On Tree-Based Neural Sentence Modeling

Neural networks with tree-based sentence encoders have shown better results on many downstream tasks. Most of existing tree-based encoders adopt syntactic parsing trees as the explicit structure prior. To study the effectiveness of different tree structures, we replace the parsing trees with trivial trees (i.e., binary balanced tree, left-branching tree and right-branching tree) in the encoders. Though trivial trees contain no syntactic information, those encoders get competitive or even better results on all of the ten downstream tasks we investigated. This surprising result indicates that explicit syntax guidance may not be the main contributor to the superior performances of tree-based neural sentence modeling. Further analysis show that tree modeling gives better results when crucial words are closer to the final representation. Additional experiments give more clues on how to design an effective tree-based encoder. Our code is open-source and available at https://github.com/ExplorerFreda/TreeEnc.Comment: To Appear at EMNLP 201

Luteoloside inhibiting the prostate cancer cells growth and promoting the tumor cells autophagy through AKT/mTOR pathway

Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the prevalent tumors in men causing higher mortality. Luteoloside has been discovered for suppressive role into the progression of some cancers. However, the Luteoloside’s regulatory functions regarding PC progression are not well understood. This study is thus designed to investigate the Luteoloside impact on PC progression. In this work, it was demonstrated that the PC cell proliferation was gradually inhibited with the increasing Luteoloside dose (0, 20, 40, 80 µM). Luteoloside also enhanced the PC cell apoptosis. It promoted the autophagy in PC through increasing microtubule-associated protein light chain (LC) 3II/LC3I levels and decreasing p62 levels. Moreover, the Luteoloside reduced phosphorylated-protein kinase B (p-AKT)/AKT and phosphorylated-mechanistic target of rapamycin (p-mTOR)/mTOR levels, indicating that it retarded the AKT/mTOR pathway. In conclusion, the Luteoloside inhibited PC cells growth and promoted tumor cells autophagy through AKT/mTOR pathway. This discovery suggested the Luteoloside as a potential drug in treating PC

Light-driven C-H bond activation mediated by 2D transition metal dichalcogenides

C-H bond activation enables the facile synthesis of new chemicals. While C-H activation in short-chain alkanes has been widely investigated, it remains largely unexplored for long-chain organic molecules. Here, we report light-driven C-H activation in complex organic materials mediated by 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) and the resultant solid-state synthesis of luminescent carbon dots in a spatially-resolved fashion. We unravel the efficient H adsorption and a lowered energy barrier of C-C coupling mediated by 2D TMDCs to promote C-H activation. Our results shed light on 2D materials for C-H activation in organic compounds for applications in organic chemistry, environmental remediation, and photonic materials

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Simulated Study of High-Sensitivity Gas Sensor with a Metal-PhC Nanocavity via Tamm Plasmon Polaritons

An optical configuration was designed and simulated with a metal-photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity, which had high sensitivity on gas detection. The simulated results shows that this configuration can generate a strong photonic localization through exciting Tamm plasmon polaritons. The strong photonic localization highly increases the sensitivity of gas detection. Furthermore, this configuration can be tuned to sense gases at different conditions through an adjustment of the detection light wavelength, the period number of photonic crystal and the thickness of the gas cavity. The sensing routes to pressure variations of air were revealed. The simulation results showed that the detection precision of the proposed device for gas pressure could reach 0.0004 atm

Simulated Study of High-Sensitivity Gas Sensor with a Metal-PhC Nanocavity via Tamm Plasmon Polaritons

An optical configuration was designed and simulated with a metal-photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity, which had high sensitivity on gas detection. The simulated results shows that this configuration can generate a strong photonic localization through exciting Tamm plasmon polaritons. The strong photonic localization highly increases the sensitivity of gas detection. Furthermore, this configuration can be tuned to sense gases at different conditions through an adjustment of the detection light wavelength, the period number of photonic crystal and the thickness of the gas cavity. The sensing routes to pressure variations of air were revealed. The simulation results showed that the detection precision of the proposed device for gas pressure could reach 0.0004 atm

ℋ∞ leader-following consensus of multi-agent systems with channel fading under switching topologies: a semi-Markov kernel approach

This paper focuses on the leader-following consensus problem of discrete-time multi-agent systems subject to channel fading under switching topologies. First, a topology switching-based channel fading model is established to describe the information fading of the communication channel among agents, which also considers the channel fading from leader to follower and from follower to follower. It is more general than models in the existing literature that only consider follower-to-follower fading. For discrete multi-agent systems, the existing literature usually adopts time series or Markov process to characterize topology switching while ignoring the more general semi-Markov process. Based on the advantages and properties of semi-Markov processes, discrete semi-Markov jump processes are adopted to model network topology switching. Then, the semi-Markov kernel approach for handling discrete semi-Markov jumping systems is exploited and some novel sufficient conditions to ensure the leader-following mean square consensus of closed-loop systems are derived. Furthermore, the distributed consensus protocol is proposed by means of the stochastic Lyapunov stability theory so that the underlying systems can achieve ℋ∞ consensus performance index. In addition, the proposed method is extended to the scenario where the semi-Markov kernel of semi-Markov switching topologies is not completely accessible. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the results proposed in this paper. Compared with the existing literature, the method in this paper is more effective and general

YAP1 expression is associated with survival and immunosuppression in small cell lung cancer

Abstract Immunotherapy is considered a major breakthrough in the treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC), although its anti-tumor efficacy is limited. With a high degree of malignancy and high heterogeneity, SCLC is difficult to treat in the clinic. A new combination strategy is urgently needed to further improve the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with SCLC. By immunofluorescence, 100 SCLC patients in a local cohort were classified into the SCLC-A (high ASCL1 expression; n = 36), SCLC-N (high NEUROD1 expression; n = 32), SCLC-P (high POU2F3 expression; n = 14), and SCLC-Y (high YAP1 expression; n = 18) subtypes. Each SCLC molecular subtype represented different prognoses, tumor microenvironment traits, and immunotherapy sensitivities. Analysis of both the local and public cohorts suggested that the SCLC-Y subtype exhibited the worst clinical outcome (p < 0.05) when compared with other subtypes. SCLC with high YAP1 expression was characterized by high PD-L1 expression, high stromal score, T-cell functional impairment, and a close relationship with immune-related pathways. YAP1 upregulated PD-L1 expression and suppressed T cell activation, thus leading to immune evasion. In in vitro experiments, blockade of YAP1 promoted cancer cell apoptosis, immune cell proliferation, T-cell activation, and cytotoxic T-cell infiltration, thus further potentiating the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with the SCLC-Y subtype

Establishment of Silane/GO Multistage Hybrid Interface Layer to Improve Interfacial and Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Poly (phthalazinone ether ketone) Thermoplastic Composites

This study focused on the faint interface bonding between carbon fiber (CF) and poly(phthalazinone ether ketone) (PPEK) thermoplastic, a multistage hybrid interface layer was constructed via the condensation reaction of N-[3-(Trimethoxysilyl)propyl]-N,N,N-trimethylammonium chloride (KHN+) and the electrostatic adsorption of graphene oxide (GO). The influence of the contents of GO (0.2 wt%, 0.4 wt%, 0.6 wt%) on the interfacial properties of composites was explored. FTIR, Raman spectra, XPS tests indicated the successful preparation of CF-KHN+-GO reinforcements. The multistage hybrid interface layer significantly increased fiber surface roughness without surface microstructure destruction. Simultaneously, polarity and wettability are remarkably improved as evidenced by the dynamic contact angle experiment. The interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and flexural strength of the CF/PPEK composites with 0.4 wt% GO (CF-KHN+-4GO) were 74.57 and 1508 MPa, which was 25.2% and 23.5% higher than that of untreated CF/PPEK composite, respectively. Dynamic mechanical analysis proved that CF/GO/PPEK composites have excellent high-temperature mechanical properties. This study furnishes an unsophisticated and valid strategy to build an interface transition layer with a strong binding force, which would offer a new train of thought in preparing high-performing structural composites

The Effect of N-Acetylation on the Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Chitooligosaccharides and Its Potential for Relieving Endotoxemia

Endotoxemia is mainly caused by a massive burst of inflammatory cytokines as a result of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) invasion. Chitooligosaccharides (COS) is expected to be a potential drug for relieving endotoxemia due to its anti-inflammatory properties. However, the structural parameters of COS are often ambiguous, and the effect of degree of acetylation (DA) of COS on its anti-inflammatory remains unknown. In this study, four COSs with different DAs (0%, 12%, 50% and 85%) and the same oligomers distribution were successfully obtained. Their structures were confirmed by 1H NMR and MS analysis. Then, the effect of DA on the anti-inflammatory activity and relieving endotoxemia potential of COS was researched. The results revealed that COS with a DA of 12% had better anti-inflammatory activity than COSs with other DAs, mainly in inhibiting LPS-induced inflammatory cytokines burst, down-regulating its mRNA expression and reducing phosphorylation of I&kappa;B&alpha;. Furthermore, this COS showed an obviously protective effect on endotoxemia mice, such as inhibiting the increase in inflammatory cytokines and transaminases, alleviating the injury of liver and intestinal tissue. This study explored the effect of DA on the anti-inflammatory activity of COS for the first time and lays the foundation for the development of COS as an anti-inflammatory drug against endotoxemia