Reactive oxygen species (ROS) depletion and low ROS production that result from the intratumoral redox metabolism equilibrium and low energy conversion efficiency from ultrasound mechanical energy to ...ROS‐represented chemical energy, respectively, are two vital inhibitory factors of sonodynamic therapy (SDT). To address the two concerns, a tumor metabolism‐engineered composite nanoplatform capable of intervening intratumoral ROS metabolism, breaking the redox equilibrium, and reshaping the tumor microenvironment is constructed to reinforce SDT against tumors. In this metabolism‐engineered nanoplatform, Nb2C nanosheets serve as the scaffold to accommodate TiO2 sonosensitizers and l‐buthionine‐sulfoximine. Systematic experiments show that such nanoplatforms can reduce ROS depletion via suppressing glutathione synthesis and simultaneously improving ROS production via the Nb2C‐enhanced production and separation of electron–hole pairs. Contributed by the combined effect, net ROS content can be significantly elevated, which results in the highly efficient anti‐tumor outcomes in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, the combined design principles, that is, tumor metabolism modulation for reducing ROS depletion and electron–hole pair separation for facilitating ROS production, can be extended to other ROS‐dependent therapeutic systems.
An intratumoral metabolism modulation‐engineered sonodynamic therapy (SDT)‐based nanoplatform has been constructed to break the reactive oxygen species (ROS)‐involved redox metabolism equilibrium and reshape the tumor microenvironment for reducing ROS depletion, and simultaneously facilitate ROS production via enhancing the production and separation of electron–hole pairs, which enables the significantly improved net content of ROS for highly‐efficient SDT against tumors.
In this paper, we study the behavior of a sequence of harmonic maps from surfaces with uniformly bounded energy on the generalized neck domain. The generalized neck domain is a union of ghost bubbles ...and annular neck domains, which connects non-trivial bubbles. An upper bound of the energy density is proved and we use it to study the limit of the nullity and index of the sequence.
In this paper, we establish a framework for the analysis of linear parabolic equations on conical surfaces and use them to study the conical Ricci flow. In particular, we prove the long time ...existence of the conical Ricci flow for general cone angle and show that this solution has the optimal regularity, namely, the time derivatives of the conformal factor are bounded and for each fixed time, the conformal factor has an explicit asymptotic expansion near the cone points.
Edge computing has great potential to address the challenges in mobile vehicular networks by transferring partial storage and computing functions to network edges. However, it is still a challenge to ...efficiently utilize heterogeneous edge computing architectures and deploy large-scale IoV systems. In this article, we focus on the collaborations among different edge computing anchors and propose a novel collaborative vehicular edge computing framework, called CVEC. Specifically, CVEC can support more scalable vehicular services and applications by both horizontal and vertical collaborations. Furthermore, we discuss the architecture, principle, mechanisms, special cases, and potential technical enablers to support the CVEC. Finally, we present some research challenges as well as future research directions.
With the explosive network data due to the advanced development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the demand for multiparty computation is increasing. In addition, with the advent of future digital ...society, data have been gradually evolving into an effective virtual asset for sharing and usage. With the nature of the sensitivity, massiveness, fragmentation, and security of multiparty data computation in the IoT environment, we propose a secure data collaboration framework (FDC) based on federated deep-learning technology. The proposed framework can realize the secure collaboration of multiparty data computation on the premise that the data do not need to be transmitted out of their private data center. This framework is empowered by public data center, private data center, and the blockchain technology. The private data center is responsible for data governance, data registration, and data management. The public data center is used for multiparty secure computation. The blockchain paradigm is responsible for ensuring secure data usage and transmissions. A real IoT scenario is used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Some cities in China are facing serious air pollution problems including high concentrations of particles, SO2 and NOx. Exposure to PM2.5, one of the primary air pollutants in many cities in China, ...is highly correlated with various adverse health impacts and ultimately represents a cost for society. The aim of this study is to assess health impacts and external costs related to PM2.5 pollution in Beijing, China with different baseline concentrations and valuation methods. The idea is to provide a reasonable estimate of the total health impacts and external cost due to PM2.5 pollution, as well as a quantification of the relevant uncertainty. PM2.5 concentrations were retrieved for the entire 2012 period in 16 districts of Beijing. The various PM2.5 related health impacts were identified and classified to avoid double counting. Exposure-response coefficients were then obtained from literature. Both the value of statistical life (VSL) and the amended human capital (AHC) approach were applied for external costs estimation, which could provide the upper and lower bound of the external costs due to PM2.5. To fully understand the uncertainty levels, the external cost distribution was determined via Monte Carlo simulation based on the uncertainty of the parameters such as PM2.5 concentration, exposure-response coefficients, and economic cost per case. The results showed that the external costs were equivalent to around 0.3% (AHC, China's guideline: C0 = 35 μg/m3) to 0.9% (VSL, WHO guideline: C0 = 10 μg/m3) of regional GDP depending on the valuation method and on the assumed baseline PM2.5 concentration (C0). Among all the health impacts, the economic loss due to premature deaths accounted for more than 80% of the overall external costs. The results of this study could help policymakers prioritizing the PM2.5 pollution control interventions and internalize the external costs through the application of economic policy instruments.
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•Multiple PM2.5 related health impacts and external costs were estimated.•ICD-10 report was utilized to avoid double counting of PM2.5 health impacts.•Both AHC and VSL methods were applied for external costs comparison.•Variables uncertainties were considered to quantify the external cost distribution.•The external costs of PM2.5 ranged from 0.3% to 0.9% of regional GDP in Beijing.
A planar dual-band shared-aperture array antenna for the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{K} </tex-math></inline-formula>-/ Ka -band low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication is ...presented in this article. Substrate integrated coaxial line (SICL)-fed bow-tie transverse slots and substrate integrated waveguide (SIW)-fed slot pairs are employed to provide <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{K} </tex-math></inline-formula>-band horizontal polarization and Ka -band vertical polarization, respectively. The <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{K} </tex-math></inline-formula>-band and Ka -band radiating elements share a common metallic-via-array, which can effectively improve the port-to-port isolation. Furthermore, the port-to-port isolations in both bands can be also improved by introducing the high-pass characteristic of SIW and out-of-phase cancellation between two current paths. For the sake of achieving low-profile height and compact size, the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{K} </tex-math></inline-formula>-band feeding network is subtly buried between Ka -band shielding cavities. As a proof-of-concept example, a shared-aperture dual-polarized array antenna operating at <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">{K} </tex-math></inline-formula>-/ Ka -band is designed and fabricated for verification by using a multilayer printed circuit board (PCB) technology. The measured results show a good concordance with the simulated one, indicating that the proposed antenna has the advantages of wideband, high isolations, low profile, and easy planar integration, which can be adopted for the millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) LEO satellite communication system.
The sharp increase of plant genome and transcriptome data provide valuable resources to investigate evolutionary consequences of gene duplication in a range of taxa, and unravel common principles ...underlying duplicate gene retention.
We survey 141 sequenced plant genomes to elucidate consequences of gene and genome duplication, processes central to the evolution of biodiversity. We develop a pipeline named DupGen_finder to identify different modes of gene duplication in plants. Genes derived from whole-genome, tandem, proximal, transposed, or dispersed duplication differ in abundance, selection pressure, expression divergence, and gene conversion rate among genomes. The number of WGD-derived duplicate genes decreases exponentially with increasing age of duplication events-transposed duplication- and dispersed duplication-derived genes declined in parallel. In contrast, the frequency of tandem and proximal duplications showed no significant decrease over time, providing a continuous supply of variants available for adaptation to continuously changing environments. Moreover, tandem and proximal duplicates experienced stronger selective pressure than genes formed by other modes and evolved toward biased functional roles involved in plant self-defense. The rate of gene conversion among WGD-derived gene pairs declined over time, peaking shortly after polyploidization. To provide a platform for accessing duplicated gene pairs in different plants, we constructed the Plant Duplicate Gene Database.
We identify a comprehensive landscape of different modes of gene duplication across the plant kingdom by comparing 141 genomes, which provides a solid foundation for further investigation of the dynamic evolution of duplicate genes.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency whose transactions are recorded on a distributed, openly accessible ledger. On the Bitcoin Blockchain, an owning entity's real-world identity is hidden behind a pseudonym, ...a so-called address. Therefore, Bitcoin is widely assumed to provide a high degree of anonymity, which is a driver for its frequent use for illicit activities. This paper presents a novel approach for de-anonymizing the Bitcoin Blockchain by using Supervised Machine Learning to predict the type of yet-unidentified entities. We utilized a sample of 957 entities (with ≈385 million transactions), whose identity and type had been revealed, as training set data and built classifiers differentiating among 12 categories. Our main finding is that we can indeed predict the type of a yet-unidentified entity. Using the Gradient Boosting algorithm with default parameters, we achieve a mean cross-validation accuracy of 80.42% and F1-score of ≈79.64%. We show two examples, one where we predict on a set of 22 clusters that are suspected to be related to cybercriminal activities, and another where we classify 153,293 clusters to provide an estimation of the activity on the Bitcoin ecosystem. We discuss the potential applications of our method for organizational regulation and compliance, societal implications, outline study limitations, and propose future research directions. A prototype implementation of our method for organizational use is included in the appendix.
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