230 research outputs found
Quantification of performance uncertainty due to geometric variability for full annulus compressor
Viscum album extract suppresses cell proliferation and induces apoptosis in bladder cancer cells
Purpose: To evaluate the effect of Viscum album (VA) extract on the progression of bladder cancer (BC) and its effect on the proliferation and apoptosis of T24 and J82 bladder cancer cells.
Methods: 3-(4,5-Dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay (MTT assay) was conducted to examine the proliferation of bladder cancer cells. Flow cytometry (FCM) was employed to assess changes in the cell cycle of bladder cancer cells. The expression levels of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), CLND1 (cyclin D1), p21, and p27 in control and VA extract-treated (100, 200, or 300 ΞΌg/mL) T24 and J82 cells were measured by immunoblot assay. The effects of VA extract on T24 or J82 cell apoptosis were evaluated using FCM. Immunoblot assay was performed to evaluate Bcl2, Bax, and cleaved caspase 3 expression in control or VA extract-treated bladder cancer cells. In addition, the effect of VA extract on Axl-AKT pathways was also evaluated by immunoblot assay.
Results: Viscum album extract treatment significantly blocked bladder cancer cell proliferation and induced cell cycle arrest. In addition, VA extract stimulated bladder cancer cell apoptosis. Moreover, this study found that VA extract suppressed Axl-AKT pathways in bladder cancer.
Conclusion: Viscum album extract exerts anti-proliferation and pro-apoptosis effects on bladder cancer cells. These abilities render Viscum album extract as promising agent in bladder cancer treatment
Bovine serum albumin in saliva mediates grazing response in Leymus chinensis revealed by RNA sequencing
BACKGROUND: Sheepgrass (Leymus chinensis) is an important perennial forage grass across the Eurasian Steppe and is adaptable to various environmental conditions, but little is known about its molecular mechanism responding to grazing and BSA deposition. Because it has a large genome, RNA sequencing is expensive and impractical except for the next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. RESULTS: In this study, NGS technology was employed to characterize de novo the transcriptome of sheepgrass after defoliation and grazing treatments and to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) responding to grazing and BSA deposition. We assembled more than 47Β M high-quality reads into 120,426 contigs from seven sequenced libraries. Based on the assembled transcriptome, we detected 2,002 DEGs responding to BSA deposition during grazing. Enrichment analysis of Gene ontology (GO), EuKaryotic Orthologous Groups (KOG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways revealed that the effects of grazing and BSA deposition involved more apoptosis and cell oxidative changes compared to defoliation. Analysis of DNA fragments, cell oxidative factors and the lengths of leaf scars after grazing provided physiological and morphological evidence that BSA deposition during grazing alters the oxidative and apoptotic status of cells. CONCLUSIONS: This research greatly enriches sheepgrass transcriptome resources and grazing-stress-related genes, helping us to better understand the molecular mechanism of grazing in sheepgrass. The grazing-stress-related genes and pathways will be a valuable resource for further gene-phenotype studies. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-1126) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users
Graphene oxide dielectric permittivity at GHz and its applications for wireless humidity sensing
Graphene oxide relative dielectric permittivity, both its real and imaginary
parts, have been measured under various humidity conditions at GHz. It is
demonstrated that the relative dielectric permittivity increases with
increasing humidity due to water uptake. This electrical property of graphene
oxide was used to create a battery-free wireless radio-frequency identification
(RFID) humidity sensor by coating printed graphene antenna with the graphene
oxide layer. The resonance frequency as well as the backscattering phase of
such graphene oxide/graphene antenna become sensitive to the surrounding
humidity and can be detected by the RFID reader. This enables batteryless
wireless monitoring of the local humidity with digital identification attached
to any location or item and paves the way for low-cost efficient sensors for
Internet of Things applications
TRACE: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Continual Learning in Large Language Models
Aligned large language models (LLMs) demonstrate exceptional capabilities in
task-solving, following instructions, and ensuring safety. However, the
continual learning aspect of these aligned LLMs has been largely overlooked.
Existing continual learning benchmarks lack sufficient challenge for leading
aligned LLMs, owing to both their simplicity and the models' potential exposure
during instruction tuning. In this paper, we introduce TRACE, a novel benchmark
designed to evaluate continual learning in LLMs. TRACE consists of 8 distinct
datasets spanning challenging tasks including domain-specific tasks,
multilingual capabilities, code generation, and mathematical reasoning. All
datasets are standardized into a unified format, allowing for effortless
automatic evaluation of LLMs. Our experiments show that after training on
TRACE, aligned LLMs exhibit significant declines in both general ability and
instruction-following capabilities. For example, the accuracy of llama2-chat
13B on gsm8k dataset declined precipitously from 28.8\% to 2\% after training
on our datasets. This highlights the challenge of finding a suitable tradeoff
between achieving performance on specific tasks while preserving the original
prowess of LLMs. Empirical findings suggest that tasks inherently equipped with
reasoning paths contribute significantly to preserving certain capabilities of
LLMs against potential declines. Motivated by this, we introduce the
Reasoning-augmented Continual Learning (RCL) approach. RCL integrates
task-specific cues with meta-rationales, effectively reducing catastrophic
forgetting in LLMs while expediting convergence on novel tasks
Severe Stroke Patients With Left-Sided Occlusion of the Proximal Anterior Circulation Benefit More From Thrombectomy
Background and Purpose: Endovascular thrombectomy improves the functional independence of patients with proximal anterior circulation occlusion. However, a subset of patients fail to benefit from thrombectomy procedures, the reasons for which remain poorly defined. In this study, we investigated whether the effectiveness of thrombectomy was affected by left- or right-sided occlusion among patients with similar stroke severities.Methods: Patients with proximal anterior circulation occlusion (internal carotid or M1 of middle cerebral artery) treated with the Solitaire stent retriever within 8 h of the onset of acute ischemic stroke were enrolled from the Yijishan Hospital of Wannan Medical College. Stroke severity was measured using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) on admission. The functional outcomes were assessed using the modified Rankin scale (mRS) at 90 days.Results: We enrolled 174 patients including 90 left-sided occlusion and 84 right-sided occlusion. The NIHSS scores on admission were higher in the left-sided (median, 19; interquartile range, 16 to 20) compared to the right-sided occlusion group (median, 15, interquartile range, 13 to 18) (P < 0.001). Following adjustment for potential risk factors, patients with left-sided occlusion had higher rates of functional independence (mRS β€ 2) and lower rates of mortality (mRS = 6) compared to the right-sided occlusion patients (39.5 vs. 19.6% and 28.9 vs. 47.8%, respectively) in the severe stroke group (NIHSS β₯ 15).Conclusions: In severe stroke patients with proximal anterior circulation occlusion, stent retriever thrombectomy within 8 h of the onset of symptoms provides more benefits to left-sided occlusion
Binder-free highly conductive graphene laminate for low cost printed radio frequency applications
In this paper, we demonstrate realization of printable radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna by low temperature processing of graphene ink. The required ultra-low resistance is achieved by rolling compression of binder-free graphene laminate. With compression, the conductivity of graphene laminate is increased by more than 50 times compared to that of as-deposited one. Graphene laminate with conductivity of 4.3 x 10(4) S/m and sheet resistance of 3.8 Omega/sq (with thickness of 6 mu m) is presented. Moreover, the formation of graphene laminate from graphene ink reported here is simple and can be carried out in low temperature (100 degrees C), significantly reducing the fabrication costs. A dipole antenna based on the highly conductive graphene laminate is further patterned and printed on a normal paper to investigate its RF properties. The performance of the graphene laminate antenna is experimentally measured. The measurement results reveal that graphene laminate antenna can provide practically acceptable return loss, gain, bandwidth, and radiation patterns, making it ideal for low cost printed RF applications, such as RFID tags and wearable wireless sensor networks.close1
Case report: Targeted sequencing facilitates the diagnosis and management of rare multifocal pure ground-glass opacities with intrapulmonary metastasis
IntroductionTreatments for multiple ground-glass opacities (GGOs) for which the detection rate is increasing are still controversial. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) may provide additional key evidence for differential diagnosis or optimal therapeutic schedules.Case presentationWe first reported a rare case in which more than 100 bilateral pulmonary GGOs (91.7% of the GGOs were pure GGOs) were diagnosed as both multiple primary lung cancer and intrapulmonary metastasis. We performed NGS with an 808-gene panel to assess both somatic and germline alterations in tissues and plasma. The patient (male) underwent three successive surgeries and received osimertinib adjuvant therapy due to signs of metastasis and multiple EGFR-mutated tumors. The patient had multiple pure GGOs, and eight tumors of four pathological subtypes were evaluated for the clonal relationship. Metastasis, including pure GGOs and atypical adenomatous hyperplasia, was found between two pairs of tumors. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) monitoring of disease status may impact clinical decision-making.ConclusionsSurgery combined with targeted therapies remains a reasonable alternative strategy for treating patients with multifocal GGOs, and NGS is valuable for facilitating diagnostic workup and adjuvant therapy with targeted drugs through tissue and disease monitoring via ctDNA
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