In recent years, the convergence of edge computing and sensor technologies has become a pivotal frontier revolutionizing real-time data processing. In particular, the practice of data ...acquisition-which encompasses the collection of sensory information in the form of images and videos, followed by their transmission to a remote cloud infrastructure for subsequent analysis-has witnessed a notable surge in adoption. However, to ensure seamless real-time processing irrespective of the data volume being conveyed or the frequency of incoming requests, it is vital to proactively locate resources within the cloud infrastructure specifically tailored to data-processing tasks. Many studies have focused on the proactive prediction of resource demands through the use of deep learning algorithms, generating considerable interest in real-time data processing. Nonetheless, an inherent risk arises when relying solely on predictive resource allocation, as it can heighten the susceptibility to system failure. In this study, a framework that includes algorithms that periodically monitor resource requirements and dynamically adjust resource provisioning to match the actual demand is proposed. Under experimental conditions with the Bitbrains dataset, setting the network throughput to 300 kB/s and with a threshold of 80%, the proposed system provides a 99% performance improvement in terms of the autoscaling algorithm and requires only 0.43 ms of additional computational overhead compared to relying on a simple prediction model alone.
Here, we investigate how SBR particles, frequently used as a binder in graphite slurries, affect the structure and flow of the wet paste as well as the adhesion of the dry anode layer. We revealed ...that the SBR particles are located at the interface of both liquid phases, and the amount of added SBR and the energy input for dispersing the secondary fluid offer extra degrees of freedom for adjusting the flow properties and microstructure according to processing and product demands. Most importantly, at a given SBR content, the adhesion strength of the capillary-suspension-type graphite slurries to the current collector is substantially higher than for the anode layers made from conventional suspensions.
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The distinct structure and flow properties of capillary suspensions, i.e., ternary solid/fluid/fluid systems including two immiscible fluids, make these kinds of slurries promising candidates for the fabrication of Li-ion battery electrodes. Recently, aqueous graphite slurries have been introduced that have beneficial coating properties and yield high-capacity cells with a superior electrochemical performance. Here, we investigate how SBR particles, frequently used as a binder in graphite slurries, affect the structure and flow of the wet paste as well as the adhesion of the dry anode layer. Combining rheological, interfacial and structural investigations revealed that the SBR particles are located at the interface of both liquid phases, and the amount of added SBR and the energy input for dispersing the secondary fluid offer extra degrees of freedom for adjusting the flow properties and microstructure according to processing and product demands. Most importantly, at a given SBR content, the adhesion strength of the capillary-suspension-type graphite slurries to the current collector is substantially higher than for the anode layers made from conventional suspensions. This novel approach promises battery electrodes with extended durability at a low binder content and improved electrical conductivity. Further research on this highly technical highly demanding topic is needed to understand the underlying physics and its impact on electrochemical cell performance.
Transformer-based approaches have shown good results in image captioning tasks. However, current approaches have a limitation in generating text from global features of an entire image. Therefore, we ...propose novel methods for generating better image captioning as follows: (1) The Global-Local Visual Extractor (GLVE) to capture both global features and local features. (2) The Cross Encoder-Decoder Transformer (CEDT) for injecting multiple-level encoder features into the decoding process. GLVE extracts not only global visual features that can be obtained from an entire image, such as size of organ or bone structure, but also local visual features that can be generated from a local region, such as lesion area. Given an image, CEDT can create a detailed description of the overall features by injecting both low-level and high-level encoder outputs into the decoder. Each method contributes to performance improvement and generates a description such as organ size and bone structure. The proposed model was evaluated on the IU X-ray dataset and achieved better performance than the transformer-based baseline results, by 5.6% in BLEU score, by 0.56% in METEOR, and by 1.98% in ROUGE-L.
Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) loss-of-function mutations and K-Ras gain-of-function mutations are common abnormalities that occur during the initiation and intermediate adenoma stages of ...colorectal tumorigenesis, respectively. However, little is known about the role these mutations play in cancer stem cells (CSCs) associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) tumorigenesis.
We analyzed tissue from CRC patients (n = 49) to determine whether K-Ras mutations contributed to CSC activation during colorectal tumorigenesis. DLD-1-K-Ras-WT and DLD-1-K-Ras-MT cells were cultured and evaluated for their ability to differentiate, form spheroids in vitro, and form tumors in vivo. Interaction between APC and K-Ras mutations in colorectal tumorigenesis was evaluated using APC (Min/+)/K-Ras (LA2) mice and DLD-1-K-Ras-WT and DLD-1-K-Ras-MT cell xenografts. (n = 4) Group differences were determined by Student t test. All statistical tests were two-sided.
The sphere-forming capability of DLD-1-K-Ras-MT cells was statistically significantly higher than that of DLD-1-K-Ras-WT cells (DLD-1-K-Ras-MT mean = 86.661 pixel, 95% confidence interval CI = 81.701 to 91.621 pixel; DLD-1-K-Ras-WT mean = 42.367 pixel, 95% CI = 36.467 to 48.267 pixel; P = .003). Moreover, both the size and weight of tumors from DLD-1-K-Ras-MT xenografts were markedly increased compared with tumors from DLD-1-K-Ras-WT cells. Expression of the CSC markers CD44, CD133, and CD166 was induced in intestinal tumors from APC (Min/+)/K-Ras (LA2)mice, but not K-Ras (LA2) mice, indicating that APC mutation is required for CSC activation by oncogenic K-Ras mutation.
K-Ras mutation activates CSCs, contributing to colorectal tumorigenesis and metastasis in CRC cells harboring APC mutations. Initial activation of β-catenin by APC loss and further enhancement through K-Ras mutation induces CD44, CD133, and CD166 expression.
Transposable elements are major evolutionary forces which can cause new genome structure and species diversification. The role of transposable elements in the expansion of nucleotide-binding and ...leucine-rich-repeat proteins (NLRs), the major disease-resistance gene families, has been unexplored in plants.
We report two high-quality de novo genomes (Capsicum baccatum and C. chinense) and an improved reference genome (C. annuum) for peppers. Dynamic genome rearrangements involving translocations among chromosomes 3, 5, and 9 were detected in comparison between C. baccatum and the two other peppers. The amplification of athila LTR-retrotransposons, members of the gypsy superfamily, led to genome expansion in C. baccatum. In-depth genome-wide comparison of genes and repeats unveiled that the copy numbers of NLRs were greatly increased by LTR-retrotransposon-mediated retroduplication. Moreover, retroduplicated NLRs are abundant across the angiosperms and, in most cases, are lineage-specific.
Our study reveals that retroduplication has played key roles for the massive emergence of NLR genes including functional disease-resistance genes in pepper plants.
Prostate cancer (PCa) used to be one of the most common nondermatologic cancers in men that can be treated only with surgery. However, a revolutionary breakthrough came in the 1980s with the ...introduction of long-acting luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists for the curative treatment of PCa. This paradigm shift contributed to the combined use of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), chemotherapy, and radiotherapy for the treatment. The latest data highlight the use of treatment intensification (TI), i.e., combined use of radiotherapy (RT) and hormonal or drug treatments, for localized or locally advanced PCa. Indeed, the results of combined modality treatments have shown a reduction in disease-specific mortality and improved overall survival. Although TI seems promising, more research studies are warranted to confirm its efficacy. This review summarizes the latest available outcome results of pivotal trials and clinical studies on the efficacy of TI.
The process of machine learning is to find parameters that minimize the cost function constructed by learning the data. This is called optimization and the parameters at that time are called the ...optimal parameters in neural networks. In the process of finding the optimization, there were attempts to solve the symmetric optimization or initialize the parameters symmetrically. Furthermore, in order to obtain the optimal parameters, the existing methods have used methods in which the learning rate is decreased over the iteration time or is changed according to a certain ratio. These methods are a monotonically decreasing method at a constant rate according to the iteration time. Our idea is to make the learning rate changeable unlike the monotonically decreasing method. We introduce a method to find the optimal parameters which adaptively changes the learning rate according to the value of the cost function. Therefore, when the cost function is optimized, the learning is complete and the optimal parameters are obtained. This paper proves that the method ensures convergence to the optimal parameters. This means that our method achieves a minimum of the cost function (or effective learning). Numerical experiments demonstrate that learning is good effective when using the proposed learning rate schedule in various situations.
Replication-Factor-C (RFC) and RFC-like complexes (RLCs) mediate chromatin engagement of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA). It remains controversial how RFC and RLCs cooperate to regulate ...PCNA loading and unloading. Here, we show the distinct PCNA loading or unloading activity of each clamp loader. ATAD5-RLC possesses the potent PCNA unloading activity. ATPase motif and collar domain of ATAD5 are crucial for the unloading activity. DNA structures did not affect PCNA unloading activity of ATAD5-RLC. ATAD5-RLC could unload ubiquitinated PCNA. Through single molecule measurements, we reveal that ATAD5-RLC unloaded PCNA through one intermediate state before ATP hydrolysis. RFC loaded PCNA through two intermediate states on DNA, separated by ATP hydrolysis. Replication proteins such as Fen1 could inhibit the PCNA unloading activity of Elg1-RLC, a yeast homolog of ATAD5-RLC in vitro. Our findings provide molecular insights into how PCNA is released from chromatin to finalize DNA replication/repair.
Within a complex with Rai1, the 5'-3' exoribonuclease Rat1 promotes termination of RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) on protein-coding genes, but its underlying molecular mechanism is still poorly ...understood. Using in vitro transcription termination assays, we have found that RNAPII is prone to more effective termination by Rat1/Rai1 when its catalytic site is disrupted due to NTP misincorporation, implying that paused RNAPII, which is often found in vivo near termination sites, could adopt a similar configuration to Rat1/Rai1 and trigger termination. Intriguingly, yeast Rat1/Rai1 does not terminate Escherichia coli RNAP, implying that a specific interaction between Rat1/Rai1 and RNAPII may be required for termination. Furthermore, the efficiency of termination increases as the RNA transcript undergoing degradation by Rat1 gets longer, which suggests that Rat1 may generate a driving force for dissociating RNAPII from the template while degrading the nascent transcripts to catch up to the polymerase. These results indicate that multiple mechanistic features contribute to Rat1-mediated termination of RNAPII.
Maintaining stability of replication forks is important for genomic integrity. However, it is not clear how replisome proteins contribute to fork stability under replication stress. Here, we report ...that ATAD5, a PCNA unloader, plays multiple functions at stalled forks including promoting its restart. ATAD5 depletion increases genomic instability upon hydroxyurea treatment in cultured cells and mice. ATAD5 recruits RAD51 to stalled forks in an ATR kinase-dependent manner by hydroxyurea-enhanced protein-protein interactions and timely removes PCNA from stalled forks for RAD51 recruitment. Consistent with the role of RAD51 in fork regression, ATAD5 depletion inhibits slowdown of fork progression and native 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine signal induced by hydroxyurea. Single-molecule FRET showed that PCNA itself acts as a mechanical barrier to fork regression. Consequently, DNA breaks required for fork restart are reduced by ATAD5 depletion. Collectively, our results suggest an important role of ATAD5 in maintaining genome integrity during replication stress.
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