Defocus blur detection (DBD) for natural images is a challenging vision task especially in the presence of homogeneous regions and gradual boundaries. In this paper, we propose a novel ...image-scale-symmetric cooperative network (IS2CNet) for DBD. On one hand, in the process of image scales from large to small, IS2CNet gradually spreads the recept of image content. Thus, the homogeneous region detection map can be optimized gradually. On the other hand, in the process of image scales from small to large, IS2CNet gradually feels the high-resolution image content, thereby gradually refining transition region detection. In addition, we propose a hierarchical feature integration and bi-directional delivering mechanism to transfer the hierarchical feature of previous image scale network to the input and tail of the current image scale network for guiding the current image scale network to better learn the residual. The proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on existing datasets. Codes and results are available at: https://github.com/wdzhao123/IS2CNet .
Highlights • miR-192-5p and miR-215 as the most responsive miRNAs upon curcumin treatment in H460 and A427 cells. • Curcumin upregulates miR-192-5p and miR-215 in a p53-dependent manner. • miR-192-5p ...and miR-215 are putative tumor suppressors in NSCLC. • XIAP is a novel transcriptional target of miR-192-5p and miR-215. • The p53-miR-192-5p/215-XIAP pathway is a new therapeutic target for NSCLC.
The evergrowing plastic production and the caused concerns of plastic waste accumulation have stimulated the need for waste plastic chemical recycling/valorization. Current methods suffer from harsh ...reaction conditions and long reaction time. Herein we demonstrate a non-thermal plasma-assisted method for rapid hydrogenolysis of polystyrene (PS) at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure, generating high yield (>40 wt%) of C
-C
hydrocarbons and ethylene being the dominant gas product (Selectivity of ethylene, S
> 70%) within ~10 min. The fast reaction kinetics is attributed to highly active hydrogen plasma, which can effectively break bonds in polymer and initiate hydrogenolysis under mild condition. Efficient hydrogenolysis of post-consumer PS materials using this method is also demonstrated, suggesting a promising approach for fast retrieval of small molecular hydrocarbon modules from plastic materials as well as a good capability to process waste plastics in complicated conditions.
The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) has been generally recognized as a ligand-activated transcriptional factor that responds to xenobiotic chemicals. Recent studies have suggested that the expression ...of AhR varies widely across different cancer types and cancer cell lines, but its significance in cancer treatment has yet to be clarified.
AhR expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was determined by Western blotting and IHC staining.
and
functional experiments were performed to determine the effect of AhR on sensitivity to targeted therapeutics. A panel of biochemical assays was used to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.
A high AhR protein level indicated an unfavorable prognosis for lung adenocarcinoma. Inhibition of AhR signaling sensitized EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in NSCLC cells that express high level of endogenous AhR protein. Notably, activation of AhR by pharmacologic and molecular approaches rendered EGFR-mutant cells resistant to TKIs by restoring PI3K/Akt and MEK/Erk signaling through activation of Src. In addition, we found that AhR acts as a protein adaptor to mediate Jak2-Src interaction, which does not require the canonical transcriptional activity of AhR.
Our results reveal a transcription-independent function of AhR and indicate that AhR may act as a protein adaptor that recruits kinases bypassing EGFR and drives resistance to TKIs. Accordingly, targeting Src would be a strategy to overcome resistance to EGFR TKIs in AhR-activated NSCLC.
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Upcycling is an attractive approach for valorization of waste plastics to valuable chemicals. Here we report the first case study of non-thermal plasma-assisted hydrogenolysis of high-density ...polyethylene (HDPE) to C1-C3 hydrocarbons. Light alkanes, predominately CH4, C2H6 and C3H8 with >95% selectivity, were obtained under ambient condition as result of favorable thermodynamics and fast reaction kinetics. The findings demonstrated that hydrogenolysis that typically demands above 300 °C with thermal catalysis can occur at room temperature in assistance of non-thermal plasma. This proof-of-concept study showcases a novel strategy for upcycling of plastics to valuable hydrocarbons under ambient condition.
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•Non-thermal plasma-assisted hydrogenolysis of polyethylene was reported for first time.•>95% C1-C3 hydrocarbon selectivity was obtained.•Catalyst introduction improved gas yield and energy efficiency.•Favorable thermodynamics and fast kinetics collectively drive the reaction.
Inhibition of EGFR and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) signaling is highly effective in a subgroup of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with distinct clinicopathologic features. However, ...resistance to EGFR and ALK inhibitors inevitably occurs, and the molecular mechanism underlying resistance is not fully understood. In this study, we report a PI3K/Akt- and MEK/ERK-independent resistance mechanism by which loss of the E3 ubiquitin ligase F-box and WD repeat domain containing 7 (FBW7α) leads to targeted therapy resistance via stabilization of antiapoptotic protein MCL-1. Using a panel of
and
studies, we showed that the regulatory machinery responsible for MCL-1 protein degradation was a step-wise event involving phosphorylation and nucleus translocation. ERK cooperated with GSKβ to phosphorylate MCL-1 Ser159 residue, which enabled MCL-1 to translocate into the nucleus and bind FBW7. Defects in this sequence impaired MCL-1 degradation and cell apoptosis, recapitulating phenotypes observed in FBW7 deficiency. Downregulation of FBW7 was found in EGFR inhibitor-resistant human NSCLC specimens and correlated with increased MCL-1 protein expression. Reactivation of FBW7 sensitized resistant cells to targeted therapy and facilitated MCL-1 degradation. Overall, our study provides proof-of-principle insight into a PI3K/Akt- and MEK/ERK-independent resistant model and suggests that targeting FBW7 can overcome resistance to targeted therapy.
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The geostationary remote sensing satellite has the capability of wide scanning, persistent observation and operational response, and has tremendous potential for maritime target surveillance. The ...GF-4 satellite is the first geostationary orbit (GEO) optical remote sensing satellite with medium resolution in China. In this paper, a novel ship-tracking method in GF-4 satellite sequential imagery is proposed. The algorithm has three stages. First, a local visual saliency map based on local peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is used to detect ships in a single frame of GF-4 satellite sequential images. Second, the accuracy positioning of each potential target is realized by a dynamic correction using the rational polynomial coefficients (RPCs) and automatic identification system (AIS) data of ships. Finally, an improved multiple hypotheses tracking (MHT) algorithm with amplitude information is used to track ships by further removing the false targets, and to estimate ships' motion parameters. The algorithm has been tested using GF-4 sequential images and AIS data. The results of the experiment demonstrate that the algorithm achieves good tracking performance in GF-4 satellite sequential images and estimates the motion information of ships accurately.
Autophagy is a type of cellular catabolic degradation response to nutrient starvation or metabolic stress. The main function of autophagy is to maintain intracellular metabolic homeostasis through ...degradation of unfolded or aggregated proteins and organelles. Although autophagic regulation is a complicated process, solid evidence demonstrates that the PI3K-Akt-mTOR, LKB1-AMPK-mTOR and p53 are the main upstream regulators of the autophagic pathway. Currently, there is a bulk of data indicating the important function of autophagy in cancer. It is noteworthy that autophagy facilitates the cancer cells' resistance to chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The abrogation of autophagy potentiates the re-sensitization of therapeutic resistant cancer cells to the anticancer treatment
via autophagy inhibitors, such as 3-MA, CQ and BA, or knockdown of the autophagy related molecules. In this review, we summarize the accumulation of evidence for autophagy's involvement in mediating resistance of cancer cells to anticancer therapy and suggest that autophagy might be a potential therapeutic target in anticancer drug resistance in the future.
Maritime activities are essential aspects of human society. Accurate classification of ships is vital for maritime surveillance and meaningful to numerous civil and military applications. However, ...most studies conducted are limited to the coarse-grained ship classification. Few studies on fine-grained ship classification have been undertaken despite its accuracy and practicability. In this study, we construct a new benchmark for fine-grained ship classification which consists of 23 fine-grained categories of ships. Besides the category label, the benchmark contains several other attribute information. To solve the problem of interclass similarity, an attribute-guided multilevel enhanced feature representation network (AMEFRN) is proposed. Concretely, a multilevel enhanced visual feature representation is designed to fuse the reweighted regional features in order to focus more on the silent region and suppress the other regions. Further to this, considering the complementary role of attribute information in ship identification, an attribute-guided feature extraction branch is proposed, which extracts the auxiliary attribute features by utilizing the attribute information as supervision. Finally, the attribute features and the enhanced visual features jointly function as a feature representation for classification. Compared to other existing classification models, AMEFRN has better performance with an overall accuracy rate of 93.58% on the established fine-grained ship classification dataset. Moreover, it can be easily embedded into most CNN models as well as trained end-to-end.
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