMs are frequently implicated in human diseases. Therefore, an integral resource of PTM–disease associations (PDAs) would be a great help for both academic research and clinical use. In this work, we reported PTMD, a well-curated database containing PTMs that are associated with human diseases. We manually collected 1950 known PDAs in 749 proteins for 23 types of PTMs and 275 types of diseases from the literature. Database analyses show that phosphorylation has the largest number of disease associations, whereas neurologic diseases have the largest number of PTM associations. We classified all known PDAs into six classes according to the PTM status in diseases and demonstrated that the upregulation and presence of PTM events account for a predominant proportion of disease-associated PTM events. By reconstructing a disease–gene network, we observed that breast cancers have the largest number of associated PTMs and AKT1 has the largest number of PTMs connected to diseases. Finally, the PTMD database was developed with detailed annotations and can be a useful resource for further analyzing the relations between PTMs and human diseases. PTMD is freely accessible at http://ptmd.biocuckoo.org. Keywords: Posttranslational modification, Phosphorylation, PTM–disease association, Disease–gene network, AKT1

The bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling pathway is highly conserved across many species, and its importance for the patterning of the skeletal system has been demonstrated. A disrupted BMP signaling pathway results in severe skeletal defects. Murine calvaria has been identified to have dual-tissue lineages, namely, the cranial neural-crest cells and the paraxial mesoderm. Modulations of the BMP signaling pathway have been demonstrated to be significant in determining calvarial osteogenic potentials and ossification in vitro and in vivo. More importantly, the BMP signaling pathway plays a role in the maintenance of the homeostasis of the calvarial stem cells, indicating a potential clinic significance in calvarial bone and in expediting regeneration. Following the inherent evidence of BMP signaling in craniofacial biology, we summarize recent discoveries relating to BMP signaling in the development of calvarial structures, functions of the suture stem cells and their niche and regeneration. This review will not only provide a better understanding of BMP signaling in cranial biology, but also exhibit the molecular targets of BMP signaling that possess clinical potential for tissue regeneration.

Malignant mesotheliomas are rather uncommon neoplasms associated primarily with asbestos exposure; however, they may also arise as second primary malignancies after radiation therapy, with a latency period of 15–25 years. Numerous studies have reported an association between pleural malignant mesothelioma and chest radiation performed for other malignancies; on the other hand, post-irradiation mesotheliomas of the pericardium have been reported in only a few published cases to date, and no homozygous deletion of 9p21 has been described in such cases. We report the case of a 48-year-old man with a history of Hodgkin's lymphoma and no prior asbestos exposure who developed pericardial malignant epithelioid mesothelioma. We further discuss the cytologic, histologic, immunophenotypic, and fluorescence in situ hybridization findings in this case. To our knowledge, this is the first well-documented case of post-radiation pericardial malignant mesothelioma showing homozygous deletion of 9p21. Homozygous deletion of 9p21, the locus harboring the p16 gene, is present in post-irradiation pericardial malignant mesothelioma.

A key feature of lung fibrosis is the accumulation of myofibroblasts. Interleukin 13 (IL-13) is a pro-fibrotic mediator that directly and indirectly influences the activation of myofibroblasts. Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) promotes the differentiation of fibroblasts into myofibroblasts, and can be regulated by IL-13. However, IL-13's downstream signaling pathways are not completely understood. We previously reported that the transcription factor Yin Yang 1 (YY1) is upregulated in fibroblasts treated with TGF-β and in the lungs of mice and patients with pulmonary fibrosis. Moreover, YY1 directly regulates collagen and alpha smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression in fibroblasts. However, it is not known if IL-13 regulates fibroblast activation through YY1 expression. We hypothesize that IL-13 up-regulates YY1 expression through regulation of AKT activation, leading to fibroblast activation. In this study we found that YY1 was upregulated by IL-13 in lung fibroblasts in a dose- and time-dependent manner, resulting in increased α-SMA. Conversely, knockdown of YY1 blocked IL-13-induced α-SMA expression in fibroblasts. Furthermore, AKT phosphorylation was increased in fibroblasts treated with IL-13, and AKT overexpression upregulated YY1, whereas blockade of AKT phosphorylation suppressed the induction of YY1 by IL-13 in vitro. In vivo YY1 was upregulated in fibrotic lungs from CC10-IL-13 transgenic mice compared to that from wild-type littermates, which was associated with increased AKT phosphorylation. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that IL-13 is a potent stimulator and activator of fibroblasts, at least in part, through AKT-mediated YY1 activation.

Abstract These multimedia modules have been developed to teach senior medical students on their surgical pathology elective the basic microscopic features of common surgical pathology diagnoses. The modules include normal histology and pathology organized into the following organ systems: breast, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, gynecologic, liver, and lung. The first component to this teaching set is a review of normal histology which may serve as a comparison for the histopathology component. A low- and high-power micrograph of each organ is provided. The student is tested with a quiz of micrographs of normal histology where they must identify the organ. Next, students review commonly encountered biopsies in each organ system. Under each diagnosis is listed the definition, etiology, symptoms/indications for biopsy, gross features, microscopic features, and a differential diagnosis. Radiologic features and pertinent additional stains are noted when appropriate. The goal of the surgical pathology rotation at this institution is to allow students to function as junior house officers, actively participating in previewing and sign-out. These teaching modules will provide basic clinical and microscopic descriptions to help the student preview and diagnose biopsy specimens on their own. The clinical implications of certain diagnoses as they pertain to aggressive management in neoplastic disease will also be mentioned. The modules are designed so students can easily navigate between slides, diagnoses, and differentials. Each image is provided with arrows and labels (which may be hidden) to guide the eye of the learner to recognize the patterns of each diagnosis. After completing a module, students will solidify their knowledge with a quiz. We plan to monitor the effectiveness of this assessment by having students take the quiz at the start and end of the rotation to compare the change in their score. These modules will provide an organized foundation on which the student may build his or her knowledge during slide review with senior residents or staff pathologists.

Non-typeable Haemophilus influenza (NTHi) is an important human pathogen causing respiratory tract infections in both adults and children. NTHi infections are characterized by inflammation, which is mainly mediated by nuclear transcription factor kappaB (NF-kappaB)-dependent production of inflammatory mediators. The deubiquitinating enzyme cylindromatosis (CYLD), loss of which was originally reported to cause a benign human syndrome called cylindromatosis, has been identified as a key negative regulator for NF-kappaB in vitro. However, little is known about the role of CYLD in bacteria-induced inflammation in vivo. Here, we provided direct evidence for the negative role of CYLD in NTHi-induced inflammation of the mice in vivo. Our data demonstrated that CYLD is induced by NTHi in the middle ear and lung of mice. NTHi-induced CYLD, in turn, negatively regulates NTHi-induced NF-kappaB activation through deubiquitinating TRAF6 and 7 and down-regulates inflammation. Our data thus indicate that CYLD acts as a negative regulator for NF-kappaB-dependent inflammation in vivo, hence protecting the host against detrimental inflammatory response to NTHi infection.

A compact spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) low-pass filter is proposed. By adopting a novel fishbone structure, the effective depth of the groove is increased, reducing the filter width by 24.84%. The length of the filter is reduced by 22.23% with a new transmission structure. To intuitively display this structure, the filter is designed and fabricated. The area of the filter is 47.44 mm×8 mm. The results demonstrate that the insertion and return losses are less than 3 dB and greater than 13 dB, respectively, in a wideband range of 0-10.00 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most significant solutions suggested for estimating energy consumption and cooling load, one can refer to enhancing energy efficiency in non-residential and residential buildings. A structure's characteristics must be considered when estimating how much heating and cooling is required. To design and develop energy-efficient buildings, it can be helpful to research the characteristics of connected structures, such as the kinds of cooling and heating systems needed to ensure sui interior air quality. As an important part of energy consumption and demand of buildings, the assessment of cooling load conditions from the envelope of large buildings has not been comprehensively understood yet. In the present paper, a new conceptual system has been developed to anticipate cooling load in the sector of residential buildings. Also, the paper briefly describes the major models of the developed system to maintain continuity and concentrate on the prediction model of the cooling load. To predict cooling load, authors have modelled two methods of artificial neural network (ANN) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) in conjunction with teaching-learning-based optimization (TLBO). This article aims to illustrate how artificial intelligence (AI) approaches play an essential role in addressing the mentioned necessity and help estimate the optimal design parameters for various stations. The value of the multiple determination coefficient is also determined. The values of the training R² (coefficient of multiple determination) are 0.96446 and 0.97585 for TLBO-MLP and TLBO-ANFIS in the training stage and 0.95855 and 0.9721 in the testing stage, respectively, with an unknown dataset which is acceptable. The training RMSE values for TLBO-MLP and TLBO-ANFIS are 0.0685 and 0.11176 for training and 0.07074 and 0.12035 for testing, respectively, for the unknown dataset, which is acceptable. The lowest RMSE value and the higher R² value indicate the favourable accuracy of the TLBO-MLP technique. According to the high value of R² (97%) and the low value of RMSE, TLBO-MLP can predict residential buildings' cooling load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]