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Abstract Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the first major chronic liver disease in developed countries. 10–20% of NAFLD patients will progress to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and up to 25% of NASH patients may develop cirrhosis within 10 years. Therefore, it is critical to find key targets that may treat this disease. Here, we identified C5aR1 as a highly-expressed gene in NASH mouse model through analyzing Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and confirmed its higher expression in livers of NASH patients than that of NAFL patients. Meanwhile, we verified its positive correlation with patients’ serum alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) levels. In vivo and in vitro experiments revealed that knocking down C5aR1 in liver significantly reduced liver weight ratio and serum ALT and AST levels and attenuated inflammatory cell infiltration and cell apoptosis in the liver of NASH mice as well as enhanced the efferocytotic ability of liver macrophages, suggesting that C5aR1 may play a crucial role in the efferocytosis of liver macrophages. Furthermore, we also found that the expression levels of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing protein 3 (NLRP3), caspase-1, IL-1β and other inflammation-related factors in the liver were significantly reduced. Our work demonstrates a potential mechanism of how C5aR1 deficiency protects against diet-induced NASH by coordinating the regulation of inflammatory factors and affecting hepatic macrophage efferocytosis.

In this paper, we study the quantum security of block ciphers based on Simon’s period-finding quantum algorithm. We explored the relations between periodic functions and truncated differentials. The basic observation is that truncated differentials with a probability of 1 can be used to construct periodic functions, and two such constructions are presented with the help of a new notion called difference-annihilation matrix. This technique releases us from the tedious manual work of verifying the period of functions. Based on these new constructions, we find an 8-round quantum distinguisher for LBlock and a 9/10/11/13/15-round quantum distinguisher for SIMON-32/48/64/96/128 which are the best results as far as we know. Besides, to explore the security bounds of block cipher structures against Simon’s algorithm based quantum attacks, the unified structure, which unifies the Feistel, Lai-Massey, and most generalized Feistel structures, is studied. We estimate the exact round number of probability 1 truncated differentials that one can construct. Based on these results, one can easily check the quantum security of specific block ciphers that are special cases of unified structures, when the details of the non-linear building blocks are not considered.

We report a novel approach to enhance the local electromagnetic fields of silver nanodisk pair arrays to achieve high-quality sensing. It is found that through lifting metallic nanodisk pair array by dielectric nanopillars to decrease the effects of substrates, the strong diffraction coupling of metallic nanodisk pair array can be achieved, which will result in a mixed localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) with huge electric field enhancement. More importantly, we also demonstrate that for such a diffraction coupling, the electric field component of the lattice resonance mode of periodic arrays must be parallel to the induced electric moment in the silver nanodisk pair array. Due to ultra-narrow linewidth and great electric field enhancement at the LSPR, the metallic nanodisk pair array performs high sensitivity (S = 760 nm RIU−1, S* = 89.5 RIU−1) and figure of merit (FOM = 492, FOM* = 6147), which holds important applications in high-efficiency biomedical sensing.

Measurement(s) blood glucose Technology Type(s) Continuous Glucose Monitoring System Sample Characteristic - Organism Homo sapiens

Abstract. Background:. Gut-resident macrophages (gMacs) supplemented by monocytes-to-gMacs differentiation play a critical role in maintaining intestinal homeostasis. Activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4) is involved in immune cell differentiation. We therefore set out to investigate the role of ATF4-regulated monocytes-to-gMacs differentiation in sepsis-induced intestinal injury. Methods:. Sepsis was induced in C57BL/6 wild type (WT) mice and Atf4-knockdown (Atf4+/−) mice by cecal ligation and puncture or administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Colon, peripheral blood mononuclear cells, sera, lung, liver, and mesenteric lymph nodes were collected for flow cytometry, hematoxylin and eosin staining, immunohistochemistry, quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. Results:. CD64, CD11b, Ly6C, major histocompatibility complex-II (MHC-II), CX3CR1, Ly6G, and SSC were identified as optimal primary markers for detecting the process of monocytes-to-gMacs differentiation in the colon of WT mice. Monocytes-to-gMacs differentiation was impaired in the colon during sepsis and was associated with decreased expression of ATF4 in P1 (Ly6Chi monocytes), the precursor cells of gMacs. Atf4 knockdown exacerbated the impairment of monocytes-to-gMacs differentiation in response to LPS, resulting in a significant reduction of gMacs in the colon. Furthermore, compared with WT mice, Atf4+/− mice exhibited higher pathology scores, increased expression of inflammatory factor genes (TNF-α, IL-1β), suppressed expression of CD31 and vascular endothelial-cadherin in the colon, and increased translocation of intestinal bacteria to lymph nodes and lungs following exposure to LPS. However, the aggravation of sepsis-induced intestinal injury resulting from Atf4 knockdown was not caused by the enhanced inflammatory effect of Ly6Chi monocytes and gMacs. Conclusion:. ATF4, as a novel regulator of monocytes-to-gMacs differentiation, plays a critical role in protecting mice against sepsis-induced intestinal injury, suggesting that ATF4 might be a potential therapeutic target for sepsis treatment.

Abstract Generalized Feistel structures (called GFSs for short) are one of the most popular block cipher structures. They are mainly divided into type‐1, type‐2 and type‐3 GFS. Among them, type‐1 and type‐1‐like ones attracted much attention during the past decades because of the simple design and high implementation efficiency. In this paper, the security of the type‐1 and type‐1‐like 4‐branch GFS with substitution permutation round functions against the impossible differential attack are evaluated. For these two structures, 21‐round impossible differential distinguishers are constructed when the linear layers P satisfy γ(P) ≥ 2, where γ(P) denotes the primitive index of P. Especially, when γ(P) = 2, the 21‐round distinguisher of the type‐1 structure is one round longer than before. Furthermore, for a specific block cipher Lesamnta‐LW‐BC, which takes the type‐1‐like structure, by exploiting the details of the linear layer, a better 21‐round impossible differential distinguisher is constructed, which contains more impossible differentials than before. With this distinguisher, a 27‐round impossible differential attack on Lesamnta‐LW‐BC is performed. The length of this attack is 8 rounds longer than the previous best one. Our results can provide guidance for designing and analysing the type‐1 and type‐1‐like GFS as well as the specific block ciphers which take the structures.

Background: Although neuromuscular blocker agents (NMBAs) are recommended by guidelines as a treatment for ARDS patients, the efficacy of NMBAs is still controversial. Our study aimed to investigate the association between cisatracurium infusion and the medium- and long-term outcomes of critically ill patients with moderate and severe ARDS. Methods: We performed a single-center, retrospective study of 485 critically ill adult patients with ARDS based on the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III (MIMIC-III) database. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to match patients receiving NMBA administration with those not receiving NMBAs. The Cox proportional hazards model, Kaplan–Meier method, and subgroup analysis were used to evaluate the relationship between NMBA therapy and 28-day mortality. Results: A total of 485 moderate and severe patients with ARDS were reviewed and 86 pairs of patients were matched after PSM. NMBAs were not associated with reduced 28-day mortality (hazard ratio (HR) 1.44; 95% CI: 0.85~2.46; p = 0.20), 90-day mortality (HR = 1.49; 95% CI: 0.92~2.41; p = 0.10), 1-year mortality (HR = 1.34; 95% CI: 0.86~2.09; p = 0.20), or hospital mortality (HR = 1.34; 95% CI: 0.81~2.24; p = 0.30). However, NMBAs were associated with a prolonged duration of ventilation and the length of ICU stay. Conclusions: NMBAs were not associated with improved medium- and long-term survival and may result in some adverse clinical outcomes.

Abnormal blood pressure is common in critically ill stroke patients. However, the association between mean arterial pressure (MAP) and mortality of critically ill stroke patients remains unclear. We extracted eligible acute stroke patients from the MIMIC-III database. The patients were divided into three groups: a low MAP group (MAP ≤ 70 mmHg), a normal MAP group (70 mmHg < MAP ≤ 90 mmHg), and a high MAP group (MAP > 90 mmHg). The Cox proportional hazards model and restricted cubic splines were used to assess the association between MAP and mortality. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to investigate whether MAP had different effects on mortality in different subpopulations. A total of 2885 stroke patients were included in this study. The crude 7-day and 28-day mortality was significantly higher in the low MAP group than that in the normal MAP group. By contrast, patients in the high MAP group did not have higher crude 7-day and 28-day mortality than those in the normal MAP group. After multiple adjustments using the Cox regression model, patients with low MAP were consistently associated with higher 7-day and 28-day mortality than those with normal MAP in the following subgroups: age > 60 years, male, those with or without hypertension, those without diabetes, and those without CHD (p < 0.05), but patients with high MAP were not necessarily associated with higher 7-day and 28-day mortality after adjustments (most p > 0.05). Using the restricted cubic splines, an approximately L-shaped relationship was established between MAP and the 7-day and 28-day mortality in acute stroke patients. The findings were robust to multiple sensitivity analyses in stroke patients. In critically ill stroke patients, a low MAP significantly increased the 7-day and 28-day mortality, while a high MAP did not, suggesting that a low MAP is more harmful than a high MAP in critically ill stroke patients.

There is a Chinese proverb which states “Where there are Shaxian Snacks, there are generally Lanzhou Ramen nearby”. This proverb reflects the characteristics of spatial clustering in the catering industry. Since the proverbs are rarely elucidated from the geospatial perspective, we aimed to explore the spatial clustering characteristics of the fast food industry from the perspective of geographical proximity and mutual attraction. Point-of-interest, OSM road network, population, and other types of data from the typical fast-food industry in Hangzhou were used as examples. The spatial pattern of the overall catering industry in Hangzhou was analyzed, while the spatial distribution of the four types of fast food selected in Hangzhou was identified and evaluated. The “core-edge” circle structure characteristics of Hangzhou’s catering industry were fitted by the inverse S function. The common location connection between the Western fast-food KFC and McDonald’s and the Chinese fast-food Lanzhou Ramen and Shaxian Snacks and the spatial aggregation were elucidated, being supported by correlation analysis. The degree of mutual attraction between the two was applied to express the spatial correlation. The analysis demonstrated that (1) the distribution of the catering industry in Hangzhou was northeast–southwest. The center of the catering industry in Hangzhou was located near the economic center of the main city rather than in the center of urban geography. (2) The four types of fast food were distributed in densely populated areas and exhibited an anti-S law, which first increased but then decreased as the distance from the center increased. Among these, the number of four typical fast foods was the highest within a distance of 4–10 km from the center. (3) It was concluded that 81.6% of KFCs had a McDonald’s nearby within 2500 m, and 68.5% of Shaxian Snacks had a Lanzhou Ramen nearby within 400 m. McDonald’s attractiveness to KFC was calculated as 0.928448. KFC’s attractiveness to McDonald’s was 0.908902. The attractiveness of the Shaxian Snacks to Lanzhou Ramen was 0.826835. The attractiveness of Lanzhou Ramen to Shaxian Snacks was 0.854509. McDonald’s was found to be dependent on KFC in the main urban area. Shaxian Snacks were strongly attributed to Lanzhou Ramen in commercial centers and streets, while Shaxian Snacks were distributed independently in the eastern Xiaoshan and Yuhang Districts. This study also helped us to optimize the spatial distribution of a typical fast-food industry, while providing case references and decision-making assistance with respect to the locations of catering industries.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the losses of two very big banks, Citigroup (Citi) and Wells Fargo & Company (Wells Fargo), and two very small banks, First Busey Corporation (Busey) and Capital City Bank Group (Capital), over the period 1991–2016. The federal government actually bailed out the two big banks, as measured by total assets, whereas neither of the two small banks required a bail out. Clearly, if one is able to use a variety of predictor variables to forecast accurately the losses of banks of various sizes, in different geographical locations, and operating a variety of business models, this may help identify potential causes of future banking problems and thereby lessen, if not eliminate, the need for future bailouts. This is important for both the banks and the bank regulatory authorities. In particular, those banks expected to suffer significant losses on loans may be in a position to increase their provisioning and thus loan loss allowances. If such banks are unable to take this type of action or other corrective action to address expected losses, regulatory action may become necessary in response to this situation. The motivation for our paper is this very issue: can one obtain accurate forecasts of losses, or the net charge-off rates, of banks? We provide an answer to this question by examining the four banks mentioned using several hundred predictor variables and several different forecast techniques.

Scattering hyperspectral technology is a nondestructive testing method with many advantages. Here, we propose a method to improve the accuracy of egg freshness, research the influence of incident angles of light source on the accuracy, and explain its mechanism. A variety of weak classifiers classify eggs based on the spectra after preprocessing and feature wavelength extraction to obtain three classifiers with the highest accuracy. The three classifiers are used as metamodels of stacking ensemble learning to improve the highest accuracy from 96.25% to 100%. Moreover, the highest accuracy of scattering, reflection, transmission, and mixed hyperspectral of eggs are 100.00%, 88.75%, 95.00%, and 96.25%, respectively, indicating that the scattering hyperspectral for egg freshness detection is better than that of the others. In addition, the accuracy is inversely proportional to the angle of incidence, i.e., the smaller the incident angle, the camera collects a larger proportion of scattering light, which contains more biochemical parameters of an egg than that of reflection and transmission. These results are very important for improving the accuracy of non-destructive testing and for selecting the incident angle of a light source, and they have potential applications for online non-destructive testing.

Platinum-based nanowires are promising for fuel cell applications due to their high catalytic activity. Here the authors report on hierarchical platinum-cobalt nanowires with high-index facets showing specific/mass activities for oxygen reduction reaction 39.6/33.7 times higher than commercial Pt/C catalyst.

Abstract Background Synanthropic rats and mice share the same environment with humans and play an important role in epidemiology of toxoplasmosis; however, there is limited information about prevalence and genetic characterization of Toxoplasma gondii in synanthropic rats and mice in China. Findings In the present study, the prevalence and genetic characterization of T. gondii naturally infected synanthropic rodents (Rattus norvegicus and Mus musculus) were investigated in the urban area of Xuzhou city, Eastern China between June 2013 and August 2014. DNA from the brain of each animal was prepared and screened by specific PCR assay targeting 35-fold repeated B1 gene (B1-PCR). PCR positive DNA samples were further genotyped by multi-locus PCR-RFLP. Overall, out of 123 synanthropic rodents, 29 samples were positive by B1 gene-targeted PCR (23.6%). Of these, 7 out of 31 (22.3%) M. musculus were positive, whereas the positive rate of R. norvegicus was 23.9% (22/92). Multi-locus PCR-RFLP analysis reveals that seven PCR-positive samples were completely genotyped and they were identified as type China 1 (ToxoDB# 9). Conclusion To our knowledge, this is the first report of molecular detection and genetic characterization of T. gondii infection in synanthropic rodents in Eastern China. The results of the present study showed a high infection pressure of T. gondii exists in the environment and synanthropic rodents infected by T. gondii may be an important source of infection for cats and other animals.

We report a new 2D electron gas (2DEG) system at the interface between a Mott insulator, LaTiO3, and a band insulator, KTaO3. For LaTiO3/KTaO3 interfaces, we observe metallic conduction from 2 K to 300 K. One serious technological limitation of SrTiO3-based conducting oxide interfaces for electronics applications is the relatively low carrier mobility (0.5-10 cm2/V s) of SrTiO3 at room temperature. By using KTaO3, we achieve mobilities in LaTiO3/KTaO3 interfaces as high as 21 cm2/V s at room temperature, over a factor of 3 higher than observed in doped bulk SrTiO3. By density functional theory, we attribute the higher mobility in KTaO3 2DEGs to the smaller effective mass for electrons in KTaO3.

The microstructure of multiferroic LaFeO3-YMnO3 (LFO-YMO) multilayers grown on (001)- and (111)-SrTiO3 substrates is characterized by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Detailed TEM characterization reveals that LFO-YMO multilayers grown on both substrates have clear layer-by-layer morphology and distinct chemical-composition layered structure. The most notable feature is that LFO-YMO multilayers grown on (001)-SrTiO3 substrate have three types of domains, while those on (111)-SrTiO3 have only one. The multi-/twin- domain structure can be qualitatively explained by the lattice mismatch in this system. The details of the domain structure of LFO-YMO multilayers are crucial to understanding their magnetic properties.

In the title complex, [Ni(C36H26Cl4N4O2)]·C3H6O, two 2,4-dichlorobenzoyl groups are grafted onto the methine groups of the NiII complex Ni(tmtaa) (H2tmtaa = 5,7,12,14-tetramethyl-4,11-dihydrodibenzo[b,i][1,4,8,11]tetraazacyclotetradecine). The complex has the shape of a saddle. The Ni atom is tetracoordinated by the four N atoms of the macrocycle, forming a slightly tetrahedrally distorted square-planar geometry. The metal is displaced by 0.0101 (8) Å from the N4 mean plane. The aromatic rings of the 2,4-dichlorobenzoyl groups form dihedral angles of 87.1 (2) and 82.1 (2)° with the N4 mean plane

In the title molecule, C11H6F2N2O2, the benzene and pyridine rings form a dihedral angle of 32.57 (6)°. The nitro group is tilted with respect to the pyridine ring by 12.26 (9)°. An intramolecular C—H...F hydrogen bond is present. In the crystal, molecules interact through π–π stacking interactions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.7457 (14) Å], forming columnar arrangements along the b axis. The crystal packing is further enforced by intermolecular C—H...O and C—H...N hydrogen bonds.

The title compound, C20H14N4O2, crystallizes in the orthorhombic system with a crystallographic twofold axis through the N—N bond. The molecule is non-planar and the dihedral angle between two amide groups is 74.9 (2)°. An intramolecular N—H...N hydrogen bond is present. In the crystal, the molecules are packed in chains running along the c axis through intermolecular N—H...O hydrogen bonds. These chains are further stabilized by intermolecular C—H...O hydrogen bonds and C—H...π interactions leading to the formation of a three-dimensional network.