The topipotency of the germline is the full manifestation of the pluri- and multipotency of embryonic and adult stem cells, thus the germline and stem cells must share common mechanisms that ...guarantee their multipotentials in development. One of the few such known shared mechanisms is represented by Piwi proteins, which constitute one of the two subfamilies of the Argonaute protein family. Piwi proteins bind to Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) that are generally 26 to 31 nucleotides in length. Both Piwi proteins and piRNAs are most abundantly expressed in the germline. Moreover, Piwi proteins are expressed broadly in certain types of somatic stem/progenitor cells and other somatic cells across animal phylogeny. Recent studies indicate that the Piwi-piRNA pathway mediates epigenetic programming and posttranscriptional regulation, which may be responsible for its function in germline specification, gametogenesis, stem cell maintenance, transposon silencing, and genome integrity in diverse organisms.
Degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM) underlies loss of cartilage tissue in osteoarthritis, a common disease for which no effective disease-modifying therapy currently exists. Here we describe ...BNTA, a small molecule with ECM modulatory properties. BNTA promotes generation of ECM components in cultured chondrocytes isolated from individuals with osteoarthritis. In human osteoarthritic cartilage explants, BNTA treatment stimulates expression of ECM components while suppressing inflammatory mediators. Intra-articular injection of BNTA delays the disease progression in a trauma-induced rat model of osteoarthritis. Furthermore, we identify superoxide dismutase 3 (SOD3) as a mediator of BNTA activity. BNTA induces SOD3 expression and superoxide anion elimination in osteoarthritic chondrocyte culture, and ectopic SOD3 expression recapitulates the effect of BNTA on ECM biosynthesis. These observations identify SOD3 as a relevant drug target, and BNTA as a potential therapeutic agent in osteoarthritis.
Lin28 acts as a repressor of microRNA processing and as a post-transcriptional regulatory factor for a subset of mRNAs. Here we report that in human embryonic stem cells Lin28 facilitates the ...expression of the pivotal pluripotency factor Oct4 at the post-transcriptional level. We provide evidence that Lin28 binds Oct4 mRNA directly through high affinity sites within its coding region and that an interaction between Lin28 and RNA helicase A (RHA) may play a part in the observed regulation. We further demonstrate that decreasing RHA levels impairs Lin28-dependent stimulation of translation in a reporter system. Taken together with previous studies showing that RHA is required for efficient translation of a specific class of mRNAs, these findings suggest a novel mechanism by which Lin28 may affect target mRNA expression and represent the first evidence of post-transcriptional regulation of Oct4 expression by Lin28 in human embryonic stem cells.
•Novel water-soluble binder CMC-Li is applied to lithium-ion battery for the first time.•CMC-Li ionizes and increases the contents of freely moving lithium ions in batteries.•The good electrochemical ...property using CMC-Li with high DS as a binder.•Three types of binders CMC-Li, CMC-Na, and PVDF are investigated for LFP.•CMC-Li can be the next generation cheap and green water binder for LFP cathode.
Novel water-based binder lithium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC-Li) is synthesized by cotton as raw material. The mechanism of the CMC-Li as a binder is reported. Electrochemical properties of batteries’ cathodes based on commercially available lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4, LFP) and water-soluble binder are investigated. Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC-Na, CMC) and CMC-Li are used as the binder. After 200 cycles, compared with conventional poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) binder, the CMC-Li binder significantly improves cycling performance of the LFP cathode 96.7% of initial reversible capacity achieved at 175mAhg−1. Constant current charge–discharge test results demonstrate that the LFP electrode using CMC-Li as the binder has the highest rate capability, followed closely by those using CMC and PVDF binders, respectively. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy test results show that the electrode using CMC-Li as the binder has lower charge transfer resistance than the electrodes using CMC and PVDF as the binders.
Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) using Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radars is difficult because of the inherent variability and ambiguity caused by individual habits and environmental ...differences. This paper proposes a deformable dual-stream fusion network based on CNN-TCN (DDF-CT) to solve this problem. First, we extract range, Doppler, and angle information from radar signals with the Fast Fourier Transform to produce range-time (RT) and range-angle (RA) maps. Then, we reduce the noise of the feature map. Subsequently, the RAM sequence (RAMS) is generated by temporally organizing the RAMs, which captures a target’s range and velocity characteristics at each time point while preserving the temporal feature information. To improve the accuracy and consistency of gesture recognition, DDF-CT incorporates deformable convolution and inter-frame attention mechanisms, which enhance the extraction of spatial features and the learning of temporal relationships. The experimental results show that our method achieves an accuracy of 98.61%, and even when tested in a novel environment, it still achieves an accuracy of 97.22%. Due to its robust performance, our method is significantly superior to other existing HGR approaches.
•Novel functional material CMC-Li is synthesized with cotton as raw material.•Novel water-soluble binder CMC-Li is applied in LFP battery for the first time.•CMC-Li as binder for LFP anode ...lithium-ion battery beyond theoretical capacity.•The good electrochemical property using CMC-Li with high DS as a binder.•Mechanism of the novel water binder CMC-Li in LFP is reported for the first time.
Novel water-based binder CMC-Li is synthesized using cotton as raw material. The mechanism of the CMC-Li as a binder is reported. Electrochemical properties of batteries cathodes based on commercially available lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4, LFP) and CMC-Li as a water-soluble binder are investigated. CMC-Li is a novel lithium-ion binder. Compare with conventional poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) binder, and the battery with CMC-Li as the binder retained 97.8% of initial reversible capacity after 200 cycles at 176mAhg−1, which is beyond the theoretical specific capacity of LFP. Constant current charge–discharge test results demonstrate that the LFP electrode using CMC-Li as the binder has the highest rate capability, follow closely by that using PVDF binder. The batteries have good electrochemical property, outstanding pollution-free and excellent stability.
This paper takes the specific environment covered by vegetation as the research object, carries out modeling and analysis, takes the large-scale fading model of wireless channel as the basis of data ...processing, researches the transmission law of electromagnetic wave in a typical vegetation environment, which can be divided into four situations. The signal attenuation in each case is theoretically derived and numerically simulated. From the view point of supporting vegetation environment channel, the large-scale channel measurement system is built to meet the actual needs, such as bandwidth, frequency, vegetation coverage, etc. the final vegetation environment channel model under the large-scale fading model is obtained. The results show that the path gain of four scenarios respectively are 81.3 dB, 36.5 dB, 1.6 dB, 1.5 dB, the value of path gain index is within the range of 2~3.5, four scenarios shadow fading standard deviation values are 7.1, 4.8, 10.1, 9.2, reflects the change of received power at the point caused by random factors such as reflection, absorption and scattering. In addition, the proposed channel model improves the gain about 15% compared with the tradition SUI model within vegetation coverage scene. The design process of the proposed model is carried out in the order of "studied the existing foundation → analyzed the existing problems → proposed the optimization scheme → simulation and verification results → actual measurement system". The advantage of paper's method is that, when the signal frequency, transceiver distance, antenna height and vegetation environment characteristic parameters are given, the statistical analysis results of wireless channel data are obtained. The purpose of the proposed work establishes a signal propagation prediction model under the vegetation environment, realizes a theoretical basis for channel simulation, and provides the basis of anti-fading technologies.
Local recurrence is the main cause of death among patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). This study assessed near-infrared fluorescence (NIF) imaging and spectroscopy to monitor surgical ...margins intraoperatively for OSCC.
Cytological and animal experiments were first performed to confirm the feasibility of monitoring surgical margins with NIF imaging and spectroscopy. Then, 20 patients with OSCC were included in the clinical trials. At 6-8 h after 0.75 mg/kg indocyanine green (ICG) injection, all patients underwent surgery with NIF imaging. During the surgery, both NIF images and quantified fluorescence intensity were acquired to monitor the surgical margins.
In cytological and animal experiments, the results showed it was feasible to monitor surgical margins with NIF imaging and spectroscopy. Fluorescence was detected in primary tumors in all patients. The fluorescence intensities of the tumor, peritumoral, and normal tissues were 398.863 ± 151.47, 278.52 ± 84.89, and 274.5 ± 100.93 arbitrary units (AUs), respectively (P < 0.05). The SBR of tumor to peritumoral tissue and normal tissues was computed to be 1.45 ± 0.36 and 1.56 ± 0.41, respectively. After primary tumor excision, the wounds showed abnormal fluorescence in four patients (4/20), and residual cancer cells were confirmed by pathological examination in two patients (2/20).
These findings confirmed the complementary value of NIF imaging during radical tumor resection of OSCC. Before tumor resection, we could utilize the fluorescence margin produced by ICG NIF imaging to determine the surgical margin. Moreover, after tumor blocks were removed, the status of surgical margin could also be evaluated rapidly by ICG NIF imaging of tumor bed and in vitro specimens.
A large number of epidemics, including COVID-19 and SARS, quickly swept the world and claimed the precious lives of large numbers of people. Due to the concealment and rapid spread of the virus, it ...is difficult to track down individuals with mild or asymptomatic symptoms with limited human resources. Building a low-cost and real-time epidemic early warning system to identify individuals who have been in contact with infected individuals and determine whether they need to be quarantined is an effective means to mitigate the spread of the epidemic. In this paper, we propose a smartphone-based zero-effort epidemic warning method for mitigating epidemic propagation. Firstly, we recognize epidemic-related voice activity relevant to epidemics spread by hierarchical attention mechanism and temporal convolutional network. Subsequently, we estimate the social distance between users through sensors built-in smartphone. Furthermore, we combine Wi-Fi network logs and social distance to comprehensively judge whether there is spatiotemporal contact between users and determine the duration of contact. Finally, we estimate infection risk based on epidemic-related vocal activity, social distance, and contact time. We conduct a large number of well-designed experiments in typical scenarios to fully verify the proposed method. The proposed method does not rely on any additional infrastructure and historical training data, which is conducive to integration with epidemic prevention and control systems and large-scale applications.
Purpose To determine the relation between tunnel placement and tunnel enlargement after single-bundle anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. Methods Seventy-two subjects (mean age, 30.1 ...years; 17.5 months' follow-up) who underwent single-bundle ACL reconstruction with hamstring autograft were studied. EndoButton fixation (Ethicon, Somerville, NJ) was used on the femoral side, whereas staples were used on the tibial side. A transtibial femoral tunnel position technique was used in 53 subjects, whereas positioning through the medial portal was used in the other 19 cases. Tunnel enlargement was determined by comparing the diameter of the tunnel on the radiograph obtained after 12 months and the radiograph obtained instantly after the operation. The centers of the femoral and tibial tunnels and the angles between the graft and tibial plateau were also measured on standard radiographs. Clinical outcomes including KT-1000 assessment (MEDmetric, San Diego, CA) and International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score were also collected in all patients. The relations between tunnel enlargement/tunnel position and knee joint laxity and IKDC score were analyzed. Results The mean KT-1000 side-to-side difference significantly decreased, from 6.07 ± 2.75 mm to 1.57 ± 2.14 mm, after ACL reconstruction; the IKDC subjective score increased from 52.8 to 87.5. On lateral radiographs, the tunnel enlargement rates were 41% on the femoral side and 35% on the tibial side; on plain anteroposterior radiographs, the tunnel enlargement rates were 39% on the femoral side and 32% on the tibial side. Subjects with a higher femoral tunnel had a greater enlargement rate ( P < .001). Subjects with a more vertical graft also had a larger femoral enlargement ( P < .05). More anterior placement of the femoral tunnel was associated with larger tibial tunnel enlargement on anteroposterior plain radiographs ( P < .05). A more vertical graft was also associated with larger tibial tunnel enlargement. Subjects in whom the transtibial femoral position technique was used had more femoral tunnel enlargements ( P < .01). Conclusions Drilling the femoral tunnel through the medial portal created a lower, more posterior, and less vertical tunnel than drilling through the tibial tunnel. Femoral and tibial tunnel enlargements were greater with more anterior, more proximal, and more vertical femoral tunnels. Whereas no clinical differences were seen in the 2 groups, drilling the femoral tunnel from the medial portal will result in smaller postoperative tunnel enlargements. Level of Evidence Level III, retrospective comparative study.
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