Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), an ancient system of alternative medicine, played an active role in the prevention and control of COVID-19 in China. It improved the clinical symptoms of patients, ...reduced the mortality rate, improved the recovery rate, and effectively relieved the operating pressure on the national medical system during critical conditions. In light of the current global pandemic, TCM-related measures might open up a new channel in the control of COVID-19 in other countries and regions. Here, we summarize the TCM-related measures that were widely used in China, including TCM guidelines, the Wuchang pattern, mobile cabin hospitals, integrated treatment of TCM and modern medicine for critical patients, and non-medicine therapy for convalescent patients, and describe how TCM effectively treated patients afflicted with the COVID-19. Effective TCM therapies could, therefore, be recommended and practiced based on the existing medical evidence from increased scientific studies.
As UAV Internet of things applications continue to grow, so does interest in the development of air-to-ground (ATG) systems, which can effectively expand communication system coverage. To maximize ...utilization of frequency resources, the ATG system adopts frequency reuse with the 5G system on the ground. This research studies the co-channel interference between ATG and 5G at 3.5 GHz as well as the neighboring channel interference with C-band fixed satellite service. We do research on various ATG aircraft flying altitudes and horizontal distances, which yields multiple potential interference reduction strategies. Finally, numerical results are shown to demonstrate the efficacy and productivity of our proposed methods.
Abstract
Background
With the broad application of high-throughput sequencing and its reduced cost, simple sequence repeat (SSR) genotyping by sequencing (SSR-GBS) has been widely used for ...interpreting genetic data across different fields, including population genetic diversity and structure analysis, the construction of genetic maps, and the investigation of intraspecies relationships. The development of accurate and efficient typing strategies for SSR-GBS is urgently needed and several tools have been published. However, to date, no suitable accurate genotyping method can tolerate single nucleotide variations (SNVs) in SSRs and flanking regions. These SNVs may be caused by PCR and sequencing errors or SNPs among varieties, and they directly affect sequence alignment and genotyping accuracy.
Results
Here, we report a new integrated strategy named the accurate microsatellite genotyping tool based on targeted sequencing (AMGT-TS) and provide a user-friendly web-based platform and command-line version of AMGT-TS. To handle SNVs in the SSRs or flanking regions, we developed a broad matching algorithm (BMA) that can quickly and accurately achieve SSR typing for ultradeep coverage and high-throughput analysis of loci with SNVs compatibility and grouping of typed reads for further in-depth information mining. To evaluate this tool, we tested 21 randomly sampled loci in eight maize varieties, accompanied by experimental validation on actual and simulated sequencing data. Our evaluation showed that, compared to other tools, AMGT-TS presented extremely accurate typing results with single base resolution for both homozygous and heterozygous samples.
Conclusion
This integrated strategy can achieve accurate SSR genotyping based on targeted sequencing, and it can tolerate single nucleotide variations in the SSRs and flanking regions. This method can be readily applied to divergent sequencing platforms and species and has excellent application prospects in genetic and population biology research. The web-based platform and command-line version of AMGT-TS are available at
https://amgt-ts.plantdna.site:8445
and
https://github.com/plantdna/amgt-ts
, respectively.
The regeneration of the articular cartilage defects is characterized by the improvement in the quality of the repaired tissue and the reduction in the potential development of perifocal ...osteoarthritis (OA). Usually, the injection of dexamethasone (Dex) in the OA joints slows down the progression of inflammation and relieves pain. However, the anti-inflammatory Dex injected in the joint cavity is rapidly cleared, leading to a poor therapeutic effect. Multifunctional hydrogels with simultaneous chondrogenic differentiation, antioxidative, and anti-inflammatory capacities may represent a promising solution. Therefore, in this work, a novel injectable hydrogel based on double cross-linking of Schiff base bonds and coordination of catechol-Fe was developed. The obtained hydrogel (Gel-DA/DOHA/DMON@Dex@Fe) possessed molding performance in situ, excellent mechanical strength, controllable biodegradability, the on-demand release of the drug, and biocompatibility. The hydrogel system stimulated the HIF-1α signaling pathway and suppressed inflammation thanks to the introduction of DMON@Fe, consequently facilitating chondrogenic differentiation. The synergistic anti-inflammatory effect together with the induction of chondrogenesis by Dex-loaded Gel-DA/DOHA/DMON@Fe hydrogel allowed the promotion of cartilage repair, as demonstrated by in vivo experiments. Hence, the proposed multifunctional scaffold provides a promising advancement in articular cartilage tissue engineering and may have great prospects in the prevention of OA.
In order to improve the absorption of stray radiation traps and thermal radiation detectors of blackbody radiators and enhance the thermal radiation transmission, large aperture and high-emissivity ...blackbody radiators or compact space-borne blackbody sources can be developed. The design of blackbody cavity with V-grooves is a method to change the effective emissivity of blackbody radiation source. At the design stage, the most important work is to evaluate its radiation characteristics in order to verify the effectiveness of this method. Two kinds of blackbody cavity models are designed in this paper. One is a cylindrical–conical blackbody cavity with a 2-mm deep 50° angle V-grooves (the cavity is 300 mm long and 80 mm in diameter, with a depth of 277 mm the cone part of the cavity is 23.09 mm long, the top angle of the cone is 120°, the wall thickness is 2 mm, and the surface will be painted with 0.95 emissivity coating). The other is the blackbody cavity model with the same structure and smooth inner wall. Using the special software based on Monte Carlo method, the radiation characteristics of the two blackbody cavity models are simulated under isothermal conditions. The average normal effective emissivity and right-conical effective emissivity of the blackbody cavity with different observation radius are obtained, respectively. The results show that the average normal effective emissivity and right-conical effective emissivity of the blackbody cavity with V-grooves on the inner wall are increased. In addition, the experimental results of radiative properties of the blackbody radiator having the V-grooved cavity measured by thermal cavity reflectometry method agree with the theoretical simulation results. Therefore, it is proved that the blackbody cavity with V-grooves on the inner wall (except for special angles) can be an effective way to improve the emissivity of the blackbody source.
Articular cartilage (AC) defects may be caused by injury or osteochondral pathology, which is a major risk factor for catastrophic degenerative arthritis. Currently, AC defects are a serious concern ...for patients because clinical treatments are not satisfactory. Owing to the limited self-healing ability of AC, the proliferation and chondrogenesis of seed cells are necessary for cartilage tissue regeneration. To treat AC defects, growth factors are required to regulate the behavior of seed cells for optimal therapeutic effects. Considering these issues, injectable hydrogels are suitable for both the repair and regeneration of AC because of their unique structural and functional features. After literature search and analysis, we introduced several gelation methods for injectable hydrogels. We then highlighted the biomedical applications of injectable hydrogels in the field of AC tissue engineering, with an emphasis on composite hydrogels, cell therapy, and carrier delivery. Finally, the achievements and challenges of injectable hydrogels for AC repair and regeneration were discussed based on previous studies. The summarized developments help to understand injectable hydrogels in the field of cartilage tissue engineering.
Pulsed fiber lasers, with high peak power and narrow pulse widths, have been proven to be an important tool for a variety of fields of application. In this work, frontier and hot topics in pulsed ...fiber lasers were analyzed with 11,064 articles. Benefitting from the scientometric analysis capabilities of CiteSpace, the analysis found that passively mode-locked fiber lasers with saturable absorbers (SAs) based on two-dimensional (2D) materials have become a hot research topic in the field of pulsed fiber lasers due to the advantages of self-starting operation, high stability, and good compatibility. The excellent nonlinear optical properties exhibited by 2D materials at nanometer-scale thicknesses have become a particularly popular research topic; the research has paved the way for exploring its wider applications. We summarize the performance of several typical 2D materials in ultrafast fiber lasers, such as graphene, topological insulators (TIs), transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and black phosphorus (BP). Meanwhile, we review and analyze the direction of the development of 2D SAs for ultrafast fiber lasers.
Insertions-deletions (InDels) are the second most abundant molecular marker in the genome and have been widely used in molecular biology research along with simple sequence repeats (SSR) and ...single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP). However, InDel variant mining and marker development usually focuses on a single type of dimorphic InDel, which does not reflect the overall InDel diversity across the genome. Here, we developed Omni InDels for maize, soybean, and rice based on sequencing data and genome assembly that included InDel variants with base lengths from 1 bp to several Mb, and we conducted a detailed classification of Omni InDels. Moreover, we screened a set of InDels that are easily detected and typed (Perfect InDels) from the Omni InDels, verified the site authenticity using 3,587 germplasm resources from 11 groups, and analyzed the germplasm resources. Furthermore, we developed a Multi-InDel set based on the Omni InDels; each Multi-InDel contains multiple InDels, which greatly increases site polymorphism, they can be detected in multiple platforms such as fluorescent capillary electrophoresis and sequencing. Finally, we developed an online database website to make Omni InDels easy to use and share and developed a visual browsing function called "Variant viewer" for all Omni InDel sites to better display the variant distribution.
Intelligent reflecting surface (IRS) stands as a promising technology to revolutionize wireless communication by manipulating incident signal amplitudes and phases to enhance system performance. ...While existing research primarily centers around optimizing the phase shifts of IRS, the deployment of IRS on movable platforms introduces a new degree of freedom in the design of IRS-assisted systems. Leveraging flexible deployment strategies for IRS holds the potential to further amplify network throughput and extend coverage. This paper addresses the challenging non-convex joint optimization problem of the movable IRS and proposes a dynamic optimization algorithm based on proximal policy optimization (PPO) for dynamically optimizing the aerial position and phase configuration of IRS. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach, demonstrating significant performance improvements compared to communication schemes without IRS assistance and conventional static IRS-assisted methods.
Aerial base stations (AeBS), as crucial components of air-ground integrated networks, can serve as the edge nodes to provide flexible services to ground users. Optimizing the deployment of multiple ...AeBSs to maximize system energy efficiency is currently a prominent and actively researched topic in the AeBS-assisted edge-cloud computing network. In this paper, we deploy AeBSs using multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL). We describe the multi-AeBS deployment challenge as a decentralized partially observable Markov decision process (Dec-POMDP), taking into consideration the constrained observation range of AeBSs. The hypergraph convolution mix deep deterministic policy gradient (HCMIX-DDPG) algorithm is designed to maximize the system energy efficiency. The proposed algorithm uses the value decomposition framework to solve the lazy agent problem, and hypergraph convolutional (HGCN) network is introduced to strengthen the cooperative relationship between agents. Simulation results show that the suggested HCMIX-DDPG algorithm outperforms alternative baseline algorithms in the multi-AeBS deployment scenario.
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