Oxygen, a Key Factor Regulating Cell Behavior during Neurogenesis and Cerebral Diseases

Oxygen is vital to maintain the normal functions of almost all the organs, especially for brain which is one of the heaviest oxygen consumers in the body. The important roles of oxygen on the brain are not only reflected in the development, but also showed in the pathological processes of many cerebral diseases. In the current review, we summarized the oxygen levels in brain tissues tested by real-time measurements during the embryonic and adult neurogenesis, the cerebral diseases, or in the hyperbaric/hypobaric oxygen environment. Oxygen concentration is low in fetal brain (0.076–7.6 mmHg) and in adult brain (11.4–53.2 mmHg), decreased during stroke, and increased in hyperbaric oxygen environment. In addition, we reviewed the effects of oxygen tensions on the behaviors of neural stem cells (NSCs) in vitro cultures at different oxygen concentration (15.2–152 mmHg) and in vivo niche during different pathological states and in hyperbaric/hypobaric oxygen environment. Moderate hypoxia (22.8–76 mmHg) can promote the proliferation of NSCs and enhance the differentiation of NSCs into the TH-positive neurons. Next, we briefly presented the oxygen-sensitive molecular mechanisms regulating NSCs proliferation and differentiation recently found including the Notch, Bone morphogenetic protein and Wnt pathways. Finally, the future perspectives about the roles of oxygen on brain and NSCs were given

High-definition vertically aligned liquid crystal microdisplays using a circularly polarized light

A high-definition vertically aligned liquid crystal (LC) microdisplay exhibits a excellent contrast ratio, but its fringing field effect splits the bright state unevenly and leads to a very slow response time. By utilizing a circularly polarized light instead of conventional linearly polarized light, we have overcome the long-standing problems of poor sharpness, low brightness, and slow response time. Confirming computer simulations agree with the experimental results well. This approach can be applied to both reflective and transmissive LC microdisplays

EARS-DM: Efficient Auto Correction Retrieval Scheme for Data Management in Edge Computing

Edge computing is an extension of cloud computing that enables messages to be acquired and processed at low cost. Many terminal devices are being deployed in the edge network to sense and deal with the massive data. By migrating part of the computing tasks from the original cloud computing model to the edge device, the message is running on computing resources close to the data source. The edge computing model can effectively reduce the pressure on the cloud computing center and lower the network bandwidth consumption. However, the security and privacy issues in edge computing are worth noting. In this paper, we propose an efficient auto-correction retrieval scheme for data management in edge computing, named EARS-DM. With automatic error correction for the query keywords instead of similar words extension, EARS-DM can tolerate spelling mistakes and reduce the complexity of index storage space. By the combination of TF-IDF value of keywords and the syntactic weight of query keywords, keywords who are more important will obtain higher relevance scores. We construct an R-tree index building with the encrypted keywords and the children nodes of which are the encrypted identifier FID and Bloom filter BF of files who contain this keyword. The secure index will be uploaded to the edge computing and the search phrase will be performed by the edge computing which is close to the data source. Then EDs sort the matching encrypted file identifier FID by relevance scores and upload them to the cloud server (CS). Performance analysis with actual data indicated that our scheme is efficient and accurate

A Comparison between Deep Neural Nets and Kernel Acoustic Models for Speech Recognition

We study large-scale kernel methods for acoustic modeling and compare to DNNs on performance metrics related to both acoustic modeling and recognition. Measuring perplexity and frame-level classification accuracy, kernel-based acoustic models are as effective as their DNN counterparts. However, on token-error-rates DNN models can be significantly better. We have discovered that this might be attributed to DNN's unique strength in reducing both the perplexity and the entropy of the predicted posterior probabilities. Motivated by our findings, we propose a new technique, entropy regularized perplexity, for model selection. This technique can noticeably improve the recognition performance of both types of models, and reduces the gap between them. While effective on Broadcast News, this technique could be also applicable to other tasks.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.400

The TSC2 c.2742+5G>A variant causes variable splicing changes and clinical manifestations in a family with tuberous sclerosis complex

BackgroundTuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a genetic, variably expressed, multisystem disease characterized by benign tumors. It is caused by pathogenic variants of the TSC complex subunit 1 gene (TSC1) and the TSC complex subunit 2 gene (TSC2). Genetic testing allows for early diagnosis, genetic counseling, and improved outcomes, but it did not identify a pathogenic variant in up to 25% of all TSC patients. This study aimed to identify the disease-causing variant in a Han-Chinese family with TSC.MethodsA six-member, three-generation Han-Chinese family with TSC and three unrelated healthy women were recruited. A comprehensive medical examination, a 3-year follow-up, whole exome sequencing, Sanger sequencing, and segregation analysis were performed in the family. The splicing analysis results obtained from six in silico tools, minigene assay, and patients' lymphocyte messenger RNA were compared, and quantitative reverse transcription PCR was used to confirm the pathogenicity of the variant.ResultsTwo affected family members had variable clinical manifestations including a rare bilateral cerebellar ataxia symptom. The 3-year follow-up results suggest the effects of a combined treatment of anti-epilepsy drugs and sirolimus for TSC-related epilepsy and cognitive deficits. Whole exome sequencing, Sanger sequencing, segregation analysis, splicing analysis, and quantitative reverse transcription PCR identified the TSC2 gene c.2742+5G>A variant as the genetic cause. This variant inactivated the donor splice site, a cryptic non-canonical splice site was used for different splicing changes in two affected subjects, and the resulting mutant messenger RNA may be degraded by nonsense-mediated decay. The defects of in silico tools and minigene assay in predicting cryptic splice sites were suggested.ConclusionsThis study identified a TSC2 c.2742+5G>A variant as the genetic cause of a Han-Chinese family with TSC and first confirmed its pathogenicity. These findings expand the phenotypic and genetic spectrum of TSC and may contribute to its diagnosis and treatment, as well as a better understanding of the splicing mechanism

4-[1-Acetyl-3-(4-methoxy­phen­yl)-2-pyrazolin-5-yl]phenol

In the title compound, C18H18N2O3, the dihedral angle formed by the benzene rings is 71.75 (4)°. In the crystal structure, centrosymmetrically related mol­ecules are linked into dimers by inter­molecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking inter­actions with centroid–centroid distances of 3.5511 (6) Å

A new sulfur bioconversion process development for energy- and space-efficient secondary wastewater treatment

Harvesting organic matter from wastewater is widely applied to maximize energy recovery; however, it limits the applicability of secondary treatment for acceptable effluent discharge into surface water bodies. To turn this bottleneck issue into an opportunity, this study developed oxygen-induced thiosulfatE production duRing sulfATe reductiOn (EARTO) to provide an efficient electron donor for wastewater treatment. Typical pretreated wastewater was synthesized with chemical oxygen demand of 110 mg/L, sulfate of 50 mg S/L, and varying dissolved oxygen (DO) and was fed into a moving-bed biofilm reactor (MBBR). The MBBR was operated continuously with a short hydraulic retention time of 40 min for 349 days. The formation rate of thiosulfate reached 0.12-0.18 g S/(m2.d) with a high produced thiosulfate-S/TdS-S ratio of 38-73% when influent DO was 2.7-3.6 mg/L. The sludge yield was 0.23-0.29 gVSS/gCOD, much lower than it was in conventional activated sludge processes. Then, batch tests and metabolism analysis were conducted to confirm the oxygen effect on thiosulfate formation, characterize the roles of sulfate and microbial activities, and explore the mechanism of oxygen-induced thiosulfate formation in ERATO. Results examined that oxygen supply promoted the thiosulfate-Sproduced/TdS-Sproduced ratio from 4% to 24-26%, demonstrated that sulfate and microbial activities were critical for thiosulfate production, and indicated that oxygen induces thiosulfate formation through two pathways: 1) direct sulfide oxidation, and 2) indirect sulfide oxidation, sulfide is first oxidized to S0 (dominant) which then reacts with sulfite derived from oxygen-regulated biological sulfate reduction. The proposed compact ERATO process, featuring high thiosulfate production and low sludge production, supports space- and energy-efficient secondary wastewater treatment.Comment: Written by Chu-Kuan Jiang; edited by Yang-Fan Deng, Hongxiao Guo, Guang-Hao Chen, Di Wu; Corresponding authors: Guang-Hao Chen, Di Wu; Last author (team leader): Guang-Hao Che