Background and Aims: Endometrial decidualization is a step in establishing and maintaining pregnancy. Senescence was considered to accompany with decidualization. Failure to clear senescence during ...decidualization could cause pregnancy abnormalities. Caveolin-1, as a scaffold protein, play a role in senescence, but the expression, regulation and function were not very clear in uterine endometrium. Here, we investigated the profile of Caveolin-1 in mouse and human decidualization to tease out the potential relationship among the Caveolin-1, senescence and decidualization. Method: ICR strain mice and immortalized human endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) were used. Immunofluorescence, Western-Blot, Real-time PCR were used to detect the levels of molecules. Results: In endometrium of mice during early pregnancy, the expression of Caveolin-1 gradually decreased in stroma and epithelium before embryo implantation. However, the level of Caveolin-1 converts in stromal cell after implantation. Estrogen could stimulate expression of Caveolin-1 in epithelium and progesterone could up-regulate level of Caveolin-1 in endometrial stromal cells. In vitro, expression of Caveolin-1 was up-regulated during decidualization in mESCs, while the level of Caveolin-1 was reduced during decidualization in hESCs. siRNA of Caveolin-1 could promote the expression of IGFBP-1 (decidualization biomarker) and senescence in hESCs, while over-expression of Caveolin-1 had the opposite results. In mESCs, Caveolin-1 seems to play a different role in decidualization, over-expression of Caveolin-1 could promote decidualization and senescence in mESCs, but siRNA depressed it. Blastocysts-derived TNF and hCG stimulated Caveolin-1 in mice and depressed it in human decidual cells, respectively. Caveolin-1 levels are also regulated by high glucose and insulin. Conclusion: Caveolin-1 play a role in ESCs decidualization, but the mode of action was different between species. A low level of Caveolin-1 will benefit for human decidualization, disorder of Caveolin-1 could impair decidualization.
An exchangeable pair approach is commonly taken in the normal and nonnormal approximation using Stein’s method. It has been successfully used to identify the limiting distribution and provide an ...error of approximation. However, when the difference of the exchangeable pair is not bounded by a small deterministic constant, the error bound is often not optimal. In this paper, using the exchangeable pair approach of Stein’s method, a new Berry–Esseen bound for an arbitrary random variable is established without a bound on the difference of the exchangeable pair. An optimal convergence rate for normal and nonnormal approximation is achieved when the result is applied to various examples including the quadratic forms, general Curie–Weiss model, mean field Heisenberg model and colored graph model.
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•For the first time, the prismatic dislocation loop with independent nucleation is found in 111 crystallographic orientation of Al0.3CroCrFeNi high entropy alloy.•Dislocation tangles ...and twin boundaries hinder dislocation motion, leading to work hardening.•Free dislocation glide and annihilation, as well as the formation of steps and the partial slip where the slip plane and Burgers vector are parallel to the twin boundary, resulting in materials softening.•Phase-field-crystal simulation confirms that Al0.3CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy with a twin spacing of 24.67 Å has the highest hardness.
The competition and balance mechanism between work hardening resulting from the surge in dislocations and material softening caused by plastic deformation during contact loading in Al0.3CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy is unclear. The structural transformation and strain localization of Al0.3CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy during nanoindentation are investigated using molecular dynamics, and the hardening-softening mechanism is discussed. The simulations demonstrate that the prismatic dislocation loop with independent nucleation is discovered for the first time in the 111 orientation. Dislocation multiplication and cross-slip lead to an increase in indentation resistance, resulting in work hardening. Free dislocation slip and dislocation annihilation accommodate plastic strain will reduce indentation resistance, resulting in plastic softening. Twin boundaries can effectively block dislocation propagation, which contributes to hardening. However, twin boundaries cause a softening effect in the later stage of plastic deformation owing to two reasons: (1) the formation of steps and the partial slip where the slip plane and Burgers vector are parallel to the twin boundary, (2) steps and local damage zones in twin boundaries become new nucleation sites for dislocations. The phase-field-crystal method confirms that Al0.3CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy has the highest hardness when the twin spacing is 2.467 nm.
A fiber-optic torsion sensor based on a helical two-core fiber (HTCF) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for simultaneously measuring torsion angle and torsion direction. The sensor consists ...of a segment of HTCF and two single-mode fibers (SMFs) forming a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). The helical structure is implemented by pre-twisting a 1 cm long two-core fiber (TCF). The performance of the sensor with pre-twisted angles of 180°, 360°, and 540° is experimentally analyzed. The results show that the sensor can realize the angular measurement and effectively distinguish the torsion direction. It is worth noting that the sensor has maximum sensitivity when the pre-twist angle is 180 degrees. The obtained wavelength sensitivities of torsion and temperature are 0.242 nm/(rad/m) and 32 pm/°C, respectively. The sensor has the advantages of easy fabrication, low cost, compact structure, and high sensitivity, which is expected to yield potential applications in fields where both torsion angle and direction measurements are required.
Introduction
Pulmonary large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) is a rapidly progressive and easily metastatic high-grade lung cancer, with a poor prognosis when distant metastasis (DM) occurs. ...The aim of our study was to explore risk factors associated with DM in LCNEC patients and to perform survival analysis and to develop a novel nomogram-based predictive model for screening risk populations in clinical practice.
Methods
The study cohort was derived from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database, from which we selected patients with LCNEC between 2004 to 2015 and formed a diagnostic cohort (n = 959) and a prognostic cohort (n = 272). The risk and prognostic factors of DM were screened by univariate and multivariate analyses using logistic and Cox regressions, respectively. Then, we established diagnostic and prognostic nomograms using the data in the training group and validated the accuracy of the nomograms in the validation group. The diagnostic nomogram was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curves, decision curve analysis curves, and the GiViTI calibration belt. The prognostic nomogram was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curves, the concordance index, the calibration curve, and decision curve analysis curves. In addition, high- and low-risk groups were classified according to the prognostic monogram formula, and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis was performed.
Results
In the diagnostic cohort, LCNEC close to bronchus, with higher tumor size, and with higher N stage indicated higher likelihood of DM. In the prognostic cohort (patients with LCNEC and DM), men with higher N stage, no surgery, and no chemotherapy had poorer overall survival. Patients in the high-risk group had significantly lower median overall survival than the low-risk group.
Conclusion
Two novel established nomograms performed well in predicting DM in patients with LCNEC and in evaluating their prognosis. These nomograms could be used in clinical practice for screening of risk populations and treatment planning.
The current global issue of antibiotic resistance is serious, and there is an urgent requirement of developing novel antibiotics. Octapeptins have recently regained interest because of their ...activities against resistant Gram-negative bacteria. We synthesized four natural octapeptins and 33 derivatives with diverse polarity, amphiphilicity, and acid-base properties by solid-phase synthesis and investigated their in vitro antibacterial activity and renal cytotoxicity. We also assessed the structure-activity relationship and structure-toxicity relationship of the cyclic lipopeptide compounds. Some compounds showed increased activity against Gram-negative and/or Gram-positive bacteria, with improved renal cytotoxicity.
showed remarkable in vitro antibacterial activity and low renal cytotoxicity. We found that
showed high antibacterial activity against
in vivo and manifested its effects preliminarily by increasing outer membrane permeability. Therefore,
might be a new antibiotic lead compound with not only high efficacy but also low renal cytotoxicity.
Large-scale 3D sparse maps generated by Structure-from-Motion (SfM) from images play an important role in many applications, including visual localization, augmented reality, etc. In these scenarios, ...the timeliness of the map i.e., detecting changes in the map and performing partial updates, is crucial. To solve this problem, in this paper we propose a novel method for 3D sparse map change detection and updating, to maintain the SfM map continuously over time. The core idea of this paper is to simultaneously detect the appearance and geometry changes of 3D map points, so as to find regions with significant changes, and update these regions locally without changing most of the stable map regions. In the proposed method, a local 3D map containing changing areas is computed from newly captured images by SfM and aligned to the old map according to the locations of new images in the new local map and their registration in the old map. Next, the overlapping map is partitioned into regular grids and the appearance uncertainty and geometry uncertainty are measured on each grid cell individually. Then the grid cells are labeled as changed or unchanged using Markov Random Field optimization by taking both cell uncertainty and consistency of adjacent cells into consideration. Finally, the visible old images of the point cloud in the changed cells are replaced with the corresponding visible new images, and the old map is updated by a local Bundle Adjustment. Experimental results on 3D maps reconstructed by aerial and ground images demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method.
•Propose a pipeline for 3D sparse map change detection and update.•Both geometry and appearance are considered in a global optimization.•The method works reliably in different types of scenes.•The method improves the visual localization success rate and accuracy.
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