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Inspired by the successful experience of convolutional neural networks (CNN) in image classification, encoding vibration signals to images and then using deep learning for image analysis to obtain better performance in bearing fault diagnosis has become a highly promising approach. Based on this, we propose a novel approach to identify bearing faults in this study, which includes image-interpreted signals and integrating machine learning. In our method, each vibration signal is first encoded into two Gramian angular fields (GAF) matrices. Next, the encoded results are used to train a CNN to obtain the initial decision results. Finally, we introduce the random forest regression method to learn the distribution of the initial decision results to make the final decisions for bearing faults. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, we designed two case analyses using Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) bearing data. One is to verify the effectiveness of mapping the vibration signal to the GAFs, and the other is to demonstrate that integrated deep learning can improve the performance of bearing fault detection. The experimental results show that our method can effectively identify different faults and significantly outperform the comparative approach.

Highly enantioselective α-arylation of simple ketones has been achieved by chiral primary amine catalyzed asymmetric retro-Claisen cleavage of β-diketones. This mild organocatalytic strategy enables the construction of α-aryl tertiary carbon stereocenters in good yields and excellent enantioselectivities (up to 98 % ee) with the para-quinone monoimines as aryl sources. Furthermore, oxidative catalytic asymmetric α-arylation has also been realized with free p-aminophenols.

With the growing population and rapid change in the social environment, nurses in China are suffering from high rates of stress; however, the neural mechanism underlying this occupation related stress is largely unknown. In this study, mental status was determined for 81 nurses and 61 controls using the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL‐90) scale. A subgroup (n = 57) was further scanned by resting‐state functional MRI with two sessions. Based on the SCL‐90 scale, “somatic complaints” and “diet/sleeping” exhibited the most prominent difference between nurses and controls. This mental health change in nurses was further supported by the spatial independent component analysis on functional MRI data. First, dynamic functional connectome analysis identified two discrete connectivity configurations (States I and II). Controls had more time in the State I than II, while the nurses had more time in the State II than I. Second, nurses showed a similar static network topology as controls, but altered dynamic properties. Third, the symptom‐imaging correlation analysis suggested the functional alterations in nurses as potential imaging biomarkers indicating a high risk for “diet/sleeping” problems. In summary, this study emphasized the high risk of mental deficits in nurses and explored the underlying neural mechanism using dynamic brain connectome, which provided valuable information for future psychological intervention., Nurses showed a high risk of mental problems in “somatic complaints” and “diet/sleeping.”The proportion of different mental states was distinct between nurses and controls.The dynamic brain features were correlated with “diet/sleeping” symptoms.

Highly diastereo- and enantioselective retro-Claisen reaction of β-diketones with

We described herein a chiral primary amine/palladium catalyzed asymmetric retro-Claisen reaction of β-diketones with salicylic carbonates. A series of chiral α-alkylated ketones and macrolides were obtained with good yields and excellent enantioselectivities upon a sequence of decarboxylative benzylation, retro-Claisen cleavage, and enamine protonation. This strategy features broad substrate scope, mild conditions, as well as high atom economy with salicylic carbonates as the o-quinone methide precursors.

Objective To investigate the profiles of anti-RPLP0, anti-galectin3 antibodies, interferon-α (IFN-α), interferon-λ1(IFN-λ1) and interleukin-17A/F(IL-17A/F) in the subtypes of cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) including acute CLE (ACLE), subacute CLE (SCLE) and discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE). Methods Serum levels of autoantibodies and cytokines were determined by enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA). Lupus lesions were evaluated by cutaneous lupus erythematosus disease area and severity index (CLASI). Results Serum anti-RPLP0, anti-galectin3 antibodies and IFN-λ1 were higher in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients with skin lesions than those without skin lesions, compared to healthy controls. IFN-α, IL-17A and IL-17F was elevated in all patients regardless of skin lesions. The two antibodies, IFN-α and IL-17A were positively correlated with the CLASI score in all patients with CLE. In addition, serum IL-17A was positively correlated to the CLASI score of ACLE, SCLE and DLE, while anti-RPLP0 and anti-galectin3 antibodies were only correlated to the score of SCLE and IL-17F to DLE. Conclusion Serum anti-RPLP0, anti-galectin3 antibodies, IFN-α, IFN-λ1 and IL-17A/F are associated with the occurrence of lupus skin lesions regardless of the systemic complications, whereas the profiles of these inflammatory mediators vary with the subtypes of lupus skin lesions.

Background Anti-ribosomal P (anti-Rib-P) antibody is a specific serological marker for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and routinely tested by targeting the common epitope of three ribosomal proteins of P0, P1 and P2. This study aimed to investigate if testing antibodies against individual ribosomal protein, but not the common epitope, is required to achieve the best diagnostic benefit in SLE. Methods The study included 82 patients with SLE and 22 healthy donors. Serum antibodies were determined by ELISA and immunoblot. Results The prevalence of each antibody determined by ELISA was 35.4% (anti-Rib-P), 45.1% (anti-Rib-P0), 32.9% (anti-Rib-P1) and 40.2% (anti-Rib-P2) at 99% specificity, respectively. Of 53 patients with negative anti-Rib-P antibody, 21 (39.6%) were positive for anti-Rib-P0, 9 (17.0%) for anti-Rib-P1 and 12 (22.6%) for anti-Rib-P2 antibody. The positive rate of anti-Rib-P antibody detected by ELISA was close to the results by immunoblot (33.4%). Patients with any of these antibodies were featured by higher disease activity and prevalence of skin rashes than those with negative antibodies. Moreover, each antibody was particularly related to some clinical and laboratory disorders. The distribution of subclasses of IgG1–4 was varied with each antibody. Anti-Rib-P0 IgG1 and IgG3 were strongly correlated with disease activity and lower serum complement components 3 and 4. Conclusions Anti-Rib-P antibody is not adequate to predict the existence of antibodies against ribosomal P0, P1 and P2 protein. The examination of antibodies against each ribosomal protein is required to achieve additional diagnostic benefit and to evaluate the association with clinical and serological disorders as well.

IL-36 cytokines (IL-36Ra, IL-36α, IL-36β and IL-36γ) belong to the IL-1 family and have been linked to several autoimmune diseases. However, little is known about the relationships between systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and IL-36 cytokines. In this study, serum IL-36 cytokine levels were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and their associations with SLE-related parameters were analyzed in 72 SLE patients and 63 healthy controls. Additionally, IL-36 cytokine mRNA levels were assessed in 30 of 72 SLE patients and 20 of 63 healthy controls using real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Compared to healthy controls, SLE patients had significantly decreased serum IL-36Ra levels (P = 0.001) and markedly increased serum IL-36α and IL-36γ levels (P = 0.004 and P = 0.001, respectively). Serum IL-36α and IL-36γ levels were significantly higher in active SLE patients [SLE Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) score ≥ 5] than in inactive patients (SLEDAI score ≤ 4) (P = 0.020 and P = 0.017, respectively). Serum IL-36α and IL-36γ levels were strongly correlated with SLEDAI score (r = 0.308, P = 0.008 and r = 0.400, P = 0.001, respectively) and complement C3 levels (r = -0.276, P = 0.019 and r = -0.314, P = 0.007, respectively). Moreover, SLE patients with arthritis had significantly higher serum IL-36α and IL-36γ levels than those without arthritis (P = 0.001 and P 0.001, respectively). Our study indicates that the imbalanced antagonist/agonist profile of IL-36 cytokines may be linked to SLE pathogenesis. Furthermore, IL-36α and IL-36γ may participate in arthritis and may be good biomarkers of SLE disease activity.

Aromatic aminocatalysis refers to transformations that employ aromatic amines, such as anilines or aminopyridines, as catalysts. Owing to the conjugation of the amine moiety with the aromatic ring, aromatic amines demonstrate distinctive features in aminocatalysis compared with their aliphatic counterparts. For example, aromatic aminocatalysis typically proceeds with slower turnover, but is more active and conformationally rigid as a result of the stabilized aromatic imine or iminium species. In fact, the advent of aromatic aminocatalysis can be traced back to before the renaissance of organocatalysis in the early 2000s. So far, aromatic aminocatalysis has been widely applied in bioconjugation reactions through transamination; in asymmetric organocatalysis through imine/enamine tautomerization; and in cooperative catalysis with transition metals through C-H/C-C activation and functionalization. This Focus Review summarizes the advent of and major advances in the use of aromatic aminocatalysis in bioconjugation reactions and organic synthesis.

Considering the importance of bacterial glycoconjugates on virulence and host mimicry, there is a need to better understand the biosynthetic pathways of these unusual sugars to identify critical targets involved in bacterial pathogenesis. In this report, we describe the cloning, overexpression, purification, and biochemical characterization of the four central enzymes in the biosynthesis pathway for UDP-2-acetamido-4-formamido-2,4,6-trideoxy-hexose, WekG, WekE, WekF, and WekD. Product peaks from enzyme-substrate reactions were detected by using a combination of capillary electrophoresis (CE) and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Putative enzyme assignments were provided by protein sequence analysis. Combined with the mass spectrometric characterization of pathway intermediates, we propose a biosynthetic pathway for UDP-2-acetamido-4-formamido-2,4,6-trideoxy-hexose. This process involves C-4, C-6 dehydration, C-4 amination, and formylation. CID-ESI-MSn result confirmed that the final product is a 4 formamido derivative too rather than the 3 formamido derivatives as reported earlier.

Objective The objective of this paper is to investigate the association of clinical manifestations and laboratory parameters between familial systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and sporadic SLE. Methods All relevant literature was retrieved from the PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases. The qualities of these studies were evaluated using a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. The characteristics and clinical manifestations of involved individuals were extracted from each study. Pooled odds ratio (OR) was calculated using the random effects-method, and the heterogeneity between studies was quantified using the I2 statistic. Results Of 330 studies identified by the search strategy, six were included in this review. In total, 733 cases were familial SLE and 1405 were sporadic SLE. Analysis revealed that photosensitivity, nephritis and thrombocytopenia were negatively associated with familial SLE, with OR (95% CI) values of 0.73 (0.60-0.89), 0.72 (0.59-0.88) and 0.75 (0.57-0.98), respectively. Conclusions Photosensitivity, thrombocytopenia and renal involvement could be more common in non-familial SLE, which should be further confirmed by well-designed studies with large populations.

Background/Aim: Glycyrrhizin (GL) is an important derivative of certain herbal medicines used in Asian countries. Currently, GL is used to treat hepatitis and allergic disease worldwide because of its anti-viral and anti-allergy effects. In addition to these prominent functions, GL likely regulates cellular functions such as tumor cell growth and cellular immunity. However, how GL affects the keratinocyte inflammation response remains poorly understood. The current paper investigates the effect of GL on psoriasis and explores the mechanisms involved. Methods: We used an in vitro cell model of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-a-induced keratinocyte inflammation and the topical application of imiquimod (IMQ) using an animal model (mouse skin) of IMQ-induced psoriasis-like inflammation (IPI) to investigate the effect of GL on skin inflammation. Cell viability was analyzed using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK8). Carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE) labeling was used to trace monocyte adherence to keratinocytes. A Western blot analysis was used to detect the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1) and the activation of the nuclear factor (NF)-κB/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. A modified version of the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) was used to monitor disease severity. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was used to observe pathological changes. An immunohistochemistry (IHC) analysis was used to detect ICAM-1 expression in mouse skin. Results: GL treatment significantly reduced the levels of ICAM-1 in TNF-a-stimulated HaCaT cells, inhibited subsequent monocyte adhesion to keratinocytes, and suppressed the nuclear translation and phosphorylation of p65 following the degradation of inhibitor κB (IκB). GL treatment blocked the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)/p38 MAPK. GL effectively delayed the onset of IPI in mice and ameliorated ongoing IPI, thereby reducing ICAM-1 expression in epidermal tissues. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that GL treatment ameliorates skin inflammation by inhibiting ICAM-1 expression via interference with the ERK/p38 MAPK and NF-κB signaling pathways in keratinocytes. Therefore, GL can be used as an anti-psoriasis drug.

Cutaneous lupus erythematosus (CLE) can be an individual disease only involving skin, or presents as part of the manifestations of SLE. A small proportion of CLE may progress into SLE, however, the underlying pathogenic mediators remain elusive. By only including researches that clearly described if the subtypes of CLE presented by enrolled subjects was associated with or without SLE, we provided an overview of antibodies, inflammatory cells and inflammatory molecular mediators identified in blood and skin that were possibly involved in lupus skin damages. IgG autoantibodies are crucial for the development of CLE associated with SLE, but the circulating inflammatory cells and molecular mediators require further studies to provide definitive proof for their association with skin damages. Discoid lupus erythematosus (DLE) is the most common subtype of CLE. For DLE without associated with SLE (CDLE), it is lack of evidences if autoantibodies and circulating inflammatory cells are involved in the pathogenesis or not, but is clear that the cutaneous inflammatory infiltrates are dominated by Th1, but not Th17 cells in contrast to the various complex profile in SLE. As the major target cells in skin, keratinocytes may participate the pathophysiological process by increase cell apoptosis and the production of proinflammatory cytokines in SLE and CDLE. Insights into the similarities and differences of the pathogenesis of CLE and CLE associated with SLE will also improve our therapeutic strategies for CLE that is currently adopted from SLE, and prevent the progression of CLE to SLE by providing interventions within an appropriate window of disease development.

Galectin-3 has been suggested relative to tumor genesis, progression, and metastasis in basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma that are the most common skin cancers characterized by malignant epidermal proliferation. In this study, we evaluated galectin-3 expression in seborrheic keratosis, keratoacanthoma, and infectious diseases including verruca vulgaris, condyloma acuminatum, and chromoblastomycosis that are pathologically featured by benign epidermal proliferation. Galectin-3 expression was shown by immunohistochemical staining and quantified using the Image Pro Plus V6.0. We found that galectin-3 distributed evenly in normal skin around the body decreased significantly in all selected diseases compared with healthy controls, but it was comparable among each disease. These findings imply that galectin-3 do not differentiate between benign and malignant proliferation of keratinocytes.

The abnormal activation of the AKT/GSK3β signal pathway in lymphocytes from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients plays an important role in the pathogenesis of the disease. Recently Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has been recognized as a crucial gaseous signaling molecule, involved in regulation of cell proliferation. However, the role of H2S in regulating the abnormal activation of lymphocytes from SLE patients has not been established. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of H2S on lymphocytes and to explore the mechanisms involved.The lymphocytes were isolated from SLE patients with or without renal disease and healthy controls. The cells were treated as indicated in each experiment. Cell viability was analyzed by CCK-8. Cell cycle distribution was determined by flow cytometry. Western blot was used to detect the expression of phosphorylated AKT (ser473), GSK3β (ser9) and CDK2, p27(Kip1) and p21(WAF1/CIP1).Our findings showed that proliferation of lymphocytes was stimulated following treatment with NaHS (a H2S donor) at low NaHS concentrations (1mM) but inhibited at high NaHS concentrations (2mM). Similar results were observed using GYY4137, which is a slow-releasing H2S donor. Pretreatment of lymphocytes from SLE patients with NaHS at high concentrations prior to exposure to phytohemagglutinin (PHA) significantly attenuated proliferation, evidenced by decrease in cell viability and S phase distribution of cell cycle. Pretreatment with NaHS decreased PHA-induced expression of CDK2, phosphorylation levels of AKT (ser473) and GSK3β (ser9) and increased the expression of p27(Kip1) and p21(WAF1/CIP1). Moreover, pretreatment with NaHS blunted the stimulation of SLE lymphocyte proliferation by GSK3β inhibitor lithium chloride.These results demonstrate that H2S inhibits the abnormal activation of lymphocytes from SLE patients throuqh the AKT/GSK3β signal pathway.

The O antigen is the outer part of the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria and contains many repeats of an oligosaccharide unit. It contributes to antigenic variability and is essential to the full function and virulence of bacteria. Shigella is a Gram-negative human pathogen that causes diarrhea in humans. The O antigen of Shigella boydii type 14 consists of repeating oligosaccharide units with the structure [→6- d -Gal p α1→4- d -Glc p Aβ1→6- d -Gal p β1→4- d -Gal p β1→4- d -Glc p NAcβ1→] n . The wfeD gene in the O-antigen gene cluster of Shigella boydii type 14 was proposed to encode a galactosyltransferase (GalT) involved in O-antigen synthesis. We confirmed here that the wfeD gene product is a β4-GalT that synthesizes the Galβ1-4GlcNAcα-R linkage. WfeD was expressed in Escherichia coli , and the activity was characterized by using UDP-[ 3 H]Gal as the donor substrate as well as the synthetic acceptor substrate GlcNAcα-pyrophosphate-(CH 2 ) 11 - O -phenyl. The enzyme product was analyzed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and galactosidase digestion. The enzyme was shown to be specific for the UDP-Gal donor substrate and required pyrophosphate in the acceptor substrate. Divalent metal ions such as Mn 2+ , Ni 2+ , and, surprisingly, also Pb 2+ enhanced the enzyme activity. Mutational analysis showed that the Glu101 residue within a DxD motif is essential for activity, possibly by forming the catalytic nucleophile. The Lys211 residue was also shown to be required for activity and may be involved in the binding of the negatively charged acceptor substrate. Our study revealed that the β4-GalT WfeD is a novel enzyme that has virtually no sequence similarity to mammalian β4-GalT, although it catalyzes a similar reaction.

Ant colony algorithm (ACA), inspired by the food-searching behavior of ants, is an evolutionary algorithm and performs well in discrete optimization. In this paper, it is used for fuzzy clustering in image segmentation. Three features such as gray value, gradient and neighborhood of the pixels, are extracted for the searching and clustering process. Unexpectedly, tests show that it is time consuming when dealing with the vast image data. In view of this drawback, improvements have been made by initializing the clustering centers and enhancing the heuristic function to accelerate the searching process. Experiments and comparisons are done to show that the improved ACA-based image segmentation is an efficient and effective approach.

The problem of visual speech representation for bimodal based speech recognition includes particular challenges in themodeling of the inner lip texture reflecting different pronunciations,such as the appearance of teeth and tongue. This paper proposesand analyzesseveral possible statistical inner lip texture descriptors to determine an effective and discriminantfeature. Simply usinggrayscale without full specification of the underlying colour model tends to loss some significant discriminative information. Therefore thorough exploration on the color space components selection in computing the local inner lip texture is thus a primary goal of the present research. The L channel of Lab color space is finally determined as the basis for the development of the inner lip texture model. Through feature level fusion, the final classification of visual speech is performedbased on the proposed inner lip texture descriptor and standard geometric features. Together with audio speech,this paper furthers the development ofthe CHMM based bimodal Chinese character pronunciationrecognition system. The experimental results show that the local inner texture descriptors, such as the color moment with geometric feature,outperform the holistic inner texture descriptors, such as the statistical histogram, in representing visual speechwith theclose discriminability but low dimensionality.

Karyote segmentation, a significant procedure to computer aided leukemia diagnosis, constitutes a difficult problem due to the morphological complexity, categorical diversity and distributional density of bone marrow cells. Most of the current techniques are based on the internal consistency of the karyote's intensities with little or none considerations on color or texture properties. However, neither kernels nor cytoplasms exhibit consistent colors or structures. To secure better segmenting results, an approach based on color feature analysis together with LBP texture features, which considers both pixel level and regional level characteristics of karyotes, is proposed. Experiments are done and results show that our approach is simple and effective.

Based on the principle of autostereoscopic 3D display , a method was proposed to generate and show mouse symbol in 3D scene, which can be applied in any 3D applications. The X,Y coordinates were obtained by mouse moving, and Z obtained by mouse wheeling. Mouse symbols generated by virtual cameras from different view positions were multiplexed into the currently being displayed video contents in realtime, according to the optical principle of slanted lenticular. Experiment proved the effectiveness of the method.

O-antigen is a component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria and is one of the most variable cell surface constituents, leading to major antigenic variability. The O-antigen forms the basis for bacterial serotyping. In this study, the O-antigen structure of Salmonella O66 was established, which differs from the known O-antigen structure of Escherichia coli O166 only in one linkage (most likely the linkage between the O-units) and O-acetylation. The O-antigen gene clusters of Salmonella O66 and E. coli O166 were found to have similar organizations, the only exception being that in Salmonella O66, the wzy gene is replaced by a non-coding region. The function of the wzy gene in E. coli O166 was confirmed by the construction and analysis of deletion and trans-complementation mutants. It is proposed that a functional wzy gene located outside the O-antigen gene cluster is involved in Salmonella O66 O-antigen biosynthesis, as has been reported previously in Salmonella serogroups A, B and D1. The sequence identity for the corresponding genes between the O-antigen gene clusters of Salmonella O66 and E. coli O166 ranges from 64 to 70 %, indicating that they may originate from a common ancestor. It is likely that after the species divergence, Salmonella O66 got its specific O-antigen form by inactivation of the wzy gene located in the O-antigen gene cluster and acquisition of two new genes (a wzy gene and a prophage gene for O-acetyl modification) both residing outside the O-antigen gene cluster.