In order to solve the simple assembly line balancing problem of type 1, an improved immune algorithm is proposed. Compared with the basic immune algorithm: (1) The similarity formula between any two ...antibodies is simplified in the improved immune algorithm. (2) Introducing immune adjustment, vaccine extraction, vaccination, and immune selection, the improved immune algorithm prevents population degradation. The validity of the proposed improved immune algorithm is tested by means of two computational examples with reference instances, and the results show that the proposed improved immune algorithm is an efficient approach to solve the simple assembly line balancing problem of type 1.
The increased incidence of dental caries by cigarette smoking (CS) has been widely reported in epidemiological studies, but the relationship between CS and cariogenic biofilm growth has been rarely ...studied. This study aims to investigate the effects of CS exposure on the growth and virulence of Streptococcus mutans biofilms (S. mutans). Briefly, S. mutans biofilms were formed on saliva-coated hydroxyapatite disks, which were exposed to CS 1, 3, and 6 times per day, respectively. In addition, S. mutans biofilms without CS exposure were considered as the control group. Acidogenicity, dry weight, colony-forming units (CFUs), water-soluble/insoluble extracellular polysaccharides (EPSs), and intracellular polysaccharides (IPSs) were analyzed and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) images of 74-h-old S. mutans biofilms were obtained. The lowest accumulation of biofilms and EPSs were detected in the 6 times/day CS exposure group compared with those of the control group and other CS exposure groups in 74-h-old S. mutans biofilms. CLSM also revealed the lowest bacterial count (live and dead cells) and EPSs biovolume in the six times/day CS exposure group in 74-h-old S. mutans biofilms. CS exposure inhibited the growth of S. mutans biofilm in vitro study, the anti-cariogenic biofilm formation was enhanced with a dose (frequency)-dependent at which frequency has more influence in the present findings.
Although fluoride has been widely used as a preventive agent for dental caries, the effects of fluoride on the activities of biofilms in different stages of cariogenic biofilm formation are less ...studied. This study was designed to investigate the antibiofilm activity of sodium fluoride during the early and mature stages of Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) biofilm formation. S. mutans biofilms were formed on saliva-coated hydroxyapatite disks. In the early (0-46 h) and mature (46-94 h) biofilm stages, the biofilms were treated with different concentrations of fluoride (250, 500, 1000, 2000 ppm; 5 times in total, 1 min/treatment). Acidogenicity, dry weight, colony-forming units (CFUs), water-soluble/insoluble extracellular polysaccharides (EPSs), and intracellular polysaccharides were analysed, and confocal laser scanning microscopy images were obtained of the two stages of biofilms to determine antibiofilm activities of fluoride at varying concentrations during the formation of early and mature biofilms. In the early stages of cariogenic biofilm formation, test groups with all fluoride concentrations significantly inhibited the growth of S. mutans biofilms. The antibiofilm and anti-EPS formation activities of the brief fluoride treatments increased with a concentration-dependent pattern. At the mature biofilm stage, only the 2000 ppm fluoride treatment group significantly inhibited biofilm accumulation, activity, and intracellular/extracellular polysaccharide content compared with those of the control and other fluoride treatment groups. The antimicrobial effect of fluoride treatment on the growth of S. mutans biofilms was linked with the stage of cariogenic biofilm formation. The inhibition of S. mutans biofilm growth by fluoride treatment was easier in the early formation stage than in the mature stage. Fluoride treatment in the early stage of cariogenic biofilm formation may be an effective approach to controlling cariogenic biofilm development and preventing dental caries.
Although some strategies have been triggered to address the intrinsic drawbacks of zinc (Zn) anodes in aqueous Zn‐ion batteries (ZIBs), the larger issue of Zn anodes unable to cycle at a high current ...density with large areal capacity is neglected. Herein, the zinc phosphorus solid solution alloy (ZnP) coated on Zn foil (Zn@ZnP) prepared via a high‐efficiency electrodeposition method as a novel strategy is proposed. The phosphorus (P) atoms in the coating layer are beneficial to fast ion transfer and reducing the electrochemical activation energy during Zn stripping/plating processes. Besides, a lower energy barrier of Zn2+ transferring into the coating can be attained due to the additional P. The results show that the as‐prepared Zn@ZnP anode in the symmetric cell can be cycled at a current density of 15 mA cm−2 with an areal capacity of 48 mAh cm−2 (depth of discharge, DOD ≈ 82%) and even at an ultrahigh current density of 20 mA cm−2 and DOD ≈ 51%. Importantly, a discharge capacity of 154.4 mAh g−1 in the Zn/MnO2 full cell can be attained after 1000 cycles at 1 A g−1. The remarkable effect achieved by the developed strategy confirms its prospect in the large‐scale application of ZIBs for high‐power devices.
The phosphorus atoms in the ZnP coating are beneficial for fast ion transfer and reducing the electrochemical activation energy to achieve a high‐performance zinc metal anode with long‐term cycling stability at an ultrahigh current density and areal capacity.
Learning with limited data is a key challenge for visual recognition. Many few-shot learning methods address this challenge by learning an instance embedding function from seen classes and apply the ...function to instances from unseen classes with limited labels. This style of transfer learning is task-agnostic: the embedding function is not learned optimally discriminative with respect to the unseen classes, where discerning among them leads to the target task. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to adapt the instance embeddings to the target classification task with a set-to-set function, yielding embeddings that are task-specific and are discriminative. We empirically investigated various instantiations of such set-to-set functions and observed the Transformer is most effective --- as it naturally satisfies key properties of our desired model. We denote this model as FEAT (few-shot embedding adaptation w/ Transformer) and validate it on both the standard few-shot classification benchmark and four extended few-shot learning settings with essential use cases, i.e., cross-domain, transductive, generalized few-shot learning, and low-shot learning. It archived consistent improvements over baseline models as well as previous methods, and established the new state-of-the-art results on two benchmarks.
Using administrative data from a large and diverse emergency department (ED), we examine the impact of race concordance between patients and physicians on physician decision-making and patient health ...outcomes. We find that patient-physician race concordance increases consultation time and decreases the probability of inpatient admission and diagnostic testing. Subsequently, race-concordant patients have lower revisit rates after ED discharge. The effect of race concordance is largely driven by patients who had less serious illnesses and whose diseases had nonspecific symptoms or less clear causes. The results are best explained by the informational and communication mechanism.
Prion diseases are caused by the misfolding of prion protein (PrP). Misfolded PrP forms protease-resistant aggregates in vivo (PrP
) that are able to template the conversion of the native form of the ...protein (PrP
), a property shared by in vitro-produced PrP fibrils. Here we produced amyloid fibrils in vitro from recombinant, full-length human PrP
(residues 23-231) and determined their structure using cryo-EM, building a model for the fibril core comprising residues 170-229. The PrP fibril consists of two protofibrils intertwined in a left-handed helix. Lys194 and Glu196 from opposing subunits form salt bridges, creating a hydrophilic cavity at the interface of the two protofibrils. By comparison with the structure of PrP
, we propose that two α-helices in the C-terminal domain of PrP
are converted into β-strands stabilized by a disulfide bond in the PrP fibril. Our data suggest that different PrP mutations may play distinct roles in modulating the conformational conversion.
Enantioselective functionalizations of unbiased methylene C(sp3)−H bonds of linear systems by metal insertion are intrinsically challenging and remain a largely unsolved problem. Herein, we report a ...palladium(II)‐catalyzed enantioselective arylation of unbiased methylene β‐C(sp3)−H bonds enabled by the combination of a strongly coordinating bidentate PIP auxiliary with a monodentate chiral phosphoric acid (CPA). The synergistic effect between the PIP auxiliary and the non‐C2‐symmetric CPA is crucial for effective stereocontrol. A broad range of aliphatic carboxylic acids and aryl bromides can be used, providing β‐arylated aliphatic carboxylic acid derivatives in high yields (up to 96 %) with good enantioselectivities (up to 95:5 e.r.). Notably, this reaction also represents the first palladium(II)‐catalyzed enantioselective C−H activation with less reactive and cost‐effective aryl bromides as the arylating reagents. Mechanistic studies suggest that a single CPA is involved in the stereodetermining C−H palladation step.
Crucial combination: A palladium(II)‐catalyzed enantioselective arylation of unbiased methylene β‐C(sp3)−H bonds is enabled by the combination of a strongly coordinating bidentate PIP auxiliary and monodentate chiral phosphoric acids. The synergistic effect between the PIP auxiliary and a non‐C2‐symmetric chiral phosphoric acid is crucial for effective stereocontrol.
Good path planning technology of mobile robot can not only save a lot of time, but also reduce the wear and capital investment of mobile robot. Several methodologies have been proposed and reported ...in the literature for the path planning of mobile robot. Although these methodologies do not guarantee an optimal solution, they have been successfully applied in their works. The purpose of this paper is to review the modeling, optimization criteria and solution algorithms for the path planning of mobile robot. The survey shows GA (genetic algorithm), PSO (particle swarm optimization algorithm), APF (artificial potential field), and ACO (ant colony optimization algorithm) are the most used approaches to solve the path planning of mobile robot. Finally, future research is discussed which could provide reference for the path planning of mobile robot.
Sorafenib is the first-line treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, there is a lack of validated biomarkers to predict sorafenib sensitivity. In this study we investigated the ...role of ACSL4, a positive-activating enzyme of ferroptosis, in sorafenib-induced cell death and HCC patient outcome. We showed that ACSL4 protein expression was negatively associated with IC
values of sorafenib in a panel of HCC cell lines (R = -0.952, P < 0.001). Knockdown of ACSL4 expression by specific siRNA/sgRNA significantly attenuated sorafenib-induced lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis in Huh7 cells, and also rescued sorafenib-induced inhibition of xenograft tumor growth in vivo. We selected 29 HCC patients with surgery as primary treatment and sorafenib as postoperative adjunct therapy from a hospital-based cohort. A high proportion (66.7%) of HCC patients who had complete or partial responses to sorafenib treatment (according to the revised RECIST guideline) had higher ACSL4 expression in the pretreated HCC tissues, compared with those who had stable or progressed tumor growth (23.5%, P = 0.029). Since ACSL4 expression was independent of sorafenib treatment, it could serve as a useful predictive biomarker. Taken together, this study demonstrates that ACSL4 is essential for sorafenib-induced ferroptosis and useful for predicting sorafenib sensitivity in HCC. This study may have important translational impacts in precise treatment of HCC.
PDF
