Most previous works on underwater wireless optical communications (UWOC) assume an ideal horizontal link geometry or a vertical through-the-surface link geometry. The performance of vertical ...buoy-based surface-to-bottom (downlink) UWOC systems where the source is located on the sea surface has not been studied yet to the best of our knowledge. In practice, the performance of buoy-based downlink UWOC systems will be affected by both the random sea surface slopes caused by wind and scattering property of seawater. In this letter, we take these two factors into account and investigate the bit-error-rate (BER) performance of this downlink UWOC system. We develop a theoretical model to numerically characterize the relationship among transmit power, link range, wind speed, BER and water types for downlink UWOC system. Numerical results suggest the system BER performance degraded by wind speed can be compensated as the turbidity of seawater increases.
In wireless optical communications, laser sources have narrow divergence angles and therefore require precisely aligned links, which may increase system complexity and is hard to implement in ...practice. In the underwater environment, however, the diffuse light field formed at the receiver side due to the scattering property of seawater may reduce the requirement of link alignment. We investigate the performance of link misalignment for underwater wireless optical communications (UWOC) and present a closed-form expression of relationship of transmit power, link range and receiver offset distance. Numerical results suggest that, regardless of water types, an appropriate receiver offset distance is permitted with specific transmit power and link range for reliable communications.
The aims of this work were to investigate the antioxidant, anti-hyperlipidemia and hepatic protection of Morehella esculenta polysaccharide (MPS) from fruiting body and its enzyme-assisted MPS ...(EnMPS). The in vitro scavenging rates of EnMPS at 600 mg/L on superoxide, hydroxyl and 1,1‑diphenyl‑2‑pyrazole hydrazide (DPPH) radicals were 76.92 ± 2.61%, 66.74 ± 2.56% and 75.78 ± 2.4%, higher than those of MPS, respectively. Animals experiments showed that the EnMPS exhibited superior abilities of reducing hepatic lipid levels by monitoring the serum enzyme activities (ALP, ALT, ALB and AST) and serum lipid levels (CK, TC, TG, HDL-C, LDL-C and LDH), enhancing the hepatic antioxidant enzymes (FFA, SOD, CAT and T-AOC) and decreasing the lipid peroxidation (MDA and MPO). The results suggested that the EnMPS can act as a natural candidate for developing drugs to reduce blood lipids, resist oxidation and protect the liver.
Background NONO-TFE3 rearranged renal cell carcinoma (NONO-TFE3 rRCC) is one of a subtype of TFE3 rRCCs with high malignancy and poor prognosis. Compared with clear cell RCC, NONO-TFE3 rRCC shows a ...preference for mitochondrial respiration. We recently identified that the upregulation of nicotinamide ribokinase 2 (NMRK2) was associated with enhanced mitochondrial respiration and tumor progression in TFE3 rRCC. Methods A tumor-bearing mouse model was established to verify the pro-oncogenic effect of NMRK2 on NONO-TFE3 rRCC. Then the expression of NMRK2 RNA and protein was detected in cell lines and patient specimens. The NMRK2 transcripts were Sanger-sequenced and blasted at NCBI website. We constructed dCas13b-HA system to investigate the factors binding with NMRK2 RNA. We also used molecular experiments like RIP-seq, IP-MS, FISH and fluorescence techniques to explore the mechanisms that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) like NMRK2 mRNA promoted the mitochondrial respiration of NONO-TFE3 rRCC. The efficacy of the combination of shRNA (NMRK2)-lentivirus and metformin on NONO-TFE3 rRCC was assessed by CCK-8 assay. Results In this study, we confirmed that NMRK2 showed transcriptional-translational conflict and functioned as lncRNA like mRNA in the NONO-TFE3 rRCC. Furthermore, we revealed the molecular mechanism that NONO-TFE3 fusion suppressed the translation of NMRK2 mRNA. Most importantly, three major pathways were shown to explain the facilitation effects of lncRNA like NMRK2 mRNA on the mitochondrial respiration of NONO-TFE3 rRCC in an NAD.sup.+ kinase-independent manner. Finally, the efficacy of combination of shRNA (NMRK2)-lentivirus and metformin on NONO-TFE3 rRCC was demonstrated to be superior than either agent alone. Conclusions Overall, our data comprehensively demonstrated the mechanisms for the enhanced mitochondrial respiration in NONO-TFE3 rRCC and proposed lncRNA like NMRK2 mRNA as a therapy target for NONO-TFE3 rRCC. Graphical Keywords: NONO-TFE3 rRCC, Mitochondrial respiration, Transcriptional-translational conflict, lncRNA like mRNA, NMRK2, NAD.sup.+ kinase-independent
Bone regeneration involves a coordinated cascade of events that are regulated by several cytokines and growth factors, among which bone morphogenic protein-2 (BMP-2), vascular endothelial growth ...factor (VEGF) and fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2) play important roles. In this study, we investigated the effects of dual release of the three growth factors on bone regeneration in femur defects.
A composite consisting of Gelatin microparticles loaded with VEGF/FGF-2 and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid)-poly(ethylene glycol)-carboxyl (PLGA-PEG-COOH) microparticles loaded with BMP-2 encapsulated in a nano hydroxyapatite-poly actic-co-glycolic acid (nHA-PLGA) scaffold was prepared for the dual release of the growth factors.
On the 14th day, decreased release rate of BMP-2 compared with FGF-2 and VEGF was observed. However, after 14 days, compared to FGF-2 and VEGF, BMP-2 showed an increased release rate. Controlled dual release of BMP-2 and VEGF, FGF-2 resulted in a significant osteogenic differentiation of bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). Moreover, effects of the composite scaffold on functional connection of osteoblast-vascular cells during bone development were evaluated. The synergistic effects of dual delivery of growth factors were shown to promote the expression of VEGF in BMSCs. Increased secretion of VEGF from BMSCs promoted the proliferation and angiogenic differentiation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in the co-culture system. At 12 weeks after implantation, blood vessel and bone formation were analyzed by micro-CT and histology. The composite scaffold significantly promoted the formation of blood vessels and new bone in femur defects.
These findings demonstrate that dual delivery of angiogenic factors and osteogenic factors from Gelatin and PLGA-PEG-COOH microparticles-based composite scaffolds exerted an osteogenic-angiogenic coupling effect on bone regeneration. This approach will inform on the development of appropriate designs of high-performance bioscaffolds for bone tissue engineering.
With the development of light emitting diode (LED) lighting technology and its wide applications, visible light communication (VLC) technology has also seen significant advancements. VLC is regarded ...as a supplementary technology to radio frequency (RF) due to its unregulated spectrum and extraordinarily high communication rates. In this paper, the advantages, architectures, key technologies, application scenarios and machine learning (ML) applications of VLC are reviewed and summarized.
In underwater wireless optical communications (UWOC), each emitted photon will be scattered with a random deviated angle when propagating through underwater channel. Then the light beam observed at ...the receiver plane suffers spatial angle spread which follows a certain angle of arrival (AOA) distribution. In this letter, we present a closed-form expression of AOA distribution to characterize how received intensity of ballistic and single scattering components distributes over AOA with respect to unit transmit power. Numerical results have validated the proposed AOA distribution by Monte Carlo approach in clear and turbid coastal and harbor water with relatively short link range.
Natural image degradation is frequently unavoidable for various reasons, including noise, blur, compression artifacts, haze, and raindrops. The majority of previous works have advanced significantly. ...They, however, consider only one type of degradation and overlook hybrid degradation factors, which are fairly common in natural images. To tackle this challenge, we propose a multistage network architecture. It is capable of gradually learning and restoring the hybrid degradation model of the image. The model comprises three stages, with each pair of adjacent stages combining to exchange information between the early and late stages. Meanwhile, we employ a double-pooling channel attention block that combines maximum and average pooling. It is capable of inferring more intricate channel attention and enhancing the network’s representation capability. Then, during the model training step, we introduce contrastive learning. Our method outperforms comparable methods in terms of qualitative scores and visual effects and restores more detailed textures to improve image quality.
Small and medium-sized enterprises currently suffer from a lack of branding. Therefore, to further promote their active branding, this study proposes a user preference mining algorithm based on data ...mining and social behavior. Employing this algorithm to study the degree of users’ brand preference can provide data support for enterprises’ brand building. The experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm outperforms previous algorithms in terms of performance, convergence, and accuracy. The area under the curve reached 0.953, indicating highly authentic output results with extremely high realism. In actual simulation experiments, its prediction results for the user’s brand preference index are accurate, with an error of only 0.11, and the algorithm has extremely high ratings among industry insiders. In conclusion, the user-preference mining algorithm based on data mining and social behaviors suggested in this study plays a better role in promoting an enterprise’s brand building. It can help the enterprise know the level of consumer preference for its brand; accordingly, it can determine the shortcomings in, provide effective and accurate data support for, and thereby promote its brand building.
Artificial intelligence (AI) holds significant promise in transforming medical imaging, enhancing diagnostics, and refining treatment strategies. However, the reliance on extensive multicenter ...datasets for training AI models poses challenges due to privacy concerns. Federated learning provides a solution by facilitating collaborative model training across multiple centers without sharing raw data. This study introduces a federated attention-consistent learning (FACL) framework to address challenges associated with large-scale pathological images and data heterogeneity. FACL enhances model generalization by maximizing attention consistency between local clients and the server model. To ensure privacy and validate robustness, we incorporated differential privacy by introducing noise during parameter transfer. We assessed the effectiveness of FACL in cancer diagnosis and Gleason grading tasks using 19,461 whole-slide images of prostate cancer from multiple centers. In the diagnosis task, FACL achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.9718, outperforming seven centers with an average AUC of 0.9499 when categories are relatively balanced. For the Gleason grading task, FACL attained a Kappa score of 0.8463, surpassing the average Kappa score of 0.7379 from six centers. In conclusion, FACL offers a robust, accurate, and cost-effective AI training model for prostate cancer pathology while maintaining effective data safeguards.
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