1,448 research outputs found

    MicroRNA-483 amelioration of experimental pulmonary hypertension.

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    Endothelial dysfunction is critically involved in the pathogenesis of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and that exogenously administered microRNA may be of therapeutic benefit. Lower levels of miR-483 were found in serum from patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH), particularly those with more severe disease. RNA-seq and bioinformatics analyses showed that miR-483 targets several PAH-related genes, including transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β), TGF-β receptor 2 (TGFBR2), β-catenin, connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), and endothelin-1 (ET-1). Overexpression of miR-483 in ECs inhibited inflammatory and fibrogenic responses, revealed by the decreased expression of TGF-β, TGFBR2, β-catenin, CTGF, IL-1β, and ET-1. In contrast, inhibition of miR-483 increased these genes in ECs. Rats with EC-specific miR-483 overexpression exhibited ameliorated pulmonary hypertension (PH) and reduced right ventricular hypertrophy on challenge with monocrotaline (MCT) or Sugen + hypoxia. A reversal effect was observed in rats that received MCT with inhaled lentivirus overexpressing miR-483. These results indicate that PAH is associated with a reduced level of miR-483 and that miR-483 might reduce experimental PH by inhibition of multiple adverse responses

    Tessellated phase diagram and extended criticality in driven quasicrystals and quantum Hall matter

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    The well-known mapping between 1D quasiperiodic systems and 2D integer quantum Hall matter can also be applied in the presence of driving. Here we explore the effect of time-varying electric fields on the transport properties and phase diagram of Harper-Hofstadter materials. We consider light of arbitrary polarization illuminating a 2D electron gas at high magnetic field; this system maps to a 1D quasicrystal subjected to simultaneous phasonic and dipolar driving. We show that this generalized driving generates a tessellated phase diagram featuring a nested duality-protected pattern of metal-insulator transitions. Circularly or elliptically polarized light can create an extended critical phase, opening up a new route to achieving wavefunction multifractality without fine-tuning to a critical point, as well as induce Floquet topological insulators. We describe in detail a path to experimental realization of these phenomena using lattice-trapped ultracold atoms.Comment: Corrected typos. 15 pages, 10 figures including appendices. Comments are welcome

    Social media for public participation in urban planning in China based on place attachment-- a case of the Guangzhou banyan tree incident

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    Given the current low level of public participation and limited channels of participation in Chinese urban planning. Social media has become an important platform for public participation in China. Taking the banyan tree relocation and felling incident in Guangzhou City as an example. This paper explores how social media-facilitated public participation can effectively influence urban planning decisions through case study and discourse power analysis. It is found that place attachment may serve as a significant motivator for public participation in urban planning. Social media plays a dual role in this process. On one hand, it can improve the effectiveness of public participation in urban planning and ultimately fulfil the role of advancing democratic government decision-making. On the other hand, the paper reveals challenges such as information homogenization, emotionalized communication, and elite dominance. These issues underscore the need for further improvements in regulatory mechanisms and technical support. Therefore, future urban planning policies should take people's emotions into account, and also need to accelerate the construction of improved systems, mechanisms and technologies for social media public participation to achieve high-level public participation goals

    The Significance of Calcium-sensing Receptor in Sustaining Photosynthesis and Ameliorating Stress Responses in Plants

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    Calcium ions (Ca2+) regulate plant growth and development during exposure to multiple biotic and abiotic stresses as the second signaling messenger in cells. The extracellular calcium-sensing receptor (CAS) is a specific protein spatially located on the thylakoid membrane. It regulates the intracellular Ca2+ responses by sensing changes in extracellular Ca2+ concentration, thereby affecting a series of downstream signal transduction processes and making plants more resilient to respond to stresses. Here, we summarized the discovery process, structure, and location of CAS in plants and the effects of Ca2+ and CAS on stomatal functionality, photosynthesis, and various environmental adaptations. Under changing environmental conditions and global climate, our study enhances the mechanistic understanding of calcium-sensing receptors in sustaining photosynthesis and mediating abiotic stress responses in plants. A better understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of Ca2+ and CAS in regulating stress responses in plants may provide novel mitigation strategies for improving crop yield in a world facing more extreme climate-changed linked weather events with multiple stresses during cultivation

    An Expectation-Maximization Algorithm for Training Clean Diffusion Models from Corrupted Observations

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    Diffusion models excel in solving imaging inverse problems due to their ability to model complex image priors. However, their reliance on large, clean datasets for training limits their practical use where clean data is scarce. In this paper, we propose EMDiffusion, an expectation-maximization (EM) approach to train diffusion models from corrupted observations. Our method alternates between reconstructing clean images from corrupted data using a known diffusion model (E-step) and refining diffusion model weights based on these reconstructions (M-step). This iterative process leads the learned diffusion model to gradually converge to the true clean data distribution. We validate our method through extensive experiments on diverse computational imaging tasks, including random inpainting, denoising, and deblurring, achieving new state-of-the-art performance

    ab-plane tilt angles in REBCO conductors

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    Critical current (Ic) of REBCO tapes is strongly aniso-tropic with respect to the orientation of the magnetic field. Usually, Ic is at maximum when the ab-plane of the REBCO crystal is parallel to the magnetic field. In commercial REBCO tapes, it is commonly assumed that the ab-plane is coincide with the tape plane. While in fact, the ab-plane is near but slightly tilted from the tape plane in the transverse direction. To accurately measure Ic as a function of the field angle {\theta} , which is defined as the angle between ab-plane and the magnetic field direction, and to design and fabricate REBCO mag-net coils based on the measured Ic(angle), it is important to measure the tilt angle. In this work, we used x-ray diffraction (XRD) to measure the tilt angles at room temperature for a large number of REBCO conductors made by SuperPower Inc. Transmission electron mi-croscopy (TEM) was also used to investigate the origin of this tilt. The measured data are presented, and the measurement uncer-tainty is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure

    Improved Numerical Modeling of Electro-Thermal Coupling of MOVs Based on PSO Algorithm

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    Metal oxide varistors (MOVs) have been widely employed in DC interruptions to absorb system energy and clamp overvoltage. Specifically, for operating conditions that require continuous actions, such as reclosing, the cumulative effect of temperature may affect the electrical characteristics, which in turn impacts the equalization performance of the whole component. A numerical simulation model that considers the electrical-thermal coupling effect is proposed in this paper. The proposed model employs the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm for parameter design, demonstrating high accuracy and strong robustness. Then, the process of electrical-thermal coupling calculation is introduced. The improved model exhibits better fitting performance and lower energy errors when compared to model without temperature corrections. To validate the accuracy of the model, a MOV temperature testing platform is established. In terms of electrical characteristic predictions, the model achieves a maximum mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 0.505% and a maximum energy error of 0.451% across various temperatures, both of which are below 1%. When it comes to temperature predictions, the absolute prediction errors for all varistors remain below 2°C. Comparative analysis of experimental and simulation results indicates that the model is effective in predicting the electro-thermal properties and energy absorption of MOVs.</p
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