Almost Periodic Passive Tracer Dispersion

The authors investigate the impact of external sources on the pattern formation of concentration profiles of passive tracers in a two-dimensional shear flow. By using the pullback attractor technique for the associated nonautonomous dynamical system, it is shown that a unique time-almost periodic concentration profile exists for time-almost periodic external source.Comment: latex fil

Traffic Safety Evaluation and Accident Prediction of Freeway: Evidence from China

In recent years, freeway safety accidents occurred frequently, causing serious harm to people\u27s lives and property safety. Therefore, how to evaluate freeway traffic safety and predict the number of accidents scientifically is a practical problem to be solved. The influencing factors of freeway traffic safety could be summarized as human behaviour characteristics, vehicle factors, road factors, environmental factors and traffic safety factors after a systematic analysis. To evaluate traffic safety and predicate freeway accident, using the data of Zhejiang province, China from 2015 to 2019, a freeway safety evaluation system was constructed. The freeway safety level was measured by using hierarchical entropy method, and the future traffic accidents in the sample area were predicted by using the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. Results show that the traffic safety level of freeway in the sample areas presents a fluctuating upward trend, and has a relatively safe state with a safety level 2. The average error rate is only 0.47% in the predication of freeway accident, showing a high degree of fitting and accuracy. Based on the above conclusions, this study puts forward the corresponding improvement strategies to provide a scientific basis for the decision-making of the government and transportation departments

A novel gas ionization sensor using Pd nanoparticle-capped ZnO

A novel gas ionization sensor using Pd nanoparticle-capped ZnO (Pd/ZnO) nanorods as the anode is proposed. The Pd/ZnO nanorod-based sensors, compared with the bare ZnO nanorod, show lower breakdown voltage for the detected gases with good sensitivity and selectivity. Moreover, the sensors exhibit stable performance after more than 200 tests for both inert and active gases. The simple, low-cost, Pd/ZnO nanorod-based field-ionization gas sensors presented in this study have potential applications in the field of gas sensor devices

Causal-Based Supervision of Attention in Graph Neural Network: A Better and Simpler Choice towards Powerful Attention

Recent years have witnessed the great potential of attention mechanism in graph representation learning. However, while variants of attention-based GNNs are setting new benchmarks for numerous real-world datasets, recent works have pointed out that their induced attentions are less robust and generalizable against noisy graphs due to lack of direct supervision. In this paper, we present a new framework which utilizes the tool of causality to provide a powerful supervision signal for the learning process of attention functions. Specifically, we estimate the direct causal effect of attention to the final prediction, and then maximize such effect to guide attention attending to more meaningful neighbors. Our method can serve as a plug-and-play module for any canonical attention-based GNNs in an end-to-end fashion. Extensive experiments on a wide range of benchmark datasets illustrated that, by directly supervising attention functions, the model is able to converge faster with a clearer decision boundary, and thus yields better performances

Atorvastatin Combining with Probucol: A New Way to Reduce Serum Uric Acid Level during Perioperative Period of Interventional Procedure

Uric acid has ever been considered as one of contrast induced acute kidney injury’s risk factors. Atorvastatin and probucol can both improve contrast induced acute kidney injury separately. This prospective study is to assess their effect on reducing serum uric acid level and contrast induced acute kidney injury during perioperative period of interventional procedure. On the basis of different doses of atorvastatin and probucol, 208 cases admitted for coronary angiography or percutaneous coronary intervention were randomly classified into standard combined group (S-C group), intensive combined group (I-C group), and intensive atorvastatin group (I-A group). Patients’ blood urea nitrogen, serum creatinine, and serum uric acid were measured and estimated glomerular filtration rate was evaluated 24 hours before and after the procedure. After procedure, blood urea nitrogen in all the three groups decreased; Scr of S-C group and I-A group increased significantly, while estimated glomerular filtration decreased in the S-C group (P<0.05); serum uric acid in S-C group and I-C group decreased significantly (P<0.05). Combination treatment of atorvastatin and probucol before intervention could reduce perioperative serum uric acid level; meanwhile, the intensive combined treatment can improve the contrast induced acute kidney injury. The result was the same for hypertensive patients

Pathologically Activated Neuroprotection via Uncompetitive Blockade of \u3cem\u3eN\u3c/em\u3e-Methyl-d-aspartate Receptors with Fast Off-rate by Novel Multifunctional Dimer Bis(propyl)-cognitin

Uncompetitive N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists with fast off-rate (UFO) may represent promising drug candidates for various neurodegenerative disorders. In this study, we report that bis(propyl)-cognitin, a novel dimeric acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and γ-aminobutyric acid subtype A receptor antagonist, is such an antagonist of NMDA receptors. In cultured rat hippocampal neurons, we demonstrated that bis(propyl)-cognitin voltage-dependently, selectively, and moderately inhibited NMDA-activated currents. The inhibitory effects of bis(propyl)-cognitin increased with the rise in NMDA and glycine concentrations. Kinetics analysis showed that the inhibition was of fast onset and offset with an off-rate time constant of 1.9 s. Molecular docking simulations showed moderate hydrophobic interaction between bis(propyl)-cognitin and the MK-801 binding region in the ion channel pore of the NMDA receptor. Bis(propyl)-cognitin was further found to compete with [3H]MK-801 with a Ki value of 0.27 μm, and the mutation of NR1(N616R) significantly reduced its inhibitory potency. Under glutamate-mediated pathological conditions, bis(propyl)-cognitin, in contrast to bis(heptyl)-cognitin, prevented excitotoxicity with increasing effectiveness against escalating levels of glutamate and much more effectively protected against middle cerebral artery occlusion-induced brain damage than did memantine. More interestingly, under NMDA receptor-mediated physiological conditions, bis(propyl)-cognitin enhanced long-term potentiation in hippocampal slices, whereas MK-801 reduced and memantine did not alter this process. These results suggest that bis(propyl)-cognitin is a UFO antagonist of NMDA receptors with moderate affinity, which may provide a pathologically activated therapy for various neurodegenerative disorders associated with NMDA receptor dysregulation

SPIDer: Saccharomyces protein-protein interaction database

BACKGROUND: Since proteins perform their functions by interacting with one another and with other biomolecules, reconstructing a map of the protein-protein interactions of a cell, experimentally or computationally, is an important first step toward understanding cellular function and machinery of a proteome. Solely derived from the Gene Ontology (GO), we have defined an effective method of reconstructing a yeast protein interaction network by measuring relative specificity similarity (RSS) between two GO terms. DESCRIPTION: Based on the RSS method, here, we introduce a predicted Saccharomyces protein-protein interaction database called SPIDer. It houses a gold standard positive dataset (GSP) with high confidence level that covered 79.2% of the high-quality interaction dataset. Our predicted protein-protein interaction network reconstructed from the GSPs consists of 92 257 interactions among 3600 proteins, and forms 23 connected components. It also provides general links to connect predicted protein-protein interactions with three other databases, DIP, BIND and MIPS. An Internet-based interface provides users with fast and convenient access to protein-protein interactions based on various search features (searching by protein information, GO term information or sequence similarity). In addition, the RSS value of two GO terms in the same ontology, and the inter-member interactions in a list of proteins of interest or in a protein complex could be retrieved. Furthermore, the database presents a user-friendly graphical interface which is created dynamically for visualizing an interaction sub-network. The database is accessible at . CONCLUSION: SPIDer is a public database server for protein-protein interactions based on the yeast genome. It provides a variety of search options and graphical visualization of an interaction network. In particular, it will be very useful for the study of inter-member interactions among a list of proteins, especially the protein complex. In addition, based on the predicted interaction dataset, researchers could analyze the whole interaction network and associate the network topology with gene/protein properties based on a global or local topology view

Diabetic Osteoporosis: A Review of Its Traditional Chinese Medicinal Use and Clinical and Preclinical Research

Aim. The incidence of diabetic osteoporosis (DOP) is increasing due to lack of effective management over the past few decades. This review aims to summarize traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) suitability in the pathogenesis and clinical and preclinical management of DOP. Methods. Literature sources used were from Medline (Pubmed), CNKI (China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database), and CSTJ (China Science and Technology Journal Database) online databases. For the consultation, keywords such as diabetic osteoporosis (DOP), TCM, clinical study, animal experiment, toxicity, and research progress were used in various combinations. Around 100 research papers and reviews were visited. Results. Liver-spleen-kidney insufficiency may result in development of DOP. 18 clinical trials are identified to use TCM compound prescriptions for management of patients with DOP. TCM herbs and their active ingredients are effective in preventing the development of DOP in streptozotocin (STZ) and alloxan as well as STZ combined with ovariectomy insulted rats. Among them, most frequently used TCM herbs in clinical trials are Radix Astragali, Radix et Rhizoma Salviae Miltiorrhizae, Radix Rehmanniae Preparata, and Herba Epimedii. Some of TCM herbs also exhibit toxicities in clinical and preclinical research. Conclusions. TCM herbs may act as the novel sources of anti-DOP drugs by improving bone and glucolipid metabolisms. However, the pathogenesis of DOP and the material base of TCM herbs still merit further study