A
bstract
We consider the thermal effects into the evaluation of the dark matter production process. With the assistance of the right handed neutrinos, the freeze-in massive particle dark matter ...production history can be modified by the two-step phase transitions. The kinematic of decay/inverse decay or annihilation processes can be affected by the finite temperature effects as the Universe cools down. The history of the symmetry respected by the model can be revealed by the DM relic abundance evolution processes. The strong first order electroweak phase transition generated gravitational waves can be probed. The number of extra scalars for the Hierarchy problem can be probed through the Higgs off-shell searches at the LHC.
The three unprecedented outbreaks of emerging human coronavirus (HCoV) infections at the beginning of the twenty-first century have highlighted the necessity for readily available, accurate and fast ...diagnostic testing methods. The laboratory diagnostic methods for human coronavirus infections have evolved substantially, with the development of novel assays as well as the availability of updated tests for emerging ones. Newer laboratory methods are fast, highly sensitive and specific, and are gradually replacing the conventional gold standards. This presentation reviews the current laboratory methods available for testing coronaviruses by focusing on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak going on in Wuhan. Viral pneumonias typically do not result in the production of purulent sputum. Thus, a nasopharyngeal swab is usually the collection method used to obtain a specimen for testing. Nasopharyngeal specimens may miss some infections; a deeper specimen may need to be obtained by bronchoscopy. Alternatively, repeated testing can be used because over time, the likelihood of the SARS-CoV-2 being present in the nasopharynx increases. Several integrated, random-access, point-of-care molecular devices are currently under development for fast and accurate diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infections. These assays are simple, fast and safe and can be used in the local hospitals and clinics bearing the burden of identifying and treating patients.
The COVID-19 outbreak has had a major impact on clinical microbiology laboratories in the past several months. This commentary covers current issues and challenges for the laboratory diagnosis of ...infections caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the preanalytical stage, collecting the proper respiratory tract specimen at the right time from the right anatomic site is essential for a prompt and accurate molecular diagnosis of COVID-19. Appropriate measures are required to keep laboratory staff safe while producing reliable test results. In the analytic stage, real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assays remain the molecular test of choice for the etiologic diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection while antibody-based techniques are being introduced as supplemental tools. In the postanalytical stage, testing results should be carefully interpreted using both molecular and serological findings. Finally, random-access, integrated devices available at the point of care with scalable capacities will facilitate the rapid and accurate diagnosis and monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 infections and greatly assist in the control of this outbreak.
Tumor microenvironment is a special environment for tumor survival, which is characterized by hypoxia, acidity, nutrient deficiency, and immunosuppression. The environment consists of the ...vasculature, immune cells, extracellular matrix, and proteins or metabolic molecules. A large number of recent studies have shown that not only tumor cells but also the immune cells in the tumor microenvironment have undergone metabolic reprogramming, which is closely related to tumor drug resistance and malignant progression. Tumor immunotherapy based on T cells gives patients new hope, but faces the dilemma of low response rate. New strategies sensitizing cancer immunotherapy are urgently needed. Metabolic reprogramming can directly affect the biological activity of tumor cells and also regulate the differentiation and activation of immune cells. The authors aim to review the characteristics of tumor microenvironment, the metabolic changes of tumor‐associated immune cells, and the regulatory role of metabolic reprogramming in cancer immunotherapy.
Metabolic reprogramming is the basis of tumor microenvironment, which consists of cellular and extracellular components. The cellular components are mainly composed of hematopoietic immune cells (For example, TAMs, tumor‐associated macrophages; TILs, tumor‐infiltrated lymphocytes; TADCs, tumor‐associated dendritic cells; TANKs, tumor‐associated natural killer cells) and resident stromal cells. The extracellular components are mainly composed of extracellular matrix and cell‐secreted factors. The interaction between cancer cells and interstitial cells in the tumor microenvironment regulates tumorigenesis and progression.
Renewable energy sources (RESs), e.g., wind and solar photovoltaics, have been increasingly used to meet worldwide growing energy demands and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, RESs are ...normally coupled to the power grid through fast-response power converters without any inertia, leading to decreased power system inertia. As a result, the grid frequency may easily go beyond the acceptable range under severe frequency events, resulting in undesirable load-shedding, cascading failures, or even large-scale blackouts. To address the ever-decreasing inertia issue, this paper proposes the concept of distributed power system virtual inertia, which can be implemented by grid-connected power converters. Without modifications of system hardware, power system inertia can be emulated by the energy stored in the dc-link capacitors of grid-connected power converters. By regulating the dc-link voltages in proportional to the grid frequency, the dc-link capacitors are aggregated into an extremely large equivalent capacitor serving as an energy buffer for frequency support. Furthermore, the limitation of virtual inertia, together with its design parameters, is identified. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed concept is validated through simulation and experimental results, which indicate that 12.5% and 50% improvements of the frequency nadir and rate of change of frequency can be achieved.
The Wuhan SARS‐CoV‐2—What's next for China Lu, Hongzhou; Stratton, Charles W.; Tang, Yi‐Wei
Journal of medical virology,
June 2020, Volume:
92, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Livestock grazing is a widespread practice in human activities worldwide. However, the effects of livestock grazing management on vegetation carbon storage have not been thoroughly evaluated. In this ...study, we used the system dynamic approach to simulate the effects of different livestock grazing management strategies on carbon stock in sparse elm woodlands. The livestock grazing management strategies included rotational grazing every 5 years (RG5), prohibited grazing (PG), seasonal prohibited grazing (SPG), and continuous grazing (CG). We evaluated the carbon sequestration rate in vegetation using logistical models. The results showed that the carbon stock of elm trees in sparse woodlands was 5-15 M g ha
. The values of the carbon sequestration rate were 0.15, 0.13, 0.13, and 0.09 Mg C ha
year
in RG5, PG, CG, and SPG management, respectively. This indicates that rotational grazing management might be the optimal choice for improving vegetation carbon accumulation in sparse woodlands. This study contributes to decision-making on how to choose livestock grazing management to maintain higher carbon storage.
The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) now is considered a global public health emergency. One of the unprecedented challenges is defining the optimal therapy for those patients with severe ...pneumonia and systemic manifestations of COVID‐19. The optimal therapy should be largely based on the pathogenesis of infections caused by this novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2). Since the onset of COVID‐19, there have been many prepublications and publications reviewing the therapy of COVID‐19 as well as many prepublications and publications reviewing the pathogenesis of SARS‐CoV‐2. However, there have been no comprehensive reviews that link COVID‐19 therapies to the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS‐CoV‐2. To link COVID‐19 therapies to pathogenic mechanisms of SARS‐CoV‐2, we performed a comprehensive search through MEDLINE, PubMed, medRxiv, EMBASE, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Web of Science using the following keywords: COVID‐19, SARS‐CoV‐2, novel 2019 coronavirus, pathology, pathologic, pathogenesis, pathophysiology, coronavirus pneumonia, coronavirus infection, coronavirus pulmonary infection, coronavirus cardiovascular infection, coronavirus gastroenteritis, coronavirus autopsy findings, viral sepsis, endotheliitis, thrombosis, coagulation abnormalities, immunology, humeral immunity, cellular immunity, inflammation, cytokine storm, superantigen, therapy, treatment, therapeutics, immune‐based therapeutics, antiviral agents, respiratory therapy, oxygen therapy, anticoagulation therapy, adjuvant therapy, and preventative therapy. Opinions expressed in this review also are based on personal experience as clinicians, authors, peer reviewers, and editors. This narrative review linking COVID‐19 therapies with pathogenic mechanisms of SARS‐CoV‐2 has resulted in six major therapeutic goals for COVID‐19 therapy based on the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS‐CoV‐2. These goals are listed below:
1.
The first goal is identifying COVID‐19 patients that require both testing and therapy. This is best accomplished with a COVID‐19 molecular test from symptomatic patients as well as determining the oxygen saturation in such patients with a pulse oximeter. Whether a symptomatic respiratory illness is COVID‐19, influenza, or another respiratory pathogen, an oxygen saturation less than 90% means that the patient requires medical assistance.
2.
The second goal is to correct the hypoxia. This goal generally requires hospitalization for oxygen therapy; other respiratory‐directed therapies such as prone positioning or mechanical ventilation are often used in the attempt to correct hypoxemia due to COVID‐19.
3.
The third goal is to reduce the viral load of SARS‐CoV‐2. Ideally, there would be an oral antiviral agent available such as seen with the use of oseltamivir phosphate for influenza. This oral antiviral agent should be taken early in the course of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection. Such an oral agent is not available yet. Currently, two options are available for reducing the viral load of SARS‐CoV‐2. These are post‐Covid‐19 plasma with a high neutralizing antibody titer against SARS‐CoV‐2 or intravenous remdesivir; both options require hospitalization.
4.
The fourth goal is to identify and address the hyperinflammation phase often seen in hospitalized COVID‐19 patients. Currently, fever with an elevated C‐reactive protein is useful for diagnosing this hyperinflammation syndrome. Low‐dose dexamethasone therapy currently is the best therapeutic approach.
5.
The fifth goal is to identify and address the hypercoagulability phase seen in many hospitalized COVID‐19 patients. Patients who would benefit from anticoagulation therapy can be identified by a marked increase in d‐dimer and prothrombin time with a decrease in fibrinogen. To correct this disseminated intravascular coagulation‐like phase, anticoagulation therapy with low molecular weight heparin is preferred. Anticoagulation therapy with unfractionated heparin is preferred in COVID‐19 patients with acute kidney injuries.
6.
The last goal is prophylaxis for persons who are not yet infected. Potential supplements include vitamin D and zinc. Although the data for such supplements is not extremely strong, it can be argued that almost 50% of the population worldwide has a vitamin D deficiency. Correcting this deficiency would be beneficial regardless of any impact of COVID‐19. Similarly, zinc is an important supplement that is important in one's diet regardless of any effect on SARS‐CoV‐2.
As emerging therapies are found to be more effective against the SARS‐CoV‐2 pathogenic mechanisms identified, they can be substituted for those therapies presented in this review.
Abstract
Motivation
Related to many important biological functions, intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are widely distributed in proteins. Accurate prediction of IDRs is critical for the protein ...structure and function analysis. However, the existing computational methods construct the predictive models solely in the sequence space, failing to convert the sequence space into the ‘semantic space’ to reflect the structure characteristics of proteins. Furthermore, although the length-dependent predictors showed promising results, new fusion strategies should be explored to improve their predictive performance and the generalization.
Results
In this study, we applied the Sequence to Sequence Learning (Seq2Seq) derived from natural language processing (NLP) to map protein sequences to ‘semantic space’ to reflect the structure patterns with the help of predicted residue–residue contacts (CCMs) and other sequence-based features. Furthermore, the Attention mechanism was used to capture the global associations between all residue pairs in the proteins. Three length-dependent predictors were constructed: IDP-Seq2Seq-L for long disordered region prediction, IDP-Seq2Seq-S for short disordered region prediction and IDP-Seq2Seq-G for both long and short disordered region predictions. Finally, these three predictors were fused into one predictor called IDP-Seq2Seq to improve the discriminative power and generalization. Experimental results on four independent test datasets and the CASP test dataset showed that IDP-Seq2Seq is insensitive with the ratios of long and short disordered regions and outperforms other competing methods.
Availability and implementation
For the convenience of most experimental scientists, a user-friendly and publicly accessible web-server for the powerful new predictor has been established at http://bliulab.net/IDP-Seq2Seq/. It is anticipated that IDP-Seq2Seq will become a very useful tool for identification of IDRs.
Supplementary information
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
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