Halpern-type Iterations for Strong Relatively Nonexpansive Multi-valued Mappings in Banach Spaces

In this paper, an iterative sequence for strong relatively nonexpansive multi-valued mapping by modifying Halpern’s iterations is introduced, and then some strong convergence theorems are proved. At the end of the paper some applications are given also.Key words Multi-valued mapping; Strong relatively nonexpansive; Fixed point; Iterative sequence; Normalized duality mappin

Irbesartan protects against type 2 diabetic nephropathy by regulating miR-93/VEGF and its downstream effectors

Purpose: To investigate the protective effect of irbesartan against type 2 diabetic nephropathy (T2DN), and the mechanism involved.Methods: Wistar rats (n = 48) were used in this study. Diabetes mellitus (DM) was established in the rats via injection of streptozotocin (STZ). Thereafter, the DM rats were randomly divided into diabetic nephropathy (DN) group and irbesartan group, with 16 rats in each group. Rats in the control group (n = 16) received normal saline in place of irbesartan.Results: Total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TGs), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), as well as protein expression levels of VEGF, FN, collagen IV in DN group were significantly higher in irbesartan group than the corresponding levels in normal control group, while miR-93 protein expression level was significantly lower than that in normal control group (p < 0.05). However, the expression level of mir-93 was significantly higher in irbesartan group than in DN group, while levels of TC, TGs, HDL-C, LDL-C and VEGF, as well as protein levels of FN and collagen IV protein were significantly lower than those in DN group (p < 0.05). There was no obvious change in the renal tissues of the normal control group. In contrast, in the DN group, glomerularcapillary loop hypertrophy, narrow glomerular cavity, thick basement membrane, mesangial matrix, and vacuolar degeneration in renal tubular epithelial cells, were evident. Compared with DN group, the pathological changes in the irbesartan group were significantly mitigated (p < 0.05).Conclusion: Irbesartan protects DM rats against type 2 diabetic nephropathy by regulating mir-93/VEGF and its downstream effector molecules. This provides some ideas for the development of new drugs for the prevention of type 2 diabetic nephropathy

Neoatherosclerosis after Drug-Eluting Stent Implantation: Roles and Mechanisms

In-stent neoatherosclerosis (NA), characterized by a relatively thin fibrous cap and large volume of yellow-lipid accumulation after drug-eluting stents (DES) implantation, has attracted much attention owing to its close relationship with late complications, such as revascularization and late stent thrombosis (ST). Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that more than one-third of patients with first-generation DES present with NA. Even in the advent of second-generation DES, NA still occurs. It is indicated that endothelial dysfunction induced by DES plays a critical role in neoatherosclerotic development. Upregulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) induced by DES implantation significantly affects endothelial cells healing and functioning, therefore rendering NA formation. In light of the role of ROS in suppression of endothelial healing, combining antioxidant therapies with stenting technology may facilitate reestablishing a functioning endothelium to improve clinical outcome for patients with stenting

Bibliometric and visual analysis of RAN methylation in cardiovascular disease

BackgroundRNA methylation is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) occurrence and development. The purpose of this study is to visually analyze the results and research trends of global RNA methylation in CVD.MethodsArticles and reviews on RNA methylation in CVD published before 6 November 2022 were searched in the Web of Science Core Collection. Visual and statistical analysis was performed using CiteSpace 1.6.R4 advanced and VOSviewer 1.6.18.ResultsThere were 847 papers from 1,188 institutions and 63 countries/regions. Over approximately 30 years, there was a gradual increase in publications and citations on RNA methylation in CVD. America and China had the highest output (284 and 259 papers, respectively). Nine of the top 20 institutions that published articles were from China, among which Fudan University represented the most. The International Journal of Molecular Sciences was the journal with the most studies. Nature was the most co-cited journal. The most influential writers were Zhang and Wang from China and Mathiyalagan from the United States. After 2015, the primary keywords were cardiac development, heart, promoter methylation, RNA methylation, and N6-methyladenosine. Nuclear RNA, m6A methylation, inhibition, and myocardial infarction were the most common burst keywords from 2020 to the present.ConclusionsA bibliometric analysis reveals research hotspots and trends of RNA methylation in CVD. The regulatory mechanisms of RNA methylation related to CVD and the clinical application of their results, especially m6A methylation, are likely to be the focus of future research

Universal Normalization Enhanced Graph Representation Learning for Gene Network Prediction

Effective gene network representation learning is of great importance in bioinformatics to predict/understand the relation of gene profiles and disease phenotypes. Though graph neural networks (GNNs) have been the dominant architecture for analyzing various graph-structured data like social networks, their predicting on gene networks often exhibits subpar performance. In this paper, we formally investigate the gene network representation learning problem and characterize a notion of \textit{universal graph normalization}, where graph normalization can be applied in an universal manner to maximize the expressive power of GNNs while maintaining the stability. We propose a novel UNGNN (Universal Normalized GNN) framework, which leverages universal graph normalization in both the message passing phase and readout layer to enhance the performance of a base GNN. UNGNN has a plug-and-play property and can be combined with any GNN backbone in practice. A comprehensive set of experiments on gene-network-based bioinformatical tasks demonstrates that our UNGNN model significantly outperforms popular GNN benchmarks and provides an overall performance improvement of 16 $\%$ on average compared to previous state-of-the-art (SOTA) baselines. Furthermore, we also evaluate our theoretical findings on other graph datasets where the universal graph normalization is solvable, and we observe that UNGNN consistently achieves the superior performance

Electroacupuncture Improves Neurobehavioral Function Through Targeting of SOX2-Mediated Axonal Regeneration by MicroRNA-132 After Ischemic Stroke

Our previous studies have shown that electroacupuncture (EA) enhances neurobehavioral functional recovery after ischemic stroke, however, the underlying regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are abundant in the brain and are involved in post-transcriptional gene regulation. During cerebral ischemia reperfusion, miRNAs perform numerous biological functions in the central nervous system related to regeneration and repair of damaged nerves. Our previous studies also have shown that the expression of miRNA-132 (miR-132) is obviously down-regulated after stroke by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO), which can be up-regulated by EA. This study aimed to identify whether up-regulation of miR-132 by EA improved the damaged nerves after stroke and to screen the potential target of miR-132. The results showed that EA up-regulated miR-132 thus suppressing SOX2 expression in vivo after MCAO, which obviously ameliorated neurobehavioral functional recovery. Moreover, our results also suggested that up-regulated miR-132 suppressed SOX2 in primary neurons after oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD), which promoted neurite outgrowth. In conclusion, EA enhances neurobehavioral functional recovery against ischemic stroke through targeting of SOX2-mediated axonal regeneration by miR-132

Media bias and the climate issue

How do individuals manipulate the information they privately have in strategic interactions? The economics of information is a classic topic, and mass media often features in its analysis. Indeed, the international mass media play an important role in forming people’s perception of the climate problem. However, media coverage on the climate problem is often biased. Media reporting our paper are vivid examples of the prevalence and variety of media bias in reporting scientific results. While our analysis investigates the media tendency of accentuating or even exaggerating scientific findings of climate damage, the articles misinterpret our results, accentuate and exaggerate one side of our research, and completely omit the other side

Information manipulation and climate agreements

It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous