Bicycles are an eco-friendly mode of transportation, and in the capital city of South Korea, Seoul, efforts are being made to encourage citizens to use bicycles. However, without appropriate safety ...measures, these efforts can lead to an increase in bicycle-related traffic accidents. To promote bicycle usage while ensuring safety, this study identified various factors that influence bicycle accidents. Data were utilized that had not been properly considered in previous bicycle accident-related studies, including slope and the level of public transportation services. By considering the factors influencing bicycle traffic accidents, various models were constructed, and through comparisons of statistical indicators, the optimal model was selected geographically weighted negative binomial regression. Ultimately, three significant conclusions to ensure bicycle safety were drawn. First, across all areas of Seoul, an increase in road slope leads to a decrease in bicycle-related accidents. Furthermore, for certain Traffic Analysis Zones (TAZs), as the number of local buses (or neighborhood/community buses) increases, the bicycle traffic volume decreases, resulting in a reduction in bicycle accidents. Lastly, for some TAZs, an increase in bicycle lanes to be installed into the roadway was associated with an increase in bicycle accidents.
Human resistin is a cytokine that induces low-grade inflammation by stimulating monocytes. Resistin-mediated chronic inflammation can lead to obesity, atherosclerosis, and other cardiometabolic ...diseases. Nevertheless, the receptor for human resistin has not been clarified. Here, we identified adenylyl cyclase-associated protein 1 (CAP1) as a functional receptor for human resistin and clarified its intracellular signaling pathway to modulate inflammatory action of monocytes. We found that human resistin directly binds to CAP1 in monocytes and upregulates cyclic AMP (cAMP) concentration, protein kinase A (PKA) activity, and NF-κB-related transcription of inflammatory cytokines. Overexpression of CAP1 in monocytes enhanced the resistin-induced increased activity of the cAMP-dependent signaling. Moreover, CAP1-overexpressed monocytes aggravated adipose tissue inflammation in transgenic mice that express human resistin from their monocytes. In contrast, suppression of CAP1 expression abrogated the resistin-mediated inflammatory activity both in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, CAP1 is the bona fide receptor for resistin leading to inflammation in humans.
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•Human resistin binds directly to CAP1 at the proline-rich SH3 binding domain•Resistin stimulates the cAMP- and PKA-dependent signaling pathway via CAP1•CAP1 is the bona fide resistin receptor leading to inflammation in humans
Resistin-mediated chronic low-grade inflammation can lead to obesity and other cardiometabolic diseases. Here, Lee et al. identified adenylyl cyclase-associated protein 1 (CAP1) as a functional receptor for human resistin and show that its activation in monocytes mediates a cAMP-dependent signaling pathway, leading to the production of inflammatory cytokines.
This study analyzes the impact of autonomous-vehicle (AV) market-penetration rates on traffic-flow safety using a genetic algorithm. We set up a microscopic traffic-simulation scenario on a 640 m ...section of the US I-101 freeway using VISSIM, a microscopic traffic-simulation software. The results of analyzing the number of conflicts according to the introduction rate of autonomous vehicles showed that the number of conflicts increased as the introduction rate increased up to 30%, and then decreased from 40% or more. In this study, it was assumed that autonomous vehicles can avoid dangerous situations, so it is judged that this is the result of an increase in the traffic volume of autonomous vehicles and a decrease in the traffic volume of conventional vehicles. When planning an exclusive lane for autonomous vehicles, it is judged that it is desirable to install two exclusive lanes on the left side until the introduction rate of autonomous vehicles reaches 30%. When the introduction rate of autonomous vehicles is 40–90%, the risk of accidents between autonomous vehicles and conventional vehicles decreases, and the traffic volume of autonomous vehicles is higher than that of conventional vehicles. Therefore, it is judged that it is desirable to operate a mixed road where autonomous vehicles and conventional vehicles can drive together rather than operating an exclusive lane for autonomous vehicles.
The spin–orbit interaction (SOI), mainly manifesting itself in heavy elements and compound materials, has been attracting much attention as a means of manipulating and/or converting a spin degree of ...freedom. Here, we show that a Si metal-oxide- semiconductor (MOS) heterostructure possesses Rashba-type SOI, although Si is a light element and has lattice inversion symmetry resulting in inherently negligible SOI in bulk form. When a strong gate electric field is applied to the Si MOS, we observe spin lifetime anisotropy of propagating spins in the Si through the formation of an emergent effective magnetic field due to the SOI. Furthermore, the Rashba parameter α in the system increases linearly up to 9.8 × 10−16 eV m for a gate electric field of 0.5 V nm−1; that is, it is gate tuneable and the spin splitting of 0.6 μeV is relatively large. Our finding establishes a family of spin–orbit systems.Silicon is a light element with high lattice inversion symmetry, and so is not expected to possess a substantial spin–orbit interaction (SOI), which is desirable for spintronics. Here, a silicon-based heterostructure is demonstrated to have a gate-tuneable Rashba-type SOI.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) has been most extensively studied for characterizing genetic mutations along its development. However, we still have a poor understanding of CRC initiation due to limited ...measures of its observation and analysis. If we can unveil CRC initiation events, we might identify novel prognostic markers and therapeutic targets for early cancer detection and prevention. To tackle this problem, we establish the early CRC development model and perform transcriptome analysis of its single cell RNA-sequencing data. Interestingly, we find two subtypes, fast growing vs. slowly growing populations of distinct growth rate and gene signatures, and identify CCDC85B as a master regulator that can transform the cellular state of fast growing subtype cells into that of slowly growing subtype cells. We further validate this by
in vitro
experiments and suggest CCDC85B as a novel potential therapeutic target that may prevent malignant CRC development by suppressing stemness and uncontrolled cell proliferation.
Recently, vast research has been under investigation on the role of chirality in magnetization dynamics, an area that currently lacks a comprehensive understanding. To gain further insight into the ...importance of chirality, we explore the effects of varying the degree of chirality. To investigate these effects, we have fabricated samples with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy symmetry breaking through local helium ion irradiation with various azimuthal angles and degrees of irradiation. In this system, the spin-orbit torque can induce artificial spin texture, and our azimuthal angle and degree of chirality dependent results reveal a clear cosine dependence and a nonlinear increase, respectively. It implies the system not only follows the energy contribution of interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction but also has a nonlinear impact depending on anisotropy asymmetry induced chirality differences. These experimental observations are consistent with our theoretical model and micromagnetic simulations, supporting our experimental results. Overall, our findings provide further insights into the role of chirality in magnetization dynamics and may have important implications for the development of future magnetic devices.
The dependence of the spin accumulation voltage on the electric bias current for a nondegenerate Si-based spin valve was quantitatively investigated using both experiments and calculations. We ...attempted to clarify the reason for the disagreement between the experimentally measured values and those calculated using the spin drift-diffusion equation that takes into account the effect of the spin-dependent interfacial resistance of tunneling barriers, which is an important question in semiconductor spintronics. Unlike the case of metallic spin valves, it was found that the bias dependence of the resistance-area product for the ferromagnet/MgO/Si interface causes a conductance mismatch, and this plays a central role in producing the deviation between the experimental and numerical results.
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