Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a highly conserved and fundamental process in development, fibrosis, and metastasis. During the process, epithelial cells lose their morphology and ...transcriptional program, and transdifferentiate to mesenchymal cells. It has been reported that lens epithelial cells undergo EMT during cataract formation, and regulation of microRNAs on genes is associated with lens development. However, the molecular mechanisms of this regulation in diabetic cataract still need to be investigated. In the present study, the expression of E-cadherin was downregulated, while the expression of alpha-SMA and vimentin was upregulated in diabetic cataract tissues and the in vitro model, suggesting the involvement of EMT in diabetic cataract formation. Results of miRNA profiling demonstrated that miR-30a was markedly downregulated in diabetic cataract tissues. Overexpression of miR-30a-5p decreased SNAI1, a known modulator of EMT, and the expression of vimentin and alpha-SMA in our diabetic cataract model in vitro. It is concluded that EMT is involved in human diabetic cataract, and upregulation of miR-30a can repress EMT through its targeting of SNAI1 in lens epithelial cells, which make miR-30a a novel target of therapeutic intervention for human diabetic cataract.
Display omitted
•Consumption of beef fat together with capsaicin inhibited dyslipidemia in mice.•Consumption of capsaicin improved oxidative stress in beef fat-fed mice.•Capsaicin elevated enteric ...acetic acid level in beef fat-fed mice.
This study was designed to evaluate the preventive mechanisms of capsaicin on beef fat-induced lipid metabolism disorder, oxidative stress and dysbacteriosis in mice. Mice were fed a control diet or a 30% beef-fat diet (BF) with or without 0.001% capsaicin for 12 weeks. The consumption of a BF with capsaicin effectively inhibited obesity and dyslipidemia in mice. Consumption of capsaicin improved the oxidative stress by reducing the hepatic malonaldehyde content and elevating the glutathionperoxidase activity. GC–MS analysis showed that the acetic acid content in the cecum was significantly increased by capsaicin supplementation. The enteric microflora species was not changed significantly by the consumption of capsaicin in BF-fed mice. The alleviation of dyslipidemia might be because capsaicin enhanced the antioxidant activity and elevated the enteric acetic acid levels in high beef fat-fed mice. Our results suggest that the ingestion of capsaicin might be an effective strategy for preventing beef fat-induced hyperlipidemia.
A charge-voltage Lissajous figure is a standard method for the electrical diagnostics of DBD discharges. Based on a repetitive nanosecond-pulse generator, some experiments on surface discharges are ...carried out in open air. The effects of applied voltage amplitude, pulse repetition frequency, electrode gap spacing, and electrode width on the characteristics of the Lissajous figures are presented in this paper. Results show that two different kinds of typical discharge characteristics are observed, and the discharge characteristics vary between these two kinds of discharges when the discharge parameters change. The applied voltage has little effect on the shape of the Lissajous figure, and the total and barrier capacitances of actuator. Both transported charge and energy per pulse are proportional to the applied voltage amplitude. The applied voltage plays an important role in the discharge uniformity, intensity and length of surface plasmas. The pulse repetition frequency plays an important role in the energy and discharge intensity accumulation and has no effect the electrical parameters of surface discharges. The shape of the Lissajous figure gradually changes with the electrode gap and the transported charges proportionally decrease as the electrode gap increases. There is a transition gap spacing to obtain the maximum plasma energy and to achieve a relatively uniform plasma. The capacitances of the actuator, the transported charges and energy per pulse increase with the electrode width. The intensity of surface discharges is little affected by the electrode width, but the plasma uniformity tends to worsen with the increasing width. There is a corresponding relationship between the shape of the Lissajous figures and the uniformity of plasma distribution. The almond-like Lissajous figure is attained with a compromise between the electrode gap and width.
Visual-based object detection and understanding is an important problem in computer vision and signal processing. Due to their advantages of high mobility and easy deployment, unmanned aerial ...vehicles (UAV) have become a flexible monitoring platform in recent years. However, visible-light-based methods are often greatly influenced by the environment. As a result, a single type of feature derived from aerial monitoring videos is often insufficient to characterize variations among different abnormal crowd behaviors. To address this, we propose combining two types of features to better represent behavior, namely, multitask cascading CNN (MC-CNN) and multiscale infrared optical flow (MIR-OF), capturing both crowd density and average speed and the appearances of the crowd behaviors, respectively. First, an infrared (IR) camera and Nvidia Jetson TX1 were chosen as an infrared vision system. Since there are no published infrared-based aerial abnormal-behavior datasets, we provide a new infrared aerial dataset named the IR-flying dataset, which includes sample pictures and videos in different scenes of public areas. Second, MC-CNN was used to estimate the crowd density. Third, MIR-OF was designed to characterize the average speed of crowd. Finally, considering two typical abnormal crowd behaviors of crowd aggregating and crowd escaping, the experimental results show that the monitoring UAV system can detect abnormal crowd behaviors in public areas effectively.
Accumulating data show that N6-methyladenosine (m 6 A) methyltransferase METTL3 and long noncoding RNA MALAT1 act pivotal roles in multiple malignancies including prostate cancer (PCa). However, the ...role and molecular mechanism underlying METTL3-mediated m 6 A modification of MALAT1 in PCa remain undocumented. The association of METTL3 and MALAT1 expression with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis in patients with PCa was analyzed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), Western blot, and public The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. The in vitro and in vivo experiments were executed to investigate the role of METTL3 in PCa. m 6 A dot blot, methylated RNA immunoprecipitation (MeRIP), RIP, and qRT-PCR assays were employed to observe METTL3-mediated m 6 A modification of MALAT1. The effects of METTL3 on MALAT1-mediated PI3K/AKT pathway were assessed by Western blot analysis. As a result, we found that METTL3 was significantly upregulated in PCa tissues and high expression of METTL3 was associated with Gleason score and tumor recurrence in patients with PCa. Knockdown of METTL3 markedly repressed growth and invasion of PCa cells in vitro and in vivo , whereas ectopic expression of METTL3 showed the opposite effects. Moreover, knockdown of METTL3 decreased the total m 6 A levels of PCa cells as well as the MALAT1 m 6 A levels, leading to reduced MALAT1 expression. Overexpression of MALAT1 reversed METTL3 knockdown-induced antitumor effects and PI3K/AKT signaling inactivation. MALAT1 harbored a positive correlation with METTL3 expression and tumor recurrence in PCa. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that METTL3-mediated m 6 A modification of lncRNA MALAT1 promotes growth and invasion of PCa cells by activating PI3K/AKT signaling.
The development of industrial-enabling technology, such as the industrial Internet of Things and physical network system, makes it possible to use real-time information in production-logistics ...scheduling. Real-time information in an intelligent factory is random, such as the arrival of customers' jobs, and fuzzy, such as the processing time of Production-Logistics Resources. Besides, the coordination of production and logistic resources in a flexible workshop is also a hot issue. The availability of this information will enhance the quality of making scheduling decisions. However, when and how to use this information to realize the adaptive collaboration of Production-Logistics Resources are vital issues. Therefore, this paper studies the above problems by establishing a real-time reaction scheduling framework of Production-Logistics Resources dynamic cooperation. Firstly, a real-time task triggering strategy to maximize information utilization is proposed to explore when to use real-time information. Secondly, a collaborative method for Production-Logistics Resources is studied to explore how to use real-time information. Thirdly, a real-time self-adaptive scheduling algorithm based on information entropy is utilized to obtain a stable and feasible solution. Finally, the effectiveness and advancement of the proposed method are verified by a practical case.
In a traffic jam or dense vehicle environment, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) cannot meet the safety requirement due to serious packet collisions. The traditional cellular network solves packet ...collisions but suffers from long end-to-end delay. Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) overcomes both drawbacks; thus, it may be used, instead of VANETs, in some extreme environments. We use Markov models with dynamic scheduling and semipersistent scheduling (SPS) to evaluate how many idle resources of LTE can be provided for safety services and how safety applications impact LTE traditional users. Based on the analysis, we propose to reserve the idle radio resources in LTE for vehicular safety services (LTE-V). Additionally, we propose the weighted-fair-queuing (WFQ) algorithm to schedule beacons for safety services using the LTE reserved resources. Numerical results verify that the proposed mechanism can significantly improve the reliability of safety applications by borrowing limited LTE bandwidth. We also build an NS3 simulation platform to verify the effectiveness of the proposed Markov models. Finally, the reliability of applications, including cooperation collision warning (CCW), slow vehicle indication (SVI), and rear-end collision warning (RCW), using dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) with LTE-V, are evaluated. The simulation results demonstrate that the stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirement of the aforementioned three applications can be satisfied, even under heavy traffic.
The prevalence of low back pain is rising among the young adult population. Altered lumbar muscle tone was suggested to be associated with underlying pathologies and symptoms. To date, there is ...minimum information available on the repeatability of lumbar spine muscle mechanical properties in the young adults who experienced low back pain. This study aimed to assess the reproducibility of mechanical properties of lumbar spinal muscle in young adults with spinal pain by myotonometer and explored the difference in reproducibility when different number of indentations was used.
Participants who aged between 18 to 25 and reported chronic LBP were recruited. Lumbar muscle tone (Hz) and stiffness (N/m) were assessed by myotonometer on one occasion by two assessors. Parameters were recorded by triple scans and 5-scans mode. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), standard error of measurement (SEM), smallest real difference (SRD), Bland and Altman analysis were used to assess agreement between two measurements. The relationship between muscle mechanical properties and pain score and disability level were assessed by Spearman's rank correlation coefficient.
The results of ICCs indicated excellent repeatability in triple scans and 5-scans mode for each lumbar level bilaterally (ICC > 0.75). SEM and SRD were smaller in triple scans than 5-scans mode for most levels. Bland and Altman analysis revealed no systematic bias. Spearman's rank correlation analysis indicated significant high correlations between muscle tone and disability level (r = 0.80, p < 0.05), and between muscle stiffness and disability level (r = 0.81, p < 0.05).
This study found that lumbar spinal muscle tone and stiffness were repeatable parameters when measured by myotonometer. The reproducibility of muscle mechanical parameters did not appear to differ between the two scanning modes with different number of indentations. Muscle tone and stiffness measured by myotonometer may therefore be reliable as outcome measures to assess intervention induced changes. The lack of significant association between intensity of pain and mechanical properties of paraspinal muscles may suggest that muscle properties measured at rest might not be related to pain level at rest but more related to pain elicited during movement.
As a sedentary lifestyle leads to numerous health problems, it is important to keep constant motivation for a more active lifestyle. A large majority of the worldwide population, such as office ...workers, long journey vehicle drivers and wheelchair users, spends several hours every day in sedentary activities. The postures that sedentary lifestyle users assume during daily activities hide valuable information that can reveal their wellness and general health condition. Aiming at mining such underlying information, we developed a cushion-based system to assess their activity levels and recognize the activity from the information hidden in sitting postures. By placing the smart cushion on the chair, we can monitor users' postures and body swings, using the sensors deployed in the cushion. Specifically, we construct a body posture analysis model to recognize sitting behaviors. In addition, we provided a smart cushion that effectively combine pressure and inertial sensors. Finally, we propose a method to assess the activity levels based on the evaluation of the activity assessment index (AAI) in time sliding windows. Activity level assessment can be used to provide statistical results in a defined period and deliver recommendation exercise to the users. For practical implications and actual significance of results, we selected wheelchair users among the participants to our experiments. Features in terms of standard deviation and approximate entropy were compared to recognize the activities and activity levels. The results showed that, using the novel designed smart cushion and the standard deviation features, we are able to achieve an accuracy of (>89%) for activity recognition and (>98%) for activity level recognition.
Purple acid phosphatase (PAP) encoding genes are a multigene family. PAPs require iron (Fe) to exert their functions that are involved in diverse biological roles including Fe homeostasis. However, ...the possible roles of PAPs in response to excess Fe remain unknown. In this study, we attempted to understand the regulation of PAPs by excess Fe in tea plant (
). A genome-wide investigation of PAP encoding genes identified 19
members based on the conserved motifs. The phylogenetic analysis showed that PAPs could be clustered into four groups, of which group II contained two specific cysteine-containing motifs "GGECGV" and "YERTC". To explore the expression patterns of
genes in response to excessive Fe supply, RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) analyses were performed to compare their transcript abundances between tea plants that are grown under normal and high iron conditions, respectively. 17 members were shown to be transcribed in both roots and leaves. When supplied with a high amount of iron, the expression levels of four genes were significantly changed. Of which,
,
and
were shown as downregulated, while the highly expressed
was upregulated. Moreover,
was found to be alternatively spliced, suggesting its post-transcriptional regulation. The present work implicates that some
genes could be associated with the responses of tea plants to the iron regime, which may offer a new direction towards a further understanding of iron homeostasis and provide the potential approaches for crop improvement in terms of iron biofortification.
PDF
