Introduction: Intersections are the most dangerous locations in urban traffic. The present study aims to investigate drivers’ visual scanning behavior at signalized and unsignalized intersections. ...Method: Naturalistic driving data at 318 green phase signalized intersections and 300 unsignalized ones were collected. Drivers’ glance allocations were manually categorized into 10 areas of interest (AOIs), based on which three feature subsets were extracted including glance allocation frequencies, durations and AOI transition probabilities. The extracted features at signalized and unsignalized intersections were compared. Features with statistical significances were integrated to characterize drivers’ scanning patterns using the hierarchical clustering method. Andrews Curve was adopted to visually illustrate the clustering results of high-dimensional data. Results: Results showed that drivers going straight across signalized intersections had more often glances at the left view mirror and longer fixation on the near left area. When turning left, drivers near signalized intersections had more frequent glances at the left view mirror, fixated much longer on the forward and rearview mirror area, and had higher transition probabilities from near left to far left. Compared with drivers’ scanning patterns in left turning maneuver at signalized intersections, drivers with higher situation awareness levels would divide more attention to the forward and right areas than at unsignalized intersections. Conclusions: This study revealed that intersection types made differences on drivers’ scanning behavior. Practical applications: These findings suggest that future applications in advanced driver assistance systems and driver training programs should recommend different scanning strategies to drivers at different types of intersections.
•Congestion effects on driver behavior in post-congestion driving were examined.•Congestion negatively affected driver behavior on the post-congestion roads.•More aggressive driving patterns were ...observed in post-congestion driving.•Drivers became less focused on the dashboard area in post-congestion driving.•Findings here highlight the importance of attending to safe driving after congestion.
Traffic congestion is more likely to lead to aggressive driving behavior that is associated with increased crash risks. Previous studies mainly focus on driving behavior during congestion when studying congestion effects. However, the negative effects of congestion on driving behavior may also affect drivers’ post-congestion driving. To fill this research gap, this study examined the influence of traffic congestion on driver behavior on the post-congestion roads (i.e., the roads travelled right after congestion). Twenty-five subjects participated in a driving simulation study. They were asked to complete two trials corresponding to post-congestion and non-congestion conditions, respectively. Driver behavior quantified by driving performance measures, eye movement measures, and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures was compared between the two conditions. Ten features were selected from the measures with statistical significance. The selected features were integrated to characterize drivers’ response patterns using a hierarchical clustering method. The results showed that driver behavior in post-congestion situations became more aggressive, more focused in the forward area but less focused in the dashboard area, and was associated with lower power of the β-band in the temporal brain region. The clustering results showed more aggressive and lack-of-aware response patterns while driving in post-congestion situations. This study revealed that traffic congestion negatively affected driver behavior on the post-congestion roads. Practical implications for driving safety education was discussed based on the findings from the present study.
Traffic congestion is a common phenomenon in city traffic, which may cause drivers' negative emotion to degrade driving safety. It has been reported that music can regulate human emotion and the ...influence of negative emotion continuously challenges driving safety in post-congestion traffic. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of different music intervention strategies on mitigating drivers' negative emotion in post-congestion driving. Three experiments (i.e., driving with soft music, driving with disco jockey (DJ) music, and driving without music) are designed to collect drivers' driving performance measures, eye movement and electroencephalogram (EEG) responses in post-congestion driving. The results show that the music intervention strategies influence drivers' eye movement and EEG responses to varying degrees but do not have distinct effect in driving performance measures. These obtained results indicate that designing personalized music intervention strategies might help mitigate drivers' negative emotion to increase driving safety and comfort.
Oral diseases, such as periapical periodontitis and periodontitis, are characterized by inflammation-induced bone loss. LL-37, a human antimicrobial peptide (AMP), has multiple biological functions ...and the potential to promote osteogenesis. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the regulatory effects of LL-37 within normal and inflammatory microenvironments. The roles of P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway were also demonstrated. The results showed that LL-37 promoted bone marrow stromal cell (BMSC) proliferation, migration and osteogenic differentiation. LL-37 inhibited the expression of the inflammatory cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-B ligand (RANKL) at both protein and gene levels, and attenuated the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inhibition of osteogenesis. Immunofluorescence (IF) confirmed P2X7R expression in BMSCs. BBG, a P2X7R antagonist, significantly attenuated LL-37-promoted osteogenesis. The phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinase (JNK) increased after LL-37 stimulation, which did not affect p38 phosphorylation. The effects of LL-37 on osteogenesis-related gene expression were markedly attenuated by selective inhibitors of ERK1/2 and JNK. Furthermore, a mouse model of LPS-stimulated calvarial osteolysis was established, and results showed that LL-37 markedly inhibited osteoclastic bone resorption. In conclusion, we speculate that LL-37 inhibits inflammation and promotes BMSC osteogenesis via P2X7R and MAPK signaling pathway.
The objective of the present study was to systematically investigate the influence of molecular weight (MW) and concentration of carboxymethyl chitosan (CMC), which served as non-collagenous protein ...(NCP) surrogates, on biomimetic mineralization of type I collagen. Supersaturated CMC-stabilized amorphous calcium-phosphate (CMC-ACP) dispersions containing different MWs (20 kDa, 60 kDa, 150 kDa) and concentrations (25, 50, 100, 200, 400 μg ml
−1
) of CMC were prepared. After mineralization in the aforementioned dispersions for 7 days, the pattern and extent of biomimetic mineralization of collagen scaffolds were investigated. Our study showed that increasing CMC concentration resulted in increasing stability and decreasing particle size of CMC-ACP dispersions. Images from scanning and transmission electron microscopy revealed that intrafibrillar mineralization of collagen was obtained with 20k-200, 60k-100, 60k-200 and 150k-200 CMC-ACP dispersions, with hydroxyapatite (HAp) formation confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements, whereas HAp formed extrafibrillar clusters in other collagen scaffolds. Thermogravimetric analysis showed that the combined effect of MW and concentration of CMC contributed to different extents of biomimetic mineralization, and was correlated with the stability and particle size of CMC-ACP dispersions, and the size-exclusion characteristics of type I collagen. The results of this work support the effective function of CMC as NCP analogs, and provide parameters of MWs and concentrations of CMC for applications in hard tissue engineering as well as insights into intersections of mechanisms in biomimetic mineralization.
The study systematically investigated the influence of molecular weight and concentration of CMC on CMC-ACP nanoparticles and biomimetic mineralization.
Lateral roots (LRs) increase root surface area and allow plants greater access to soil water and nutrients. LR formation is tightly regulated by the phytohormone auxin. Whereas the transcription ...factor ETHYLENE-RESPONSIVE ELEMENT BINDING FACTOR13 (ERF13) prevents LR emergence in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), auxin activates MITOGEN-ACTIVATED PROTEIN KINASE14 (MPK14), which leads to ERF13 degradation and ultimately promotes LR emergence. In this study, we discovered interactions between ERF13 and the E3 ubiquitin ligases MOS4-ASSOCIATED COMPLEX 3A (MAC3A) and MAC3B. As MAC3A and MAC3B gradually accumulate in the LR primordium, ERF13 levels gradually decrease. We demonstrate that MAC3A and MAC3B ubiquitinate ERF13, leading to its degradation and accelerating the transition of LR primordia from stage IV to stage V. Auxin enhances the MAC3A and MAC3B interaction with ERF13 by facilitating MPK14-mediated ERF13 phosphorylation. In summary, this study reveals the molecular mechanism by which auxin eliminates the inhibitory factor ERF13 through the MPK14-MAC3A and MAC3B signaling module, thus promoting LR emergence.
The thyroid gland is a critical regulator of numerous physiological functions, and the presence of thyroid nodules often signals potential disorders. Accurate nodule segmentation from ultrasound ...images is imperative for effective diagnosis and treatment planning. Existing techniques often struggle due to intra-nodule variability. To address this, we introduce TNSeg, an innovative framework specifically designed for thyroid nodule segmentation. TNSeg incorporates two key components: a segmentation block and a discriminative block, and leverages adversarial training. In particular, the discriminator uses a fully convolutional decoder with skip connections to efficiently differentiate between real and synthetic samples. Further, we introduce a novel multi-scale joint loss function for adversarial training that employs a balanced sampling strategy, effectively resolving the difficulties associated with foreground-background differentiation and computational redundancy. Extensive evaluation proves TNSeg’s superiority in achieving a Dice coefficient of 92.06%, Hd95 of 13.35, Jaccard index of 90.02%, and Precision of 94.01%, thereby demonstrating significant improvements in four commonly used segmentation quality metrics.
Phage-encoded endolysins are emerging antibacterial agents based on their ability to efficiently degrade peptidoglycan on Gram-positive bacteria, but the envelope characteristics of Gram-negative ...bacteria limit their application. Engineering modifications of endolysins can improve the optimization of their penetrative and antibacterial properties. This study constructed a screening platform to screen for engineered Artificial-Bp7e (Art-Bp7e) endolysins with extracellular antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli. An oligonucleotide of 20 repeated NNK codons was inserted upstream of the endolysin gene
to construct a chimeric endolysin library in the pColdTF vector. The chimeric Art-Bp7e proteins were expressed by transforming the plasmid library into E. coli BL21 and released by chloroform fumigation, and the protein activities were evaluated by the spotting method and the colony-counting method to screen for promising proteins. Sequence analysis showed that all screened proteins with extracellular activities had a chimeric peptide with a positive charge and an α-helical structure. Also, a representative protein, Art-Bp7e6, was further characterized. It exhibited broad antibacterial activity against E. coli (7/21), Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis (4/10), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3/10), and even Staphylococcus aureus (1/10). In the transmembrane process, the chimeric peptide of Art-Bp7e6 depolarized the host cell envelope, increased the permeability of the cell, and facilitated the movement of Art-Bp7e6 across the envelope to hydrolyze the peptidoglycan. In conclusion, the screening platform successfully screened for chimeric endolysins with extracellular antibacterial activities against Gram-negative bacteria, which provides methodological support for the further screening of engineered endolysins with high extracellular activities against Gram-negative bacteria. Also, the established platform showed broad application prospects and can be used to screen various proteins.
The presence of the envelope in Gram-negative bacteria limits the use of phage endolysins, and engineering endolysins is an efficient way to optimize their penetrative and antibacterial properties. We built a platform for endolysin engineering and screening. A random peptide was fused with the phage endolysin Bp7e to construct a chimeric endolysin library, and engineered Artificial-Bp7e (Art-Bp7e) endolysins with extracellular activity against Gram-negative bacteria were successfully screened from the library. The purposeful Art-Bp7e had a chimeric peptide with an abundant positive charge and an α-helical structure, which led Bp7e to acquire the ability for the extracellular lysis of Gram-negative bacteria and showed a broad lysis spectrum. The platform provides a huge library capacity without the limitations of reported proteins or peptides. It can be utilized for the further screening of optimal endolysins against Gram-negative bacteria as well as for the screening of additional proteins with specific modifications.
Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a class of novel bio-molecules with broad-spectrum antibacterial properties and have attracted interest due to rapidly increasing antibiotic resistance. LL37 is the ...only cathelicidin-derived antimicrobial peptide found in humans. With the in-depth researches, LL37 has been shown to exhibit various bio-functions including regulation of the inflammatory response, chemotaxis of immune cells, promotion of wound healing, osteogenesis, which encourage a variety of clinical applications. While the clinical translation of LL37 is opposed by its susceptibility to protease degradation, potential toxicity, poor bioavailability and other limitations. Various delivery systems are introduced including metal nanoparticles, polymeric materials and lipids-based systems, to realize the therapeutic applications. In this review, we aim to report current researches of delivery systems for LL37 and hope to aid the future related work.
Display omitted
•LL37 has been shown to exhibit various bio-functions which encourage its potential clinical applications.•The clinical translation of LL37 is opposed by its innate drawbacks such as susceptibility to protease degradation and potential toxicity.•Various delivery systems are introduced to realize the therapeutic applications of LL37.
Breast cancer diagnosis is a critical step in clinical decision making, and this is achieved by making a pathological slide and gives a decision by the doctors, which is the method of final decision ...making for cancer diagnosis. Traditionally, the doctors usually check the pathological images by visual inspection under the microscope. Whole-slide images (WSIs) have supported the state-of-the-art diagnosis results and have been admitted as the gold standard clinically. However, this task is time-consuming and labour-intensive, and all of these limitations make low efficiency in decision making. Medical image processing protocols have been used for this task during the last decades and have obtained satisfactory results under some conditions; especially in the deep learning era, it has exhibited the advantages than those in the shallow learning period. In this paper, we proposed a novel breast cancer region mining framework based on deep pyramid architecture from multilevel and multiscale breast pathological WSIs. We incorporate the tissue- and cell-level information together and integrate these into a LSTM model for the final sequence modelling, which successfully keeps the WSIs’ integration and is not mentioned by the prevalence frameworks. The experiment results demonstrated that our proposed framework greatly improved the detection accuracy than that only using tissue-level information.
PDF
