Effect of down—regulation of voltage—gated sodium channel Nav1.7 on activation of astrocytes and microglia in DRG in rats with cancer pain

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the effect of down-regulation of Nav1.7 on the activation of astrocytes and microglia in DRG of rats with cancer pain, and explore the transmission of the nociceptive information.MethodsLentiviral vector harboring RNAi sequence targeting the Nav1.7 gene was constructed, and Walker 256 breast cancer cell and morphine was injected to build the bone cancer pain model and morphine tolerance model in rats. Lentiviral vector was injected. Rats in each model were divided into 4 groups: model group, PBS group, vehicle group and LV-Nav1.7 group. The expression levels of GFAP and OX42 in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) were measured.ResultsAfter the animal model was built, the level of Nav1.7, GFAP and OX42 was improved obviously with the time prolonged, which was statistically significant (P<0.05). The expression level of GFAP and OX42 in the DRG in the LV-Nav1.7 group declined obviously compared to the model group, PBS group and vehicle group (P<0.05).ConclusionsIntrathecal injection of Navl.7 shRNA lentiviral vector can reduce the expression of Nav1.7 and inhibit the activation of astrocytes and microglia in DRG. The effort is also effective in morphine tolerance bone cancer pain model rats

BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS OF BADMINTON DIFFERENT FORWARD STEPS

The purpose of this study was to compare the biomechanical variables between 2-step and 3-step forward steps in badminton. Eight collegiate elite male badminton players participated in this study. Eight Vicon T-20 cameras (300 Hz) were used to record the 3D kinematics data and a Kistler force plate (1500 Hz) was used to collect the GRF data of the last steps. A Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank nonparametric statistical test was conducted to compare the differences between two kinds of forward step movements. The results showed that the movement time for 3-step movement was significantly faster than 2-step. We recommend that the badminton players should practice 3-step forward footwork technique. The additional strength and power training for lower limbs should be carried out for the footwork training

Virtual reality training and assessment in laparoscopic rectum surgery

Background: Virtual-reality (VR) based simulation techniques offer an efficient and low cost alternative to conventional surgery training. This article describes a VR training and assessment system in laparoscopic rectum surgery. Methods: To give a realistic visual performance of interaction between membrane tissue and surgery tools, a generalized cylinder based collision detection and a multi-layer mass-spring model are presented. A dynamic assessment model is also designed for hierarchy training evaluation. Results: With this simulator, trainees can operate on the virtual rectum with both visual and haptic sensation feedback simultaneously. The system also offers surgeons instructions in real time when improper manipulation happens. The simulator has been tested and evaluated by ten subjects. Conclusions: This prototype system has been verified by colorectal surgeons through a pilot study. They believe the visual performance and the tactile feedback are realistic. It exhibits the potential to effectively improve the surgical skills of trainee surgeons and significantly shorten their learning curve. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Mitigating the Alignment Tax of RLHF

LLMs acquire a wide range of abilities during pre-training, but aligning LLMs under Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) can lead to forgetting, which is also known as the alignment tax. To empirically verify this hypothesis, we conducted experiments with existing RLHF algorithms using OpenLLaMA-3B, which revealed a pronounced alignment tax in NLP tasks. On the other hand, despite various techniques to mitigate forgetting, they are often at odds with the RLHF performance, leading to a trade-off between reward maximization and forgetting mitigation. In light of the above pressing issue in aligning LLMs, in this paper we explore model averaging, which interpolates between pre and post RLHF model weights, to achieve a more efficient reward-tax Pareto front. To understand its effectiveness, We offer theoretical insights into model averaging, revealing that it enhances performance Pareto front by increasing feature diversity on the layers where tasks share overlapped feature spaces. Empirical evidence corroborates our analysis by showing the benefits of averaging low-level transformer layers. Building on the analysis and the observation that averaging different layers of the transformer leads to significantly different reward-tax trade-offs, we propose Adaptive Model Averaging (AMA) to adaptively find various combination ratios of model layers. AMA seeks to maximize the alignment reward while incurring minimal alignment tax. Moreover, we validate AMA's performance across a range of RLHF algorithms over OpenLLaMA-3B and further extend our findings to Mistral-7B.Comment: 28 Page

Microplastic prevalence in marine fish from onshore Beibu Gulf, South China Sea

In recent years, microplastics have been widely detected in marine fish and may pose potential risks to fish and human health. Even though microplastic pollution is a critical issue, it represents as yet non-quantified threat for some context in the marine environment. In this study, 271 individuals comprising 32 species of marine fish collected from Beibu Gulf were examined for microplastic prevalence, with an aim to provide data on the abundance, physical classification, and chemical characterization of microplastics in the great bay along South China Sea. The results showed that the occurrence rate of microplastics was 93.7%, and the average abundance of microplastics was 1.02 ± 0.18 items per individual (ranging from 0.03 to 4.00 items per individual). Microplastic accumulation was observed with a great variation in different species, body sizes, living habitats, and feeding habits of marine fishes. The dominant polymers identified by μ-FTIR were polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene. Fibers, smaller sizes (&lt;1 mm), and transparent color were the major characteristics of the detected microplastics, which might be important factors affecting the bioaccumulation. The present study revealed that microplastics in marine fish is a widespread issue in onshore Beibu Gulf

Molecular Characterization and Expression Pattern of Tripartite Motif Protein 39 in Gallus gallus with a Complete PRY/SPRY Domain

Members of tripartite motif (TRIM) proteins in mammals play important roles in multiple cellular processes in the immune system. In the present study we have obtained the chicken TRIM39 with the insertion of a base A at position 1006 bp, compared to the sequence in the NCBI database (Accession No: NM 001006196), which made TRIM39 fulfill the TRIM rule of domain composition with both PRY, and SPRY domains. The open reading frame consisted of 1392 bp encoding 463 amino acid residues. The amino acid sequences of TRIM39 protein in mammals were highly similar (from 91.48% to 99.61%), while chicken TRIM39 had relatively low homology with mammals (from 29.2% to 39.59%). Real time RT-PCR indicated that the mRNA expression level of TRIM39 was the highest in spleen, with a lower expression in liver, brain, and lung, suggesting it might be an important protein participating in the immune system

High-efficiency single-photon source above the loss-tolerant threshold for efficient linear optical quantum computing

Photon loss is the biggest enemy for scalable photonic quantum information processing. This problem can be tackled by using quantum error correction, provided that the overall photon loss is below a threshold of 1/3. However, all reported on-demand and indistinguishable single-photon sources still fall short of this threshold. Here, by using tailor shaped laser pulse excitation on a high-quantum efficiency single quantum dot deterministically coupled to a tunable open microcavity, we demonstrate a high-performance source with a single-photon purity of 0.9795(6), photon indistinguishability of 0.9856(13), and an overall system efficiency of 0.712(18), simultaneously. This source for the first time reaches the efficiency threshold for scalable photonic quantum computing. With this source, we further demonstrate 1.89(14) dB intensity squeezing, and consecutive 40-photon events with 1.67 mHz count rate