Dexmedetomidine relieves inflammatory response in rats with acute spinal cord injury through IKK/NF-κB signaling pathway

Purpose: To examine the effect of dexmedetomidine (DEX) on inflammatory response in spinal cord damage, and involvement of IKK/NF-κB signaling pathway in the process.Methods: Sixty healthy male Wistar rats were selected and randomly divided into sham, control, IKK inhibition, and DEX groups. Rat hind limb motor function in each group at 1, 24 and 48 h after surgery was determined using Basso Beattie Bresnahan (BBB) method, while Western blot assay was used to evaluate the protein expression levels of IL-1β, IKK and NF-κB in spinal cord tissue.Results: In DEX rat group, neuromotor function at 24 and 48 h, and protein expression level of IL-1β in spinal cord tissue significantly decreased, relative to IKK inhibition group (p < 0.05). There were higher protein expressions of IKK and NF-κB in IKK inhibition and DEX groups than in sham rats, but were lower than the corresponding values for model group (p < 0.05). However, these proteins were significantly downregulated in DEX group, relative to the IKK inhibition rats (p < 0.05).Conclusion: DEX mitigates inflammatory response in rats with acute spinal cord injury via IKK/NF-κB signaling pathway. This provides some ideas for research and development of other drugs for the treatment of acute spinal cord injury

A restricted memory quasi-Newton bundle method for nonsmooth optimization on Riemannian manifolds

In this paper, a restricted memory quasi-Newton bundle method for minimizing a locally Lipschitz function over a Riemannian manifold is proposed, which extends the classical one in Euclidean spaces to the manifold setting. The curvature information of the objective function is approximated by applying the Riemannian version of the quasi-Newton updating formulas. The subgradient aggregation technique is used to avoid solving the time-consuming quadratic programming subproblem when calculating the candidate descent direction. Moreover, a new Riemannian line search procedure is proposed to generate the stepsizes, and the process is finitely terminated under a new version of the Riemannian semismooth assumption. Global convergence of the proposed method is established: if the serious iteration steps are finite, then the last serious iterate is stationary; otherwise, every accumulation point of the serious iteration sequence is stationary. Finally, some preliminary numerical results show that the proposed method is efficient

K-Space-Aware Cross-Modality Score for Synthesized Neuroimage Quality Assessment

The problem of how to assess cross-modality medical image synthesis has been largely unexplored. The most used measures like PSNR and SSIM focus on analyzing the structural features but neglect the crucial lesion location and fundamental k-space speciality of medical images. To overcome this problem, we propose a new metric K-CROSS to spur progress on this challenging problem. Specifically, K-CROSS uses a pre-trained multi-modality segmentation network to predict the lesion location, together with a tumor encoder for representing features, such as texture details and brightness intensities. To further reflect the frequency-specific information from the magnetic resonance imaging principles, both k-space features and vision features are obtained and employed in our comprehensive encoders with a frequency reconstruction penalty. The structure-shared encoders are designed and constrained with a similarity loss to capture the intrinsic common structural information for both modalities. As a consequence, the features learned from lesion regions, k-space, and anatomical structures are all captured, which serve as our quality evaluators. We evaluate the performance by constructing a large-scale cross-modality neuroimaging perceptual similarity (NIRPS) dataset with 6,000 radiologist judgments. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other metrics, especially in comparison with the radiologists on NIRPS

Technical Report for Argoverse Challenges on Unified Sensor-based Detection, Tracking, and Forecasting

This report presents our Le3DE2E solution for unified sensor-based detection, tracking, and forecasting in Argoverse Challenges at CVPR 2023 Workshop on Autonomous Driving (WAD). We propose a unified network that incorporates three tasks, including detection, tracking, and forecasting. This solution adopts a strong Bird's Eye View (BEV) encoder with spatial and temporal fusion and generates unified representations for multi-tasks. The solution was tested in the Argoverse 2 sensor dataset to evaluate the detection, tracking, and forecasting of 26 object categories. We achieved 1st place in Detection, Tracking, and Forecasting on the E2E Forecasting track in Argoverse Challenges at CVPR 2023 WAD

Role of Extracellular Ionized Calcium in the In Vitro Assessment of GPIIb/IIIa Receptor Antagonists

Several preclinical studies have found a poor correlation between the ex vivo platelet inhibitory potency and the in vivo antithrombotic efficacy of GPIIb/IIIa receptor antagonists. The present study was designed to examine the differential in vitro potencies of c7E3, MK-383, DMP-728, and SM-20302 in inhibiting ex vivo platelet aggregation under normocalcemic and hypocalcemic conditions. Human blood was collected in either trisodium citrate (0.37%) or PPACK (20 µg/mL). Platelet aggregation assays were performed in platelet-rich plasma from citrate-anticoagulated blood (cPRP) and PPACK-anticoagulated blood (pPRP) using ADP (20 µM) and TRAP (10 µM) as agonists in the presence of c7E3, MK-383, DMP-728, or SM-20302. The concentration of ionized calcium in cPRP was 16–19 times lower than that in pPRP. The IC 50 of c7E3 for inhibiting ADP-induced platelet aggregation in cPRP (2.76 ± 0.11 µg/mL) was 1.6 times lower than that in pPRP (4.46 ± 0.48 µg/mL; P < 0.05). Similarly, the IC 50 for c7E3 for inhibiting TRAP-induced platelet aggregation in cPRP (4.52 ± 0.34 µg/mL) was 1.7 times lower than that in pPRP (7.69 ± 0.43 µg/mL; P < 0.05). MK-383, DMP-728, and SM-20302 also demonstrated 1.96-, 1.15-, and 1.43-fold lower IC 50 values, respectively, in cPRP as compared with pPRP. Chelation of ionized calcium in pPRP led to a progressive increase in platelet inhibition by all the antagonists. These results suggest that the observed in vitro inhibitory potency of a GPIIb/IIIa receptor antagonist is markedly enhanced when trisodium citrate is used as an anticoagulant to collect blood for ex vivo assay. These findings indicate that dosing regimens for GPIIb/IIIa receptor antagonists based on the platelet inhibition profile in citrate may provide misleading information with respect to their true in vivo antithrombotic efficacy.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/48046/1/11239_2004_Article_202949.pd

A vector spectrum analyzer of 55.1 THz spectral bandwidth and 99 kHz frequency resolution

The analysis of optical spectra - emission or absorption - has been arguably the most powerful approach for discovering and understanding matters. The invention and development of many kinds of spectrometers have equipped us with versatile yet ultra-sensitive diagnostic tools for trace gas detection, isotope analysis, and resolving hyperfine structures of atoms and molecules. With proliferating data and information, urgent and demanding requirements have been placed today on spectrum analysis with ever-increasing spectral bandwidth and frequency resolution. These requirements are especially stringent for broadband laser sources that carry massive information, and for dispersive devices used in information processing systems. In addition, spectrum analyzers are expected to probe the device's phase response where extra information is encoded. Here we demonstrate a novel vector spectrum analyzer (VSA) that is capable to characterize passive devices and active laser sources in one setup. Such a dual-mode VSA can measure loss, phase response and dispersion property of passive devices. It also can coherently map a broadband laser spectrum into the RF domain. The VSA features a bandwidth of 55.1 THz (1260 to 1640 nm), frequency resolution of 99 kHz, and dynamic range of 56 dB. Meanwhile, our fiber-based VSA is compact and robust. It requires neither high-speed modulators and photodetectors, nor any active feedback control. Finally, we successfully employ our VSA for applications including characterization of integrated dispersive waveguides, mapping frequency comb spectra, and coherent light detection and ranging (LiDAR). Our VSA presents an innovative approach for device analysis and laser spectroscopy, and can play a critical role in future photonic systems and applications for sensing, communication, imaging, and quantum information processing

Study on the Self-Repairing Effect of Nanoclay in Powder Coatings for Corrosion Protection

Powder coatings are a promising, solvent-free alternative to traditional liquid coatings due to the superior corrosion protection they provide. This study investigates the effects of incorporating montmorillonite-based nanoclay additives with different particle sizes into polyester/triglycidyl isocyanurate (polyester/TGIC) powder coatings. The objective is to enhance the corrosion-protective function of the coatings while addressing the limitations of commonly employed epoxy-based coating systems that exhibit inferior UV resistance. The anti-corrosive and surface qualities of the coatings were evaluated via neutral salt spray tests, electrochemical measurements, and surface analytical techniques. Results show that the nanoclay with a larger particle size of 18.38 µm (D50, V) exhibits a better barrier effect at a lower dosage of 4%, while a high dosage leads to severe defects in the coating film. Interestingly, the coating capacitance is found, via electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, to decrease during the immersion test, indicating a self-repairing capability of the nanoclay, arising from its swelling and expansion. Neutral salt spray tests suggest an optimal nanoclay dosage of 2%, with the smaller particle size (8.64 µm, D50, V) nanoclay providing protection for 1.5 times as many salt spray hours as the nanoclay with a larger particle size. Overall, incorporating montmorillonite-based nanoclay additives is suggested to be a cost-effective approach for significantly enhancing the anti-corrosive function of powder coatings, expanding their application to outdoor environments

Hydroclimate Variations in Central and Monsoonal Asia over the Past 700 Years

Peer reviewe

Association between serum galectin-3 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A meta-analysis

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a significant public health issue characterized by progressive and irreversible airflow limitation. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the association between changes in serum galectin-3 levels and COPD and to assess the relationship between serum galectin-3 levels and acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD). Relevant observational studies were retrieved from electronic databases, including PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Wanfang, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). A random-effects model was used to combine the data, incorporating the influence of between-study heterogeneity. Twelve case-control studies were included. The pooled results showed a significantly higher serum level of galectin-3 in patients with COPD compared to controls (standardized mean difference [SMD] 0.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.40 - 0.80; P 0.05). In conclusion, patients with COPD were found to have higher serum levels of galectin-3, with levels further elevated in patients with AECOPD compared to those with stable COPD