Diabetes is an age-related disease, most of which is type 2 diabetes, and islet β cell dysfunction and insulin resistance are the main mechanisms of type 2 diabetes. Recent studies have revealed that ...autophagy plays an important role in maintaining the structure and function of islet beta cells and inhibiting insulin resistance and apoptosis induced by oxidative stress. In this review, we discussed the positive and negative effects of autophagy and its dysfunction on type 2 diabetes mellitus, which is the so-called double-edged sword, analysed its possible mechanism, and identified possible research hot spots.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The objective of the study is to investigate the gender and socioeconomic disparities in the global burden of epilepsy by prevalence and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs).
The global, regional, ...and national gender-specific prevalence and DALYs caused by epilepsy by year and age were extracted from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2017. The Gini coefficient and concentration index (CI) were calculated to demonstrate the trends in between-country inequality in the epilepsy burden from 1990 to 2017. Paired Wilcoxon signed rank test, Pearson correlation, and linear regression analyses were performed to analyze the association of gender disparity in epilepsy and socio-demographic index (SDI).
The DALYs number of epilepsies increased from 1990 to 2017 by 13.8%, whereas age-standardized DALY rates showed a substantial reduction (16.1%). Men had a higher epilepsy burden than women of the same period. The epilepsy burden appeared to be higher in countries with lower socioeconomic development (CI < 0). The Gini coefficient decreased from 0.273 in 1995 to 0.259 in 2017, representing a decline in the between-country gap. Age-standardized prevalence and DALY rates of men were higher than those of women in each SDI-based country group (
< 0.0001). Male-minus-female difference (
= -0.5100,
< 0.0001) and male-to-female ratio (
= -0.3087,
< 0.0001) of age-standardized DALY rates were negatively correlated with SDI.
Although global health care of epilepsy is in progress, the epilepsy burden was concentrated in males and developing countries. Our findings highlight the importance of formulating gender-sensitive health policies and providing more services in developing countries.
Camouflaged object detection (COD), in a broad sense, aims to detect image objects that have high degrees of similarity to the background. COD is more challenging than conventional object detection ...because of the high degree of “fusion” between a camouflaged object and the background. In this paper, we focused on the accurate detection of camouflaged objects, conducting an in-depth study on COD and addressing the common detection problems of high miss rates and low confidence levels. We proposed a ternary cascade perception-based method for detecting camouflaged objects and constructed a cascade perception network (CPNet). The innovation lies in the proposed ternary cascade perception module (TCPM), which focuses on extracting the relationship information between features and the spatial information of the camouflaged target and the location information of key points. In addition, a cascade aggregation pyramid (CAP) and a joint loss function have been proposed to recognize camouflaged objects accurately. We conducted comprehensive experiments on the COD10K dataset and compared our proposed approach with other seventeen-object detection models. The experimental results showed that CPNet achieves optimal results in terms of six evaluation metrics, including an average precision (AP)50 that reaches 91.41, an AP75 that improves to 73.04, and significantly higher detection accuracy and confidence.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Hyperspectral anomaly detection (HAD) plays an important role in military and civilian applications and has attracted a lot of research. The well-known Reed–Xiaoli (RX) algorithm is the benchmark of ...HAD methods. Based on the RX model, many variants have been developed. However, most of them ignore the spatial characteristics of hyperspectral images (HSIs). In this paper, we combine the extended multi-attribute profiles (EMAP) and RX algorithm to propose the Recursive RX with Extended Multi-Attribute Profiles (RRXEMAP) algorithm. Firstly, EMAP is utilized to extract the spatial structure information of HSI. Then, a simple method of background purification is proposed. That is, the background is purified by utilizing the RX detector to remove the pixels that are more likely to be anomalies, which helps improve the ability of background estimation. In addition, a parameter is utilized to control the purification level and can be selected by experiments. Finally, the RX detector is used again between the EMAP feature and the new background distribution to judge the anomaly. Experimental results on six real hyperspectral datasets and a synthetic dataset demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed RRXEMAP method and the importance of using the EMAP feature and background purity means. Especially, on the abu-airport-2 dataset, the AUC value obtained by the present method is 0.9858, which is higher than the second one, CRD, by 0.0198.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
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•F plasma pre-treatment before high-κ dielectric deposition for InP MOS devices was first reported.•The effects of F plasma pre-treatment with different exposure time on the ...electrical properties of InP MOSCAPs were investigated.•The improved characteristics were achieved for the device with F plasma pre-treatment for the optimal exposure time.•The optimal F plasma could suppress native oxide formation by forming strong In-F bonds and passivate the interface traps at the high-κ/InP interface.
In this study, the effects of fluorine (F) plasma pre-treatment with different exposure time on electrical properties of high-κ-based InP metal-oxide-semiconductor capacitor device were investigated. With the optimal F plasma pre-treatment on InP surface for 3 min, the device characteristics including the frequency dispersion, leakage current density and interface trap density were significantly improved due to the optimal F plasma that suppressed the formation of the native oxides by forming strong In-F bonds and passivated the interface traps at the high-κ/InP interface. The present results show that the approach of appropriate F plasma pre-treatment provides a solution for future applications of high-performance InP MOS devices.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The human genome encodes over 14,000 pseudogenes that are evolutionary relics of protein-coding genes and commonly considered as nonfunctional. Emerging evidence suggests that some pseudogenes may ...exert important functions. However, to what extent human pseudogenes are functionally relevant remains unclear. There has been no large-scale characterization of pseudogene function because of technical challenges, including high sequence similarity between pseudogene and parent genes, and poor annotation of transcription start sites.
To overcome these technical obstacles, we develop an integrated computational pipeline to design the first genome-wide library of CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) that target human pseudogene promoter-proximal regions. We perform the first pseudogene-focused CRISPRi screen in luminal A breast cancer cells and reveal approximately 70 pseudogenes that affect breast cancer cell fitness. Among the top hits, we identify a cancer-testis unitary pseudogene, MGAT4EP, that is predominantly localized in the nucleus and interacts with FOXA1, a key regulator in luminal A breast cancer. By enhancing the promoter binding of FOXA1, MGAT4EP upregulates the expression of oncogenic transcription factor FOXM1. Integrative analyses of multi-omic data from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) reveal many unitary pseudogenes whose expressions are significantly dysregulated and/or associated with overall/relapse-free survival of patients in diverse cancer types.
Our study represents the first large-scale study characterizing pseudogene function. Our findings suggest the importance of nuclear function of unitary pseudogenes and underscore their underappreciated roles in human diseases. The functional genomic resources developed here will greatly facilitate the study of human pseudogene function.
Aims/Introduction
The purpose of the present study was to observe the relationship between serum α‐klotho (KL) protein level and diabetic retinopathy (DR), and to further examine the effects of KL ...protein on apoptosis induced by palmitic acid (PA) in human retinal endothelial cells.
Materials and Methods
A total of 17 healthy people and 60 type 2 diabetes patients were included. According to the results from fundus fluorescein angiography, the diabetes patients were divided into three subgroups: without DR, non‐proliferative DR and proliferative DR. Serum KL level was measured by enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. In vitro, human retinal endothelial cells were exposed to PA with or without KL protein. Apoptosis rates were analyzed by flow cytometry analysis. Apoptotic‐related protein expressions were detected by western blotting analysis.
Results
Serum KL level was lower in diabetes patients than that in healthy participants (P = 0.007), and was gradually decreased among the without DR, non‐proliferative DR and proliferative DR subgroups (P = 0.045). A logistic regression analysis showed that after adjusting for the other confounding factors, serum KL level was independently and negatively related with DR (P = 0.049). Furthermore, the increased apoptosis rates induced by PA were inhibited with the addition of KL protein. Consistently, KL protein reversed the expression levels of the increased pro‐apoptotic protein Bax and the decreased anti‐apoptotic protein Bcl‐2 induced by PA. However, the anti‐apoptotic effect of KL protein was attenuated by LY294002 through the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase‐serine∕threonine kinase pathway.
Conclusions
The data suggested that KL protein was probably a potential protective factor against retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients.
α‐Klotho plays important vasculoprotective roles. We analyzed the relationship between serum klotho level and diabetic retinopathy by clinical and cell data. The results suggested that klotho protein was probably a potential protective factor against retinopathy in type 2 diabetes patients.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Tungsten (W) film is increasingly utilized in various microheater applications due to its numerous advantages. These advantages include a high melting point, positive constant temperature coefficient ...of resistance (TCR), good mechanical stability, and compatibility with semiconductor processes. In this paper, deposition parameters for enhancing the properties of W film were investigated, and an optimized microheater was fabricated. It was found that the deposition temperature and pressure can modify the TCR to be negative or positive and the crystalline phase of W films to be alpha phases or mixed with beta phases. A W film deposited under 650 °C with a pressure of 1 pa has a positive TCR and pure alpha phase crystalline structure. We applied this optimized W film as a microheater in an RF phase-change switch (RFPCS), and the maximum voltage of the optimized W microheater increased by at least 48% in this work. By optimizing the microheater, the phase-change switch can be successfully actuated in both on and off states, demonstrated by the Raman results of the phase-change material. A voltage pulse of 20 V/200 ns was enough to turn the switch off with MΩ, and 11 V/3 μs could turn the switch on with 138 Ω. The optimized microheater and device can cycle 500 times without failure. The insertion loss and isolation of the device at 20 GHz was 1.0 dB and 22 dB.
Single-photon emitters (SPEs) in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) are promising candidates for quantum light generation. Despite this, techniques to control the formation of hBN SPEs down to the ...monolayer limit are yet to be demonstrated. Recent experimental and theoretical investigations have suggested that the visible wavelength single-photon emitters in hBN originate from carbon-related defects. Here, we demonstrate a simple strategy for controlling SPE creation during the chemical vapor deposition growth of monolayer hBN via regulating surface carbon concentration. By increasing the surface carbon concentration during hBN growth, we observe increases in carbon doping levels by 2.4-fold for B–C bonds and 1.6-fold for N–C bonds. For the same samples, we observe an increase in the SPE density from 0.13 to 0.30 emitters/μm2. Our simple method enables the reliable creation of hBN SPEs in monolayer samples for the first time, opening the door to advanced two-dimensional (2D) quantum state engineering.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM
In this work, a fluorescent complex Zn(NTD)2(DTP)2(H2O)2·(H2O)0.8 (Complex Zn), (H2NTD = 1,4-naphthalenedicarboxylic acid and DTP = 3,5-di(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)pyridine) was synthesized. The ...fluorescent complex was characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, powder X-ray diffraction, and thermogravimetric, elemental, infrared spectroscopy, and fluorescence analyses. In the fluorescence sensing tests, Complex Zn exhibited excellent fluorescence quenching efficiency towards Fe3+, MnO4−, Cr2O72−, nitrofurantoin, and imidacloprid in aqueous media. A mechanism investigation suggested that the fluorescence quenching caused by the quenchers toward the sensor was due to the inner filter effect and the fluorescence resonance energy transfer effect in the fluorescent sensing process.
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