This paper proposes a novel reversible data hiding (RDH) scheme in encrypted domain for medical DICOM images. Although a lot of RDH schemes for encrypted images have been presented, however, most of ...them are unsuitable for medical DICOM images, as they do not utilize the features of the DICOM image format, and the recovery accuracy is low because medical images have large areas with the same pixel values. To avoid these weaknesses, our scheme segments the image and only embeds data into part of the encrypted image. The redundancy of pixel cells in DICOM images is exploited so that auxiliary data can be embedded into the image. The order of data extraction and image recovery, which can be optimized by the number of recovered blocks around the unrecovered block, is calculated to improve the recovery accuracy. In addition, to ensure the integrity of the DICOM image, the hash value of the minimum bounding rectangle of ROI and the feature bit matrix of the rest are calculated. If the image is tampered, the tampered area, especially ROI, can be accurately detected and located on the receiver side. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
In this paper, we propose a novel prediction-based reversible steganographic scheme based on image inpainting. First, reference pixels are chosen adaptively according to the distribution ...characteristics of the image content. Then, the image inpainting technique based on partial differential equations is introduced to generate a prediction image that has similar structural and geometric information as the cover image. Finally, by using the two selected groups of peak points and zero points, the histogram of the prediction error is shifted to embed the secret bits reversibly. Since the same reference pixels can be exploited in the extraction procedure, the embedded secret bits can be extracted from the stego image correctly, and the cover image can be restored losslessly. Through the use of the adaptive strategy for choosing reference pixels and the inpainting predictor, the prediction accuracy is high, and more embeddable pixels are acquired. Thus, the proposed scheme provides a greater embedding rate and better visual quality compared with recently reported methods.
In response to various types of environmental and cellular stress, microglia rapidly activate and exhibit either pro- or anti-inflammatory phenotypes to maintain tissue homeostasis. Activation of ...microglia can result in changes in morphology, phagocytosis capacity, and secretion of cytokines. Furthermore, microglial activation also induces changes to cellular energy demand, which is dependent on the metabolism of various metabolic substrates including glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids. Accumulating evidence demonstrates metabolic reprogramming acts as a key driver of microglial immune response. For instance, microglia in pro-inflammatory states preferentially use glycolysis for energy production, whereas, cells in anti-inflammatory states are mainly powered by oxidative phosphorylation and fatty acid oxidation. In this review, we summarize recent findings regarding microglial metabolic pathways under physiological and pathological circumtances. We will then discuss how metabolic reprogramming can orchestrate microglial response to a variety of central nervous system pathologies. Finally, we highlight how manipulating metabolic pathways can reprogram microglia towards beneficial functions, and illustrate the therapeutic potential for inflammation-related neurological diseases.
The decomposition of ammonia borane (NH
BH
) to produce hydrogen has developed a promising technology to alleviate the energy crisis. In this paper, metal and non-metal diatom-doped CoP as catalyst ...was applied to study hydrogen evolution from NH
BH
by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Herein, five catalysts were investigated in detail: pristine CoP, Ni- and N-doped CoP (CoP
), Ga- and N-doped CoP (CoP
), Ni- and S-doped CoP (CoP
), and Zn- and S-doped CoP (CoP
). Firstly, the stable adsorption structure and adsorption energy of NH
BH
on each catalytic slab were obtained. Additionally, the charge density differences (CDD) between NH
BH
and the five different catalysts were calculated, which revealed the interaction between the NH
BH
and the catalytic slab. Then, four different reaction pathways were designed for the five catalysts to discuss the catalytic mechanism of hydrogen evolution. By calculating the activation energies of the control steps of the four reaction pathways, the optimal reaction pathways of each catalyst were found. For the five catalysts, the optimal reaction pathways and activation energies are different from each other. Compared with undoped CoP, it can be seen that CoP
, CoP
, and CoP
can better contribute hydrogen evolution from NH
BH
. Finally, the band structures and density of states of the five catalysts were obtained, which manifests that CoP
, CoP
, and CoP
have high-achieving catalytic activity and further verifies our conclusions. These results can provide theoretical references for the future study of highly active CoP catalytic materials.
In this paper, we propose a novel fragile watermarking scheme with content restoration capability. Authentication-bits are produced using the image hashing method with a folding operation. The ...low-frequency component of the nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) coefficients is used to encode the restoration-bits for each block by the adaptive bit allocation mechanism. During the bit allocation, all the blocks are categorized into different types according to their degree of smoothness, and, complex blocks, which are deemed to have higher priority than smooth blocks, are allocated more bits. Two algorithms are utilized to adjust the block classification and the binary representations in order to guarantee that the numbers of the self-embedding authentication-bits and restoration-bits are exactly suitable for 1-LSB embedding capacity. On the receiver side, the extracted authentication-bits and the decoded restoration-bits are used to localize and restore the tampered blocks, respectively. Due to the low embedding volume, the visual quality of the watermarked image is satisfactory. Experimental results also show that the proposed scheme provides high restoration quality.
► NSCT coefficients are utilized to encode the restoration-bits efficiently. ► We use bit allocation mechanism to adjust block types and binary representations. ► Quality of the watermarked image is good due to 1-LSB embedding volume. ► Our scheme can provide higher restoration quality after tampering localization.
The transplantation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMMSCs) alleviates neuropathology and improves cognitive deficits in animal models with Alzheimer's disease. However, the underlying ...mechanism remains undefined. Based on meta-analysis and comprehensive review, high-profile studies support the theory that transplanted BMMSCs activate autophagy, as evidenced by the expression levels of signal molecules such as Beclin-1, Atg5, LC3-II, and mTOR. Functional autophagy mitigates neuronal apoptosis, which is reflected by the alterations of IAPs, Bcl-2, caspase-3, and so forth. Moreover, the transplantation of BMMSCs can decrease aberrant amyloid-beta peptides as well as tau aggregates, inhibit neuroinflammation, and stimulate synaptogenesis. There is a signal crosstalk between autophagy and apoptosis, which may be regulated to produce synergistic effect on the preconditioning of stem cells. Forasmuch, the therapeutic effect of transplanted BMMSCs can be enhanced by autophagy and/or apoptosis modulators.
In recent years, many outstanding papers based on laboratory animals have been published around the world, highlighting how laboratory animal sciences has, among other things, provided systematic ...biological materials and pertinent technologies for the development of related disciplines; integration into many frontier disciplines; development of new disciplines such as comparative medicine, experimental animal medicine, and comparative biology; and supported development in fields such as life sciences, medicine, food, environment and aerospace. ...there are very few specialized journals in this field, and their impact is very limited. ...it is urgent to establish a professional English‐language journal to meet the need of all researchers in this important field. The objective of AMEM is to build an international academic exchange platform for research involving laboratory animals, animal models and related topics, including applied research in experimental medicine and translational medicine, and to increase understanding amongst the international academic community of the development of such studies and the welfare status of laboratory animals, with a special focus within China and other Asian countries.
The mechanical washing wastewater contained a large amount of oil, and the iron wrapped in the oil was slowly released into water. This caused the effluent quality to fluctuate, causing common ...polymeric aluminum chloride (PAC) to ineffectively remove the water-in-oil. The method uses Ca
to demulsify and ClO
to destroy the water-in-oil structure, which releases Fe from the oil droplets. The active oxygen produced by NaClO
further converts Fe
into Fe
and then combines with NaOH to form Fe(OH)
-flocs core, which improves the flocculation efficiency of PAC. The optimal ratio was approximately 400 μL of NaClO
, 200 μL of 1 mol L
CaO, and 12 mL of 12.8 g L
PAC. The oil removal rate reached 99.88% and the residue density was 178.42 mg L
. The maximum Fe and chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal rates were close to 49.2 and 99.89%, respectively. In field applications, wastewater should be acidified first, and acidification oxidation is more effective than direct oxidation. In short, a novel way for treating mechanically washed wastewater with iron-in-oil characteristics by changing the environmental fate of iron is provided.
The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and potentially other highly pathogenic sarbecoviruses in the future highlights the need for pan-sarbecovirus vaccines. Here, we discovered a new STING agonist, ...CF501, and found that CF501-adjuvanted RBD-Fc vaccine (CF501/RBD-Fc) elicited significantly stronger neutralizing antibody (nAb) and T cell responses than Alum- and cGAMP-adjuvanted RBD-Fc in mice. Vaccination of rabbits and rhesus macaques (nonhuman primates, NHPs) with CF501/RBD-Fc elicited exceptionally potent nAb responses against SARS-CoV-2 and its nine variants and 41 S-mutants, SARS-CoV and bat SARSr-CoVs. CF501/RBD-Fc-immunized hACE2-transgenic mice were almost completely protected against SARS-CoV-2 challenge, even 6 months after the initial immunization. NHPs immunized with a single dose of CF501/RBD-Fc produced high titers of nAbs. The immunized macaques also exhibited durable humoral and cellular immune responses and showed remarkably reduced viral load in the upper and lower airways upon SARS-CoV-2 challenge even at 108 days post the final immunization. Thus, CF501/RBD-Fc can be further developed as a novel pan-sarbecovirus vaccine to combat current and future outbreaks of sarbecovirus diseases.
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