Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a serious life threatening clinical critical illness. ARDS-related pulmonary fibrosis is a common complication of ARDS. The occurrence of early pulmonary ...fibrosis indicates a higher incidence and mortality of multiple organ failure. LPS-induced ARDS-related pulmonary fibrosis model in mice was established in this study. And we have explored the anti-pulmonary fibrosis effects and molecular mechanisms of the Citrus Alkaline Extracts (CAE) in vivo and in vitro.
Pulmonary fibrosis mouse model and lung epithelial cell injury model were established in this study. H&E, Masson and Sirius Red staining were used to estimate lung tissue damage. Immunohistochemistry and western blotting were used to analyze proteins expression. Protein-protein interaction was observed by Co-Immunoprecipitation. Systemic impact of CAE on signaling pathway was examined by RNA-seq.
Through H&E, Masson and Sirius Red staining, it was convincingly indicated that therapeutic administration of CAE alleviated lung injury and fibrosis, while pretreated administration of CAE showed weak improvement. In vitro experiments showed that CAE had dual regulation to E-cadherin and N-cadherin, the important indicators of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). And it was further demonstrated that CAE reversed TGF-β1-induced EMT mainly through Wnt/β-catenin, Stat3/6 and COX2/PGE2 signals. Through RNA-Seq, we discovered important mechanisms by which CAE exerts its therapeutic effect. And network pharmacology analysis demonstrated core potential targets of CAE in EMT.
Thus, this study provides new therapeutic effects of CAE in anti-fibrosis, and offers potential mechanisms for CAE in LPS-induced pulmonary fibrosis.
Clinical outcomes after rotator cuff repair associated with diabetes mellitus (DM) are generally favorable, but no study has attempted to establish the influence of DM on outcomes after rotator cuff ...repair.
To conduct a meta-analysis of clinical studies evaluating patient outcomes between people with DM and people without DM after rotator cuff repair.
Meta-analysis.
A literature search of the Embase, PubMed, and Cochrane Library databases was performed according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. Cohort studies and case-control studies about clinical outcomes after rotator cuff repair comparing people with DM and people without DM were included. Statistical analysis was performed with RevMan (v 5.3.3).
Nine clinical studies that met the inclusion criteria were identified and included a total of 314 patients treated with DM and 1092 patients without DM. The failure rate was significantly higher in the DM group than in Non-DM group (23.97% compared with 16.60%, OR: 2.39; 95% CI, 1.69-3.37; p < 0.001). The postoperative retear rate and showed a significant difference between the two groups (24.5% and 13.7%; OR: 2.41; 95% CI, 1.57-3.71; p<0.001). The DM group showed a higher rate of postoperative unhealed cuff than the Non-DM group(41.81% and 25.23%; OR: 2.14; 95% CI, 1.69-3.37; p=0.01).Postoperative Range of motion(ROM) at 12 months after surgery show a significant difference in the range of external rotation between two groups (WMD: -6.02; 95% CI, -7.54 to -4.50; p<0.001). The preoperative Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score, the comparison of pre- and post-operative JOA scores showed a significant difference in the DM and Non-DM group(p<0.001). The postoperative JOA score, the pre- and post-operative muscle strength, the pre- and post-operative visual analog scale (VAS) show significant difference between the DM and Non-DM group(p<0.001). The postoperative infection rates, the rates of postoperative shoulder stiffness, the preoperative ROM, the postoperative ROM at 6 months, the postoperative ROM at 12 months of forward flexion and abduction, the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons score, the University of California, Los Angeles scores, and the preoperative Constant-Murley scores show no significant difference between the two groups.
This meta-analysis indicates that DM may be relative to a higher rate of shoulder retear and cuff unhealing. However, patients with DM can achieve great clinical outcomes after cuff repair, compared to patients without DM.
Integrated charging technology in electric vehicles is expected to reduce the overall cost as well as the weight of the vehicle, while leading to fast charging capability in the vehicle. ...Understanding the above, this paper puts an effort to exclusively investigate interior permanent magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) drive incorporating damper bars in rotor for integrated charging application in electric vehicles. First, motivation for the employment of IPMSM with damper bars for integrated charging is provided and justified. Thereafter, a novel parameter determination method based on dq-axis theory to determine the parameters of a laboratory IPMSM with dampers is proposed and experimentally validated. The determined parameters are then employed to design, control, and compare the performance of an integrated charging system incorporating an IPMSM drive with and without damper bars. The developed system is then experimentally tested under both vehicle-to-grid and grid-to-vehicle modes, and results elicited from the investigations are discussed.
The major reason that the fully automated generalization of residential areas has not been achieved to date is that it is difficult to acquire the knowledge that is required for automated ...generalization and for the calculation of spatial similarity degrees between map objects at different scales. Furthermore, little attention has been given to generalization methods with a scale reduction that is larger than two-fold. To fill this gap, this article develops a hybrid approach that combines two existing methods to generalize residential areas that range from 1:10,000 to 1:50,000. The two existing methods are Boffet’s method for free space acquisition and kernel density analysis for city hotspot detection. Using both methods, the proposed approach follows a knowledge-based framework by implementing map analysis and spatial similarity measurements in a multiscale map space. First, the knowledge required for residential area generalization is obtained by analyzing multiscale residential areas and their corresponding contributions. Second, residential area generalization is divided into two subprocesses: free space acquisition and urban area outer boundary determination. Then, important parameters for the two subprocesses are obtained through map analysis and similarity measurements, reflecting the knowledge that is hidden in the cartographer’s mind. Using this acquired knowledge, complete generalization steps are formed. The proposed approach is tested using multiscale datasets from Lanzhou City. The experimental results demonstrate that our method is better than the traditional methods in terms of location precision and actuality. The approach is robust, comparatively insensitive to the noise of the small buildings beyond urban areas, and easy to implement in GIS software.
Eye gaze plays an important role during social interaction. Specifically, different eye gaze directions may send different functional messages to the observers, who have the capacity to automatically ...interpret these signals. In the present study, we used the implicit association test (IAT) to investigate whether direct eye gaze sends a functional, automatically perceived signal about non-target interpersonal closeness. Results suggest that the direct gaze strongly signals close relationship, and this association cannot be accounted for by positive valence. The findings suggest that the direct gaze may function to uniquely communicate a generalized closeness without orientation. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for social functions of direct gaze during interpersonal interaction and the automatic nature of such associations.
Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) possesses critical functions in plant developmental control and defense reactions. The HSP90 gene family has been studied in various plant species. However, the HSP90 ...gene family in cucumber has not been characterized in detail. In this study, a total of six HSP90 genes were identified from the cucumber genome, which were distributed to five chromosomes. Phylogenetic analysis divided the cucumber HSP90 genes into two groups. The structural characteristics of cucumber HSP90 members in the same group were similar but varied among different groups. Synteny analysis showed that only one cucumber HSP90 gene, Csa1G569290, was conservative, which was not collinear with any HSP90 gene in
and rice. The other five cucumber HSP90 genes were collinear with five
HSP90 genes and six rice HSP90 genes. Only one pair of paralogous genes in the cucumber HSP90 gene family, namely one pair of tandem duplication genes (Csa1G569270/Csa1G569290), was detected. The promoter analysis showed that the promoters of cucumber HSP90 genes contained hormone, stress, and development-related
-elements. Tissue-specific expression analysis revealed that only one cucumber HSP90 gene Csa3G183950 was highly expressed in tendril but low or not expressed in other tissues, while the other five HSP90 genes were expressed in all tissues. Furthermore, the expression levels of cucumber HSP90 genes were differentially induced by temperature and photoperiod, gibberellin (GA), downy mildew, and powdery mildew stimuli. Two cucumber HSP90 genes, Csa1G569270 and Csa1G569290, were both differentially expressed in response to abiotic and biotic stresses, which means that these two HSP90 genes play important roles in the process of cucumber growth and development. These findings improve our understanding of cucumber HSP90 family genes and provide preliminary information for further studies of cucumber HSP90 gene functions in plant growth and development.
Quantitative relations between topological similarity degree and map scale change of multi-scale contour clusters are vital to the automation of map generalization. However, no method has been ...proposed to calculate the relations. This paper aims at filling the gap by proposing a new approach. It firstly constructed a directed contour tree by pre-processing of unclosed contours, and then developed a quantitative expression of topological relations of contour cluster based on directed contour tree. After this, it employed 108 groups of multi-scale contour clusters with different geomorphological types to explore the changing regularity of topological indices with map scale. Last, it used 416 points to calculate the quantitative relations between topological similarity degree and map scale change by curve fitting method. The results show that the quantitative expression of multi-scale topological indexes is closely related to the contour interval change, and power function is the best fit among the candidate functions.
To elucidate the mechanisms underlying seed development in maize, comprehensive RNA-seq analyses were conducted on Zhengdan1002 (ZD1002), Zhengdan958 (ZD958), and their parental lines during seven ...seed developmental stages. We found that gene expression levels were largely nonadditive in hybrids and that cis-only or trans × cis pattern played a large role in hybrid gene regulation during seed developmental stage. Weighted gene co-expression network (WGCNA) analysis showed that 36 modules were highly correlated (
= -0.90-0.92,
< 0.05) with kernel weight, length, and width during seed development. Forty-five transcription factors and 38 ribosomal protein genes were identified as major hub genes determining seed size/weight. We also described a network hub,
of maize (
), a member of a family of transcription factor that mediate gene expression in response to auxin, potentially links auxin signal pathways, cell division, and the size of the seeds. The
mutant exhibited larger seed size and higher grain weight.
transcription was negatively associated with cell division during seed development, which was confirmed by evaluating the yield of protoplasts that isolated from the kernels of the mutant and other inbred lines. Transient knock-down of
in maize plants facilitated cell expansion and division, whereas transient silencing of its potential interactor
impaired cell division.
expression was repressed in the
over-expressed protoplasts. The mutant phenotype and the genetics studies presented here illustrated evidence that
is a cell division repressor, and potentially determines the final seed size.
Understanding the need for steady-state and transient performance improvement in an interior permanent-magnet synchronous machine (IPMSM) drive, this paper exclusively investigates the IPMSM ...incorporating damper bars in the rotor of electric motor for electrified vehicles (EVs). First, motivation for the employment of damper bars in IPMSM is provided and justified with a case study. Thereafter, a mathematical model of an IPMSM drive with damper bars in the rotor has been developed based on dq-axis theory and validated through experiments performed on a laboratory IPMSM containing damper bars. The validated mathematical model has been then employed to arrive at satisfactory rotor bar parameters for an existing IPMSM on board a commercially available EV. Moreover, a replica of the existing onboard EV motor with and without incorporating dampers have been designed, and finite-element analysis has been performed to investigate various performance characteristics. Comparative performance analyzes of both the machines with and without damper bars under steady-state and transient conditions have been performed wherever necessary, and the results elicited have been discussed.
Drainage pattern recognition is crucial for geospatial understanding and hydrologic modelling. Currently, drainage pattern recognition methods employ geometric measures of overall and local features ...of river networks but lack measures of river basin unit shape features, so that potential correlations between river segments are usually ignored, resulting in poor drainage pattern recognition results. In order to overcome this problem, this paper proposes a supervised graph neural network method that considers the local basin unit shape of river networks. First, based on the overall hierarchy of the river networks, the confluence angle of river segments and the shape of river basin units, multiple drainage pattern classification features are extracted. Then, typical drainage pattern samples from the multi-scale NSDI and USGS databases are used to complete the training, validation and testing steps. Experimental results show that the drainage pattern indexes proposed can describe the characteristics of different drainage patterns. The method can effectively sample the adjacent river segments, flexibly transfer the associated pattern features among river segment neighbours, and aggregate the deeper characteristics of the river networks, thus improving the drainage pattern recognition accuracy relative to other methods and reliably distinguishing different drainage patterns.
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