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ObjectiveTo investigate the correlation between chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and bronchial asthma, focusing on the CRS without nasal polyps (CRSsNP) and CRS with nasal polyps (CRSwNP), as well as their impact on lung function.MethodsA total of 141 patients diagnosed with chronic nasal-sinus inflammation were included in this study. Clinical data, including medical histories, nasal endoscopy scores, CT scores, symptom scores, and quality of life assessments, were collected.ResultsAmong the patients with CRSsNP, 23.8% had concomitant bronchial asthma. The incidence of asthma was significantly associated with the severity of sinus involvement in CRSsNP patients (p = 0.049). Pulmonary function impairment was correlated with the severity of sinus inflammation in CRSsNP patients (p = 0.019). Quality of life was significantly affected in patients with concomitant asthma and CRSsNP or CRSwNP.ConclusionChronic rhinosinusitis, both with and without nasal polyps, is closely correlated with bronchial asthma. Pulmonary function impairment is associated with the extent of inflammatory lesions in CRSsNP. Although CRSwNP does not significantly affect pulmonary function, the treatment of sinus diseases can contribute to the control of asthma.

Piston cooling gallery plays a critical role in managing the temperature of the piston and its performance. This paper aims to study the effect of oscillatory heat transfer within the cooling galleries, focusing on two distinct types: flanged (friction-welded) and smooth structures (laser-welded). To do so, the Eulerian multiphase flow model and the k-ω SST turbulence model were used to simulate the oil and air flow through the cooling gallery. Key parameters such as the oil filling rate, wall heat transfer coefficient, oil outlet flow rate, heat removal rate by the oil, and overall wall heat transfer rate were assessed for both gallery designs at an engine speed of 1800 r/min. The results indicate significant disparities between the two cooling gallery structures: the smooth structure exhibits an oil filling rate that is 5.41% higher and an oil outlet flow rate that is 33.48% greater compared to the flanged structure. The flange structure impedes internal oil movement, which leads to boundary layer separation, secondary wall contact, and the emergence of a double vortex phenomena. Collectively, these factors influence the oil fill ratio. This, in turn, affects the distribution of oil within the gallery and, subsequently, the efficiency of heat transfer. Comparative analyses of heat transfer within both galleries, under the same studied conditions, revealed that the smooth structure outperforms the flanged one. However, the presence of a flange significantly alters the heat contribution from different walls, thereby highlighting the substantial impact of flanges on the overall efficiency of heat transfer.

Exposure to carbon disulfide (CS2) is a recognized risk factor in the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease, yet the underlying mechanisms of deleterious effects on mitochondrial integrity have remained elusive. Here, through establishing CS2 exposure models in rat and SH-SY5Y cells, we demonstrated that highly expressed α-synuclein (α-Syn) is transferred to mitochondria via membrane proteins such as Tom20 and leads to mitochondrial dysfunction and mitochondrial oxidative stress, which ultimately causes neuronal injury. We first found significant mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress in CS2-exposed rat midbrain and SH-SY5Y cells and showed that mitochondrial oxidative stress was the main factor of mitochondrial damage by Mitoquinone intervention. Further experiments revealed that CS2 exposure led to the accumulation of α-Syn in mitochondria and that α-Syn co-immunoprecipitated with mitochondrial membrane proteins. Finally, the use of an α-Syn inhibitor (ELN484228) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) effectively mitigated the accumulation of α-Syn in neurons, as well as the inhibition of mitochondrial membrane potential, caused by CS2 exposure. In conclusion, our study identifies the translocation of α-Syn to mitochondria and the impairment of mitochondrial function, which has important implications for the broader understanding and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases associated with environmental toxins.

Summary: Exposure to carbon disulfide (CS2) has been associated with an increased incidence of parkinsonism in workers, but the mechanism underlying this association remains unclear. Using a rat model, we investigated the effects of chronic CS2 exposure on parkinsonian pathology. Our results showed that CS2 exposure leads to significant motor impairment and neuronal damage, including loss of dopaminergic neurons and degeneration of the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). The immunoassays revealed that exposure to CS2 induces aggregation of α-synuclein and phosphorylated α-synuclein, as well as activation of necroptosis in the SNpc. Furthermore, in vitro and in vivo experiments demonstrated that the interaction between α-synuclein and the necrosome complex (RIP1, RIP3, and MLKL) is responsible for the loss of neuronal cells after CS2 exposure. Taken together, our results demonstrate that CS2-mediated α-synuclein aggregation can induce dopaminergic neuron damage and parkinsonian behavior through interaction with the necrosome complex.

Recently, video and image compression methods using neural networks have received much attention. In MPEG standardization, Video Coding for Machine (VCM) is a newly arising topic which attempts to compress features/images for the purpose of machine vision tasks. Especially, compressing features has advantages in terms of privacy protection and computation off-loading. In this paper, we propose an effective feature compression method equipped with a super-resolution (SR) module for features. Our main motivation comes from the observation that features are somewhat robust to spatial distortions (e.g., AWGN, blur, quantization distortions, coding artifacts), which leads us to integrating an SR module into the compression framework. We also further explore the best training strategy of the proposed method, i.e., finding the best combination of various losses and proper input feature shapes. Our comprehensive experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the baseline in the original VCM anchor scenario on various QP values with Versatile Video Coding (VVC). Specifically, the proposed framework achieved up to 50% BD-rate reduction compared to the conventional P-layer feature map compression method for the object detection task on the OpenImage dataset.

Vinorelbine, the standard chemotherapy drug on advanced lung cancer, causes adverse events such as immunosuppression and bone marrow suppression. Thus, it is necessary to find drugs that could improve immune function and synergistically enhance the anti-tumor effect of vinorelbine. Thymosin is reported to inhibit tumor growth as an immunomodulator. Herein, to study the synergistic anti-cancer and attenuation effects of thymosin on vinorelbine, human lung cancer A549 cells that were labeled with CM-DiI were transplanted into zebrafish to establish the lung cancer xenotransplanted model. After treatment of vinorelbine and different concentrations of thymosin, the fluorescence intensity of CM-DiI-labeled A549 cells and the number of apoptotic muscle cells in the tumor-bearing zebrafish were detected. Besides, effects of thymosin on vinorelbine-reduced macrophages and T cells were identified in the transgenic zebrafish (Tg:zlyz-EGFP and Tg:rag2-DsRed). Then, the qRT-PCR was used to determine the alterations of the immune-related factors at the transcription level. Thymosin showed a marked synergistic anti-cancer effect with vinorelbine for the xenograft human lung cancer A549 cells, and the synergistic effect enhanced in a dose-dependent manner. Moreover, thymosin alleviated vinorelbine-induced muscle cell apoptosis, macrophage reduction, and T cell suppression. Compared with the vinorelbine group, co-administration with thymosin raised the mRNA levels of TNF-α, TNF-β, INF-γ, and GM-CSF. Thus, thymosin possesses synergistic anti-cancer effect on vinorelbine, and has protective effect on vinorelbine-induced immunosuppression. Thymosin, as an adjuvant immunomodulatory therapy, has great potential in enhancing the clinical application of vinorelbine.

Because of its convenience and compatibility with various image processing techniques, digital image representation of holograms is generally used in digital holography, and thus, quality assessment of digital holograms is an essential issue. This study proposes a new objective quality metric for digital phase hologram image processing. The proposed metric is based on a newly defined phase distortion created by taking the 2π periodicity of phase information into account. The experimental results show that the proposed metric correlates with reconstruction image quality better than the existing metric under random distortions and also works well with JPEG 2000 compression. It is expected to be broadly used in phase image processing and compression applications including phase holograms.

The composites comprised of Co nanoparticle and C nanosheet were prepared though a high-temperature carbonization reaction. The catalysis of Co@C composites on the hydrogen storage behavior of Mg90Ce5Y5 alloy was investigated in detail by XRD, SEM, TEM, PCI, and DSC method. Because of the synergistic catalytic function of C and Co in C@Co nanocomposites, the Mg90Ce5Y5 alloy with 10 wt.% C@Co shows the excellent hydrogen absorption and desorption performances. Time for releasing hydrogen reduces from 150 min to 11 min with the addition of the C@Co composites at the temperature of 300 °C. Meanwhile, the dehydrogenation activation energy also declines from 130.3 to 81.9 kJ mol−1 H2 after the addition of the C@Co composites. This positive effect attributes to the C layer with the high defect density and the Co nanoparticles, which reduces the energy barriers for the nucleation of Mg/MgH2 phase and the recombination of hydrogen molecule. Besides, the C@Co composites also improve the activation property of the Mg90Ce5Y5 alloy which was fully activated in the first cycle. Moreover, the temperature for initial dehydrogenation and the endothermic peak of the alloy hydride were also decreased. Although the addition of the C@Co composites increases the plateau pressures and decreases the value of the decomposition enthalpy, these differences are so small that the improvement on thermodynamics can hardly be seen.

Abstract LCL‐type resonant dual‐active‐bridge (LCL‐DAB) DC–DC converters have more significant advantages in eliminating backflow power and achieving higher voltage gain compared with traditional dual active bridge (DAB) DC–DC converters. Therefore, LCL‐DAB DC–DC converters have a broad application prospect in DC micro‐grids, electric vehicles, uninterruptible power supplies etc. Since at this stage only a few researches on LCL‐DAB DC–DC converters have been done, here, the specific system operation region with triple‐phase‐shift (TPS) modulation scheme designed under no backflow power is presented. Furthermore, a dynamic compensation based feedforward control method under no backflow power is proposed, which enables the LCL‐DAB DC–DC converter to operate under no backflow power in wide region and achieve outstanding dynamic performance against output/input disturbance. Finally, the experimental results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control method.

With the aid of rapid development in optical and display devices, Holography has become an emerging technology to represent 3D objects providing the most natural and realistic depth illusion to the users. To reproduce a light field of objects, a hologram records the interference patterns between the object and reference wavefields. Especially for computer-generated holograms, they contain vast amount of data and must be efficiently compressed for storage or transmission. Although several coding solutions, including standardized compression tools and their variations, have been tried in the literature, the coding efficiency is not satisfactory because holograms have completely different unique properties from those observed in natural images, whereas the legacy coding solutions are optimized for the latter. In this work, we propose a deep-learning based image compression network for phase-only holograms. The proposed network is trained in an end-to-end manner with the help of data augmentation technique and aims at minimizing the entropy of the input hologram. In comprehensive experiments, we demonstrate that our compression network shows the state-of-the-art coding performance that even surpasses the latest compression standard Versatile Video Coding by up to 39% in terms of BD-rate gain. Furthermore, we provide in-depth analysis for experimental results in both holographic and numerical reconstruction domains, such as individual performances of the test codecs, a performance comparison with different objective image fidelity metrics, and subjective quality evaluation results.

AbstractThe Joint Video Exploration Team (JVET) has studied future video coding (FVC) technologies with a potential compression capacity that significantly exceeds that of the high‐efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard. The joint exploration test model (JEM), a common platform for the exploration of FVC technologies in the JVET, employs quadtree plus binary tree block partitioning, which enhances the flexibility of coding unit partitioning. Despite significant improvement in coding efficiency for chrominance achieved by separating luminance and chrominance tree structures in I slices, this approach has intrinsic drawbacks that result in the redundancy of block partitioning data. In this paper, an adaptive tree structure correlating luminance and chrominance of single and dual trees is presented. Our proposed method resulted in an average reduction of −0.24% in the Y Bjontegaard Delta rate relative to the intracoding of JEM 6.0 common test conditions.

Background: Mechanical ventilation (MV) often leads to ventilation-induced diaphragm dysfunction (VIDD). Although the development of this disorder had been linked to oxidative stress, mitochondrial energy deficiency, autophagy activation, and apoptosis in the diaphragm, it remains unclear whether the activation of mitophagy can induce VIDD. With our research, our endeavor is to uncover whether PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1)/Parkin-mediated mitophagy affects the MV-caused diaphragmatic dysfunction Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to MV treatment for 6 h (MV-6h), 12 h (MV-12h), or 24 h (MV-24h). Post MV, the diaphragm muscle compound action potential (CMAP) and cross-sectional areas (CSAs) of the diaphragm of these rats were measured. The levels of proteins of interest were examined to assess muscle health, mitochondrial dynamics, and mitophagy in the diaphragm. The co-localization of PINK1 with the mitochondrial protein marker tom20 was examined, as well as transmission electron microscopy analysis to detect changes in diaphragm mitochondrial ultrastructure. Results: MV-12h and MV-24h treatments resulted in a decrease in CSA of diaphragm and CMAP amplitude. In addition, the expressions of F-box (MFAbx), muscle-specific ring finger 1 (MURF1), PINK1, and p62 were elevated in rats treated with MV for 12 h and 24 h, while mfn2 expression was reduced. Rats following MV-24h treatment displayed an increase in mitochondrial dynamic protein (Drp1) and Parkin expression and microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3/1 (LC3II/I) ratio. Moreover, decreased SOD and GSH activity and membrane potential were observed after MV-12h and MV-24h treatment, while H 2 O 2 activity increased after MV-24h treatment. In addition, a strong co-localization between PINK1 and tom20 was identified. Conclusion: These results reveal that MV leads to various changes in mitochondrial dynamics and significantly increases the mitophagy levels, which subsequently cause the variation in diaphragmatic function and muscle atrophy, indicating that mitophagy could be one of the possible mechanisms by which MV induces diaphragmatic dysfunction. The reviews of this paper are available via the supplemental material section.

Video compression exploits statistical, spatial, and temporal redundancy, as well as transform and quantization. In particular, the transform in a frequency domain plays a major role in energy compaction of spatial domain data into frequency domain data. The high efficient video coding standard uses the type‐II discrete cosine transform (DCT‐II) and type‐VII discrete sine transform (DST‐VII) to improve the coding efficiency of residual data. However, the DST‐VII is applied only to the Intra 4 × 4 residual block because it yields relatively small gains in the larger block than in the 4 × 4 block. In this study, after rearranging the data of the residual block, we apply the DST‐VII to the inter‐residual block to achieve coding gain. The rearrangement of the residual block data is similar to the arrangement of the basis vector with a the lowest frequency component of the DST‐VII. Experimental results show that the proposed method reduces the luma‐chroma (Cb+Cr) BD rates by approximately 0.23% to 0.22%, 0.44% to 0.58%, and 0.46% to 0.65% for the random access, low delay B, and low delay P configurations, respectively.

Orientin is a flavonoid extracted from Chinese traditional herb, Polygonum orientale L. Previous study has reported that orientin protected myocardial from ischemia reperfusion injury. However, whether orientin could protect against cardiac remodeling after myocardial injury remains unclear. The aim of our study is to investigate the effects of orientin in the progression of cardiac remodeling after myocardial infarction (MI). Mice cardiac remodeling model was established by left coronary artery ligation surgery. Experimental groups were as follows: vehicle-sham, orientin-sham, vehicle-MI, and orientin-MI. Animals were treated with vehicle or orientin (40 mg/kg) for 25 days starting 3 days after surgery. After 4 weeks of MI, mice with orientin treatment had decreased mortality and improved cardiac function. Significantly, at 4 weeks post-MI, orientin treatment decreased fibrosis, inflammatory response, and cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Furthermore, orientin treatment attenuated the hypoxia-induced neonatal rat cardiomyocyte apoptosis and increased cell viability. Additionally, orientin supplementation mitigated oxidative stress in remodeling heart tissue and cardiomyocytes exposed to hypoxia as measured by 2′,7′-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate fluorescent probe. Mechanistically, orientin promotes cardioprotection by activating the eNOS/NO signaling cascades, which was confirmed by eNOS inhibitor (L-NAME) in vitro and in vivo. Inhibition of oxidative stress by orientin via eNOS/NO signaling cascades in the heart may represent a potential therapy for cardiac remodeling.

iPads are so ubiquitous now that one sometimes forgets that they came onto the scene and into schools only very recently in 2010. Hence, there is relatively little empirical data of their impact on teaching and learning. This paper presents the findings of a 3- year study undertaken in an all-girls’ secondary school that piloted the use of the iPad through a project called Prototype 21st Century Class (P21C2). The project was launched with four classes in 2011 before scaling up to half the school by 2013. In this study, empirical data through lesson observation was triangulated with perception surveys and group interviews of both teachers and students. It was found that the use of iPad was associated with more learner engagement and collaboration. It also found that the P21C2 pioneers, particularly the low and high ability groups, performed better than their peers in the year-end examinations.

Proponents of a blended course paint an ideal picture of participants leisurely learning and reflecting on how they can apply their new knowledge. The reality is of course much more complex, especially in the lives of working adults. This study sought to understand the complexity better through analysing the experience of 123 participants enrolled in the 9-h in-service blended course. In particular, it investigated participants' engagement by examining their experience as they interacted with elements of the blended environment. The mixed methods approach was employed with quantitative data from the course analytics and responses from the 34 participants who returned the evaluation questionnaire at the end of the course. This was complemented with one-to-one interviews with 10 participants. The findings suggest that designers of blended professional development courses should bear in mind the characteristics of both the learner and the online platform to achieve greater cognitive, behavioural and social engagement.

Self-directed learning and self-assessment require student responsibility over learning needs, goals, processes, and outcomes. However, this student-led learning can be challenging to achieve in a classroom limited by a one-to-many teacher-led instruction. We, thus, have designed and prototyped a generative artificial intelligence chatbot application (GAIA), named TeacherGAIA, that can be used to asynchronously support students in their self-directed learning and self-assessment outside the classroom. We first identified diverse constructivist learning approaches that align with, and promote, student-led learning. These included knowledge construction, inquiry-based learning, self-assessment, and peer teaching. The in-context learning abilities of large language model (LLM) from OpenAI were then leveraged via prompt engineering to steer interactions supporting these different learning approaches. These interactions contrasted with ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot which by default engaged in the traditional transmissionist mode of learning reminiscent of teacher-led instruction. Preliminary design, prompt engineering and prototyping suggested fidelity to the learning approaches, cognitive guidance, and social-emotional support, all of which were implemented in a generative AI manner without pre-specified rules or "hard-coding". Other affordances of TeacherGAIA are discussed and future development outlined. We anticipate TeacherGAIA to be a useful application for teachers in facilitating self-directed learning and self-assessment among K-12 students.

The provision of feedback is widely practised as part of formative assessment. However, studies that examine the impact of feedback are usually from the teachers' perspective, focusing on why and how they provide feedback. Fewer studies examine feedback from the students' perspective, especially in the way they experience, make sense of and take up their teachers' feedback. This paper provides empirical evidence of student engagement with different patterns of teacher feedback in their written essays. Data were gathered from 45 students (from 5 different schools) through group interviews and analysis of student artefacts from three rounds of writing tasks. The findings on affective, behavioural and cognitive engagement surfaced the conditions that will contribute to students' will and skill to act on their teachers' feedback. The implications on both teacher and student assessment literacy are discussed. The discussion will provide professional development providers and policy makers with new perspectives of and approaches to strengthening formative assessment practices in ways that are more cognizant of students' experience of feedback.