Scale-free resilience of real traffic jams Zhang, Limiao; Zeng, Guanwen; Li, Daqing ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
04/2019, Volume:
116, Issue:
18
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The concept of resilience can be realized in natural and engineering systems, representing the ability of a system to adapt and recover from various disturbances. Although resilience is a critical ...property needed for understanding and managing the risks and collapses of transportation systems, an accepted and useful definition of resilience for urban traffic as well as its statistical property under perturbations are still missing. Here, we define city traffic resilience based on the spatiotemporal clusters of congestion in real traffic and find that the resilience follows a scale-free distribution in 2D city road networks and 1D highways with different exponents but similar exponents on different days and in different cities. The traffic resilience is also revealed to have a scaling relation between the cluster size of the spatiotemporal jam and its recovery duration independent of microscopic details. Our findings of universal traffic resilience can provide an indication toward better understanding and designing of these complex engineering systems under internal and external disturbances.
Agriculture is largely dependent on climate and is highly vulnerable to climate change. The global mean surface temperatures are increasing due to global climate change. Temperature beyond the ...physiological optimum for growth induces heat stress in plants causing detrimental and irreversible damage to plant development, growth, as well as productivity. Plants have evolved adaptive mechanisms in response to heat stress. The classical plant hormones, such as auxin, abscisic acid (ABA), brassinosteroids (BRs), cytokinin (CK), salicylic acid (SA), jasmonate (JA), and ethylene (ET), integrate environmental stimuli and endogenous signals to regulate plant defensive response to various abiotic stresses, including heat. Exogenous applications of those hormones prior or parallel to heat stress render plants more thermotolerant. In this review, we summarized the recent progress and current understanding of the roles of those phytohormones in defending plants against heat stress and the underlying signal transduction pathways. We also discussed the implication of the basic knowledge of hormone-regulated plant heat responsive mechanism to develop heat-resilient plants as an effective and efficient way to cope with global warming.
Aims
In recent years, the incidence rate of hypertensive intracerebral haemorrhage (HICH) has been increasing, accompanied by high mortality and morbidity, which has brought a heavy burden to the ...social economy. However, the pathogenesis of HICH is still unclear. This study intends to explore the mechanism of gut microbiota metabolism and inflammation in the process of HICH to provide a theoretical basis for the diagnosis and treatment of HICH.
Methods and Results
HE staining showed that the brain tissues of model group had obvious oedema injury, which indicated that the HICH model was successfully constructed. ELISA analysis showed that IL‐1β and TNF‐α levels in blood and brain tissues were significantly increased, and IL‐10 level was significantly decreased in blood. IHC analysis showed that microglia and macrophages were activated in the model group. 16S rRNA sequence showed that the diversity of gut microbiota in HICH patients decreased. Also, the microbiota belonging to Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia changed significantly. LC–MS/MS analysis showed that the metabolic phenotype of HICH patients changed. Also, the 3,7‐dimethyluric acid‐ and 7‐methylxanthine‐related metabolic pathways of caffeine metabolism pathways were downregulated in patients with HICH. Bacteroides was negatively correlated with the IL‐1β and TNF‐α levels. Blautia was negatively correlated with the IL‐1β and TNF‐α levels, and positively correlated with the IL‐10 level. Akkermansia was negatively correlated with the 3,7‐dimethyluric acid and 7‐methylxanthine.
Conclusion
Our study suggested that HICH was accompanied by the increased inflammation marker levels in peripheral blood and brain, decreased gut microbiota diversity, altered gut metabolic phenotype and downregulation of caffeine metabolism pathway.
Significance and Impact of the Study
Our study reported that HICH accompanied by the increased inflammation, decreased gut microbiota diversity and altered gut metabolic phenotype. Due to the number of patients, this work was a pilot study.
Chitin synthase is a critical enzyme that catalyzes
-acetylglucosamine to form chitin, which plays an important role in the growth and development of insects. In this study, we identified a chitin ...synthase gene (
) with a complete open reading frame (ORF) of 3180 bp from the genome database of
, encoding a protein of 1059 amino acid residues with the appropriate signature motifs (EDR and QRRRW). Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis suggested that
(
) was expressed throughout all developmental stages and all tissues.
had the highest expression level in the integument and fifth-instar nymph stage. Furthermore, the effects of diflubenzuron (DFB) on
mortality and
expression level were investigated using fifth-instar nymph through leaf dip bioassay, and the results revealed that the nymph exposed to DFB had the highest mortality compared with control group (Triton-100). Silencing of
by RNA interference resulted in malformed phenotypes and increased mortality with decreased molting rate. In addition, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) also revealed corresponding ultrastructural defects. Our results suggest that
might play an important role in the development of
and can be used as a potential target for psyllid control.
We report on a Kerr-lens mode-locked Tm,Ho-codoped calcium aluminate laser with in-band pumping of the Tm ions by a spatially single-mode 1678 nm Raman fiber laser. The structurally disordered ...CaGdAlO 4 host crystal is also codoped also with the passive Lu ion for additional inhomogeneous line broadening. The Tm,Ho,Lu:CaGdAlO 4 laser generates soliton pulses as short as 79 fs at a central wavelength of 2073.6 nm via soft-aperture Kerr-lens mode-locking. The corresponding average output power amounts to 91 mW at a pulse repetition rate of ∼86 MHz. The average output power can be scaled to 842 mW at the expense of slightly longer pulses of 155 fs at 2045.9 nm, which corresponds to a peak power of ∼58 kW. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first demonstration of an in-band pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Tm,Ho solid-state laser at ∼2 µm.
Summary Background MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can be used as prognostic biomarkers in many types of cancer. We aimed to identify miRNAs that were prognostic in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Methods ...We retrospectively analysed miRNA expression profiles in 312 paraffin-embedded specimens of nasopharyngeal carcinoma from Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (Guangzhou, China) and 18 specimens of non-cancer nasopharyngitis. Using an 873 probe microarray, we assessed associations between miRNA signatures and clinical outcome in a randomly selected 156 samples (training set) and validated findings in the remaining 156 samples (internal validation set). We confirmed the miRNAs signature using quantitative RT-PCR analysis in 156 samples from a second randomisation of the 312 samples, and validated the miRNA signature in 153 samples from the West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China (independent set). We used the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank tests to estimate correlations of the miRNA signature with disease-free survival (DFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and overall survival. Findings 41 miRNAs were differentially expressed between nasopharyngeal carcinoma and non-cancer nasopharyngitis tissues. A signature of five miRNAs, each significantly associated with DFS, was identified in the training set. We calculated a risk score from the signature and classified patients as high risk or low risk. Compared with patients with low-risk scores, patients with high risk scores in the training set had shorter DFS (hazard ratio HR 2·73, 95% CI 1·46–5·11; p=0·0019), DMFS (3·48, 1·57–7·75; p=0·0020), and overall survival (2·48, 1·24–4·96; p=0·010). We noted equivalent findings in the internal validation set for DFS (2·47, 1·32–4·61; p=0·0052), DMFS (2·28, 1·09–4·80; p=0·030), and overall survival (2·87, 1·38–5·96; p=0·0051) and in the independent set for DFS (3·16, 1·65–6·04; p=0·0011), DMFS (2·39, 1·05–5·42; p=0·037), and overall survival (3·07, 1·34–7·01; p=0·0082). The five-miRNA signature was an independent prognostic factor. A combination of this signature and TNM stage had better prognostic value than did TNM stage alone in the training set (area under receiver operating characteristics 0·68 95% CI 0·60–0·76 vs 0·60 0·52–0·67; p=0·013), the internal validation set (0·70 0·61–0·78 vs 0·61 0·54–0·68; p=0·012), and the independent set (0·70 0·62–0·78 vs 0·63 0·56–0·69; p=0·032). Interpretation Identification of patients with the five-miRNA signature might add prognostic value to the TNM staging system and inform treatment decisions for patients at high risk of progression. Funding Science Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Health, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme, Guangdong Key Scientific and Technological Innovation Program, Guangdong Natural Science Foundation, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Mussel‐inspired self‐polymerized catecholamine coatings have been widely utilized as a versatile coating strategy that can be applied to a variety of substrates. For the first time, nanomechanical ...measurements and an evaluation of the contribution of primary amine groups to poly(catecholamine) coatings have been conducted using a surface‐forces apparatus. The adhesive strength between the poly(catecholamine) layers is 30‐times higher than that of a poly(catechol) coating. The origin of the strong attraction between the poly(catecholamine) layers is probably due to surface salt displacement by the primary amine, π–π stacking (the quadrupole–quadrupole interaction of indolic crosslinks), and cation–π interactions (the monopole–quadrupole interaction between positively charged amine groups and the indolic crosslinks). The contribution of the primary amine group to the catecholamine coating is vital for the design and development of mussel‐inspired catechol‐based coating materials.
Give it some stick: The adhesive strength of self‐polymerized catecholic coating layers was measured with a surface forces apparatus. The adhesive strength between poly(catecholamine) layers is 30‐times higher than that between poly(catechol) layers. The origin of the strong attraction between poly(catecholamine) layers is possibly due to surface salt displacement, π–π stacking, and cation–π interactions involving the primary amine moiety.
Natural products are treasure houses for modern drug discovery. Diphyllin is a natural arylnaphthalene lignan lactone isolated from the leaf of
. Studies have found that it possesses plenty of ...bioactivity characteristics. In this paper, we reviewed the structure, bioactivity, and mechanism of action of diphyllin and its derivatives. The references were obtained from PubMed, Web of Science, and Science Direct databases up to August 2023. Papers without a bio-evaluation were excluded. Diphyllin and its derivatives have demonstrated V-ATPase inhibition, anti-tumor, anti-virus, anti-biofilm, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidant activities. The most studied activities of diphyllin and its derivatives are V-ATPase inhibition, anti-tumor activities, and anti-virus activities. Furthermore, V-ATPase inhibition activity is the mechanism of many bioactivities, including anti-tumor, anti-virus, and anti-inflammatory activities. We also found that the galactosylated modification of diphyllin is a common phenomenon in plants, and therefore, galactosylated modification is applied by researchers in the laboratory to obtain more excellent diphyllin derivatives. This review will provide useful information for the development of diphyllin-based anti-tumor and anti-virus compounds.
Sensory function is the most significant criterion when evaluating the prognosis of replanted fingers. Current clinical research has focused on surgical techniques and indications for finger ...replantation; however, few studies have focused on recovery of finger sensory function af- ter replantation. This study retrospectively assessed data of eight patients who had undergone nine Zone I replantations of the fingertips in the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University of China from July 2014 to January 2016. Variations in the extent of damage, with the residual vessels or nerves in some fingers being too short or even missing, prevented tension-free suture repair in some patients. Thus, re- pair of four of the nine fingertips included arteriovenous anastomosis, the remaining five undergoing arterial anastomosis during replanta- tion of the amputated fingers. Three patients underwent nerve repair, whereas the remaining six cases did not. Fingertip replantations were successful in all eight patients. Compared with the patients without vascular anastomosis, no obvious atrophy was visible in the fingertips of patients who did undergo vascular anastomosis during replantation and their sensory function did recover. Fingertip replantation pro- vides good sensory function and cosmetic outcomes when good artery and vein anastomoses have been created, even when digital nerves have not been repaired.
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