Bio-Internet of Things Through Micro-Circulation Network: A Molecular Communication Channel Modeling

The future of the Internet of Things (IoT) holds great promise, particularly in the realm of healthcare, where the concept of Bio-Internet of Things (B-IoT) has gained significant attention. B-IoT involves the coordination of monitoring and treatment within the human body using bio-implants that require communication. However, how to efficiently communicate among bio-implants is seldom studied. Molecular communication (MC), which uses molecules as information carriers, is a novel communication method of nano-devices for its excellent bio-compatibility and low energy consumption. In every part of the body, there is a micro-circulation network (MCN) responsible for substance exchange which can be utilized as a channel to deliver information efficiently by Bio-implants. However, since the structure of MCN is complicated and the characteristics of blood flow vary, there is not yet a mature channel modeling on MCN, making it impossible to design and evaluate the performance of B-IoT. In this paper, we address the need for efficient communication channels in B-IoT by exploring the potential of micro-circulation networks (MCN) in MC. We have fully analyzed the characteristics of MCN and blood flow and derived the mathematical model of channel impulse response. We also built a simple end-to-end communication model based on MCN and analyzed its error probability and mutual information from a communication perspective. The numerical results have shown that MCN is an effective communication channel of MC for B-IoT in the scale of m and mm

Age- and Sex-Related Changes in Fasting Plasma Glucose and Lipoprotein in Cynomolgus Monkeys

Background: The age-related dysfunction of glucose and lipid metabolism has a long-standing relationship with cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease. However, the effects of metabolic dysfunction on men and women are different. Reasons for these sex differences remains unclear. Cynomolgus monkeys have been used, in the past, for the study of human metabolic diseases due to their biologically proximity to humans. Nevertheless, few studies to date have focused on both age- and sex-related differences in glucose and lipid metabolism. The present study was designed to specifically address these questions by using a large cohort of cynomolgus monkeys (N = 1,399) including 433 males and 966 females with ages ranging 4 to 24 years old. Methods: Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and lipid parameters including total cholesterol (T-Cho), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) were measured. All these parameters were compared between ages and sexes. Results: Among the entire cohort, age was strongly correlated with levels of FPG, TG and HDL. Consequently, sex-related analysis revealed that females had significantly higher average levels of FPG, T-Cho, TG, HDL-C and LDL-C than their male counterparts. In addition, more female (28.5 %) than male (16 %) monkeys qualified for impaired fasting plasma glucose (IFPG). In those IFPG animals, sex-related differences were also detected i.e. females had significantly increased levels of T-Cho, TG and LDL-C. Conclusions: The result, for the first time, demonstrated the similarities and differences in detail between male and female cynomolgus monkeys in relationship to age-related glucose and lipoprotein metabolisms, and differences under various physiological conditions. The detailed glucose and lipoprotein profiling should provide additional and important insights for prediabetic conditions. Cynomolgus monkeys appear to be an excellent model for translational research of diabetes and for novel therapeutic strategies testing to overt diabetes

Diffusion Based Anti-Interference Joint Modulation in MIMO Molecular Communication

Molecular communication(MC) is a significant technology in the field of nano-biology, which uses molecules as message carriers to transmit information. Diffusion channel model is the most common channel model base on Brownian motion in molecular communication since molecules can diffuse to the destination without the need of extra energy supply. However, the random Brownian motion brings high delay and uncertainty to the communication process and thus modulation methods are required to improve the communication performance. The molecular communication system in the SISO (Single Input Single Output) scenario will be seriously affected by ISI (Inter Symbol Interference). In MIMO(Multi-Input Multi-Output) scenario, since there are multiple transmitters and receivers, in addition to ISI, there will be ILI (Inter Link Interference) as well. At present, most modulations are based on the concentration, type, time and space of molecules and only focus on SISO scenario. In this study, inspired by the MoSK(Molecule Shift Keying) modulation method, we proposed a new joint modulation method for MIMO communication in order to minimize the effect of ISI and ILI. Numerical results show that compared with the current modulation scheme, the proposed scheme allows the MIMO system achieve better BER(Bit error rate) performance and transmission rate

Heat transfer characteristics and flow visualization during flow boiling of acetone in semi-open multi-microchannels

Experimental results of flow boiling characteristics and flow patterns with acetone in two different microchannel heat sinks are presented in this paper. A semi-open microchannel heat sink and a straight microchannel heat sink with 19 parallel microchannels each were designed and tested. The semi-open microchannels have a channel width of 0.8 mm, fin width of 0.4 mm, and pedestal height of 0.2 mm and the straight microchannels have a rectangular cross section of 0.8 mm × 1 mm. The experimental heat fluxes ranged from 0 to 90 kW/m2, vapor quality ranged from 0.05 to 0.5, mass fluxes ranged from 4.34 to 15.62 kg/m2·s and the inlet temperatures were 20 and 30°C, respectively. Compared to those in the straight microchannels, flow boiling heat transfer coefficients can be improved by up to 36.2%. Furthermore, flow patterns were observed with a speed video camera. The flow boiling heat transfer mechanisms are analyzed according to the observed flow pattern

A Combined Risk Score Model to Assess Prognostic Value in Patients with Soft Tissue Sarcomas

A study by Tsvetkov et al. recently published a proposed novel form of copper-induced cell death in Science; however, few studies have looked into the possible mechanism in soft tissue sarcoma (STS). Herein, this study sought to investigate the function of cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in the development of tumor-associated immune cells and the prognosis of sarcoma. Herein, this study aimed to explore the role of cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in the development, tumor-associated immune cells, and the prognosis of sarcoma. Methods: The prognostic model was established via the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm as well as multivariate Cox regression analysis. The stromal scores, immune scores, ESTIMA scores, and tumor purity of sarcoma patients were evaluated by the ESTIMATE algorithm. Functional analyses were performed to investigate the underlying mechanisms of immune cell infiltration and the prognosis of CRGs in sarcoma. Results: Two molecular subgroups with different CRG expression patterns were recognized, which showed that patients with a higher immune score and more active immune status were prone to have better prognostic survival. Moreover, GO and KEGG analyses showed that these differentially expressed CRGs were mainly enriched in metabolic/ions-related signaling pathways, indicating that CRGs may have impacts on the immune cell infiltration and prognosis of sarcoma via regulating the bioprocess of mitochondria and consequently affecting the immune microenvironment. The expression levels of CRGs were closely correlated to the immunity condition and prognostic survival of sarcoma patients. Conclusions: The interaction between cuproptosis and immunity in sarcoma may provide a novel insight into the study of molecular mechanisms and candidate biomarkers for the prognosis, resulting in effective treatments for sarcoma patients

Evaluation on the possibility of sound conduction independent of tympanic air cavity for severe tympanic adhesion patients by finite element analysis

Background: For patients with severe tympanic adhesion, reconstructing the tympanic air cavity is often challenging, resulting in poor hearing reconstruction outcomes. Therefore, establishing a sound conduction pathway independent of the tympanic air cavity may be a viable method for reconstructing hearing in these patients.Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of sound conduction independent of the tympanic air cavity (i.e., replacing the original cavity with a tympanic vibrating material) using finite element analysis.Methods: We established a sound-structure coupling finite element model of the tympanum vibration conduction system, which included the tympanic membrane (TM), ossicular prosthesis, and tympanic vibrating material. This model was used to simulate middle ear vibrations under sound pressure, and we extracted the frequency response curve of the ossicular prosthesis’ vibration displacement amplitude to evaluate the sound conduction effect of the middle ear. Next, we adjusted the structural and mechanical parameters of the tympanic vibrating material to analyze its impact on the sound conduction effect of the middle ear. Finally, we compared the frequency response curve of the stapes footplate in normal subjects to evaluate the feasibility of sound conduction independent of the tympanic air cavity.Results: The Shell tympanic vibrating material had a better vibration conduction effect compared to solid or porous tympanic vibrating material. The vibration amplitude decreases with the increasing elastic modulus of the tympanic vibrating material. Implantation of 40 kPa-shell tympanic vibrating material had the lowest hearing loss less than 5 dB, and the hearing loss with 1 MPa-porous tympanic vibrating material was largest and less than 25 dB.Conclusion: Our study suggests that replacing the tympanic air cavity with a tympanic vibrating material is feasible. The establishment of a sound conduction pathway independent of the tympanic air cavity could potentially provide a method for hearing reconstruction in patients with severe tympanic adhesion

A 65nm 8b-Activation 8b-Weight SRAM-Based Charge-Domain Computing-in-Memory Macro Using A Fully-Parallel Analog Adder Network and A Single-ADC Interface

Performing data-intensive tasks in the von Neumann architecture is challenging to achieve both high performance and power efficiency due to the memory wall bottleneck. Computing-in-memory (CiM) is a promising mitigation approach by enabling parallel in-situ multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations within the memory with support from the peripheral interface and datapath. SRAM-based charge-domain CiM (CD-CiM) has shown its potential of enhanced power efficiency and computing accuracy. However, existing SRAM-based CD-CiM faces scaling challenges to meet the throughput requirement of high-performance multi-bit-quantization applications. This paper presents an SRAM-based high-throughput ReLU-optimized CD-CiM macro. It is capable of completing MAC and ReLU of two signed 8b vectors in one CiM cycle with only one A/D conversion. Along with non-linearity compensation for the analog computing and A/D conversion interfaces, this work achieves 51.2GOPS throughput and 10.3TOPS/W energy efficiency, while showing 88.6% accuracy in the CIFAR-10 dataset.Comment: Accepted by IEEE 48th European Solid-State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC 2022

Direct van der Waals Epitaxy of Crack-Free AlN Thin Film on Epitaxial WS2

Van der Waals epitaxy (vdWE) has drawn continuous attention, as it is unlimited by lattice-mismatch between epitaxial layers and substrates. Previous reports on the vdWE of III-nitride thin film were mainly based on two-dimensional (2D) materials by plasma pretreatment or pre-doping of other hexagonal materials. However, it is still a huge challenge for single-crystalline thin film on 2D materials without any other extra treatment or interlayer. Here, we grew high-quality single-crystalline AlN thin film on sapphire substrate with an intrinsic WS2 overlayer (WS2/sapphire) by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, which had surface roughness and defect density similar to that grown on conventional sapphire substrates. Moreover, an AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet light emitting diode structure on WS2/sapphire was demonstrated. The electroluminescence (EL) performance exhibited strong emissions with a single peak at 283 nm. The wavelength of the single peak only showed a faint peak-position shift with increasing current to 80 mA, which further indicated the high quality and low stress of the AlN thin film. This work provides a promising solution for further deep-ultraviolet (DUV) light emitting electrodes (LEDs) development on 2D materials, as well as other unconventional substrates

Peroxynitrite-Induced Apoptosis in FaDu Cells is Correlated with the Up-Regulation of PDCD4 Gene

Peroxynitrite (ONOO-) is a highly reactive species that attacks a range of biological targets. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of ONOOon FaDu cells, a human hypopharyngeal cancer cell line, with special attention given to the PDCD4 gene expression in response to this oxidative stress. The in vitro cultured FaDu cells were subjected to various concentrations of ONOO-, then, the cell viability and morphological changes were examined by MTT assay and acridine orange staining, respectively. The protein expressions of Caspase-9, Caspase-3, and PDCD4 were determined by western blot and the mRNA expression of PDCD4 was analyzed by RT-PCR. This work demonstrated that ONOOcould inhibit the proliferation and induce apoptosis of FaDu cells. The protein expressions of Caspase-9, Caspase-3, and PDCD4 were up-regulated and, meanwhile, the mRNA expression of PDCD4 was increased, in response to ONOO-. These data suggest that ONOOcan effectively suppress proliferation of FaDu cells via triggering the apoptotic pathway. PDCD4 gene may play an important role in ONOO--induced apoptosis in FaDu cells, which may offer a new target for the treatment of hypopharyngeal carcinoma.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire