Neural Basis of Depression Related to a Dominant Right Hemisphere: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Background. In the past, studies on the lateralization of the left and right hemispheres of the brain suggested that depression is dominated by the right hemisphere of the brain, but the neural basis of this theory remains unclear. Method. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain was performed in 22 depressive patients and 15 healthy controls. The differences in the mean values of the regional homogeneity (ReHo) of two groups were compared, and the low-frequency amplitudes of these differential brain regions were compared. Results. The results show that compared with healthy subjects, depressive patients had increased ReHo values in the right superior temporal gyrus, right middle temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, triangular part of the right inferior frontal gyrus, orbital part of the right inferior frontal gyrus, right superior occipital gyrus, right middle occipital gyrus, bilateral anterior cingulate, and paracingulate gyri; reduced ReHo values were seen in the right fusiform gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, left lingual gyrus, and left inferior parietal except in the supramarginal and angular gyri. Conclusions. The results show that regional homogeneity mainly occurs in the right brain, and the overall performance of the brain is such that right hemisphere synchronization is enhanced while left hemisphere synchronization is weakened. ReHo abnormalities in the resting state can predict abnormalities in individual neurological activities that reflect changes in the structure and function of the brain; abnormalities shown with this indicator are the neuronal basis for the phenomenon that the right hemisphere of the brain has a dominant effect on depression

PCMT1 is a potential target related to tumor progression and immune infiltration in liver cancer

Abstract Background Liver cancer is a prevalent and deadly form of cancer with high incidence and mortality rates. The PCMT1 protein has been linked to cell anti-apoptosis and tumor metastasis, but its significance in liver hepatocellular carcinoma (LIHC) remains largely unexplored. Methods We conducted a pan-cancer analysis to examine the expression differences of PCMT1. Kaplan–Meier curves were employed to assess the prognostic impact of PCMT1 on LIHC patients, and we investigated the association between PCMT1 and clinical features, which we validated using a GEO therapeutic dataset. Gene enrichment analysis helped identify signaling pathways associated with PCMT1 expression. Moreover, we evaluated the relationship between PCMT1 and immune cell infiltration, as well as the differences in gene mutations between high-expression and low-expression groups. In vitro and in vivo experiments were performed to assess the effect of PCMT1 on tumor cell lines and mouse tumor models, and potential pathways were explored through gene sequencing. Result PCMT1 is highly expressed in most tumors and exhibits a significant association with prognosis in LIHC patients. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed that PCMT1 is involved in cell cycle regulation, immunity, and other processes. Further immune analysis demonstrated that high expression of PCMT1 could reduce tumor-killing immune cell infiltration. In vitro experiments indicated that PCMT1 knockdown could inhibit cancer cell proliferation and migration while promoting apoptosis. In vivo experiments showed that PCMT1 knockdown significantly reduced tumor growth rate, enhanced CD8+T cell infiltration, and increased caspase-3 expression in the tumor area. Gene sequencing suggested that PCMT1 may function through the PI3K–AKT pathway. Conclusion Our findings suggest that PCMT1 acts as a promoter of liver cancer progression and may serve as a novel prognostic indicator and therapeutic target for patients with LIHC

Nunchaku: Optimally partitioning data into piece-wise contiguous segments

Time-series data for the FY4 prototrophic strain of budding yeast growing in different concentrations of fructose in minimal media in a Tecan plate reader after pre-growth in SC medium with 2% pyruvate. The dataset relates to the publication 'Nunchaku: Optimally partitioning data into piece-wise linear segments' by Yu Huo, Hongpei Li, Xiao Wang, Xiaochen Du, Peter S. Swain (https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.05.26.542406)

Broadband Quantum Dot Superluminescent Diode with Simultaneous Three-State Emission

Semiconductor superluminescent light-emitting diodes (SLEDs) have emerged as ideal and vital broadband light sources with extensive applications, such as optical fiber-based sensors, biomedical sensing/imaging, wavelength-division multiplexing system testing and optoelectronic systems, etc. Self-assembled quantum dots (SAQDs) are very promising candidates for the realization of broadband SLED due to their intrinsic large inhomogeneous spectral broadening. Introducing excited states (ESs) emission could further increase the spectral bandwidth. However, almost all QD-based SLEDs are limited to the ground state (GS) or GS and first excited state (ES1) emission. In this work, multiple five-QD-layer structures with large dot size inhomogeneous distribution were grown by optimizing the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth conditions. Based on that, with the assistance of a carefully designed mirror-coating process to accurately control the cavity mirror loss of GS and ESs, respectively, a broadband QD-SLED with three simultaneous states of GS, ES1 and second excited-state (ES2) emission has been realized, exhibiting a large spectral width of 91 nm with a small spectral dip of 1.3 dB and a high continuous wave (CW) output power of 40 mW. These results pave the way for a new fabrication technique for high-performance QD-based low-coherent light sources

Effect of ultrasound-assisted EDTA and citric acid washing on heavy metal removal, residual heavy metal mobility, and sewage sludge quality

We investigated the effects of ultrasound-assisted ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and citric acid (CA) washing on heavy metal (HM) removal, residual HM mobility, and sewage sludge quality. EDTA and CA washing of sewage sludge successfully reduced the total concentration of HMs after one round of washing, but the mobility of residual HMs increased significantly. The eluate had a high concentration of HMs and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and total organic carbon), although the nutritional content of the sludge remained high. The three-phase ratio of the sludge after six rounds of washing by CA was closest to the ideal three-phase ratio, and the degree of influence on the physical structure of the soil after a land application was reduced, according to the fluctuation of generalized soil structure index (GSSI) and soil three-phase structure distance (STPSD) values. The results indicate that CA as an environmental-friendly washing agent can be the superior choice for sludge HM washing; single washing of sewage sludge may increase the mobility of residual HMs, so multiple washings should be considered for land application of sludge. HIGHLIGHTS Ultrasound-assisted chemical washing is a useful and efficient solution to remove HMs from sewage sludge.; The higher concentration (≥0.4 M) of biodegradable CA eluent could effectively reduce HMs in the sewage sludge compared to the traditional non-biodegradable EDTA eluent.

Optimal dispatch of regional electricity-thermal system with multi-energy storage based on source and load forecasting

With the continuous development of the new power system construction， the installed capacity of wind power， photovoltaic and other renewable energies has been further increased. The randomness and uncertainty of source and load bring great challenges to the operation of the power system. Therefore， an optimal dispatch method of energy storage in regional electricity-thermal system based on multi-energy source and load forecasting， which improves the accommodation level of photovoltaic by the flexible adjustment ability of multi-energy storage and electricity-thermal coupling characteristics of the system. Firstly， the photovoltaic output and electricity-thermal load are forecasted based on the improved extreme learning machine and K-means clustering algorithm. Then， the conditional value at risk is applied to quantize the impact of uncertainty of photovoltaic output on operation cost. With target of minimizing the weighting sum of operation cost and conditional value at risk， the optimized operation scheduling model of district electricity-thermal system， containing battery， flywheel energy storage and heat storage tank， is established. The regulation requirement for flexible operation of the electricity-thermal system can be achieved by multi-energy storage. Finally， the case study is conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

Empirical research of advantage disciplines of C9 League

Purpose: Based on the case of the top nine elite universities in China (i.e. C9 League), we evaluate the university discipline advantages in terms of outputs and influence of scientific articles. Combining with the discipline collaboration analysis, we provide suggestions on discipline development and future collaboration for C9 League members. Design/methodology/approach: First, we carry out a correlation analysis. Then, we obtain the new combination evaluation indicators through factor analysis on seven primary indicators from InCite platform. Afterwards, we assign the weighted values to different indicators in order to get the evaluation scores and the ranking for each C9 League member. Then, we obtain the bibliographic data of the C9 League members for extracting the category classifications from the Web and transforming them into Degree-Granting and Personal Trainning Courses Catalogue (DPTCC). According to the original collaboration frequencies among C9 League members, we carry out the analysis on two-mode collaboration networks. Finally, we propose some suggestions on the future collaboration and development. Findings: There is correlation relationship between the outputs of scientific papers and influence indicators, so it is necessary to use the various indicators to acquire the more scientific evaluation. Meanwhile, league members are different in the discipline development level, and have inadequate collaboration with each other, which indicates that there exists the great potential for further collaborations. Research limitations: Despite the relative high quality SCI papers, preference for different disciplines of SCI and different discipline features for C9 members probably exert negative influence on evaluation results. Practical implications: We provide a research thought and an operational approach to the disciplines evaluation, which would promote more methods for scientific discipline evaluation and reasonable management for universities. Originality/value: There are more and more articles on the universities evaluation indexes, but rarely on the relationship among the indicators. Therefore, our approach would be helpful for the evaluation of university disciplines. Purpose: Based on the case of the top nine elite universities in China (i.e. C9 League), we evaluate the university discipline advantages in terms of outputs and influence of scientific articles. Combining with the discipline collaboration analysis, we provide suggestions on discipline development and future collaboration for C9 League members. Design/methodology/approach: First, we carry out a correlation analysis. Then, we obtain the new combination evaluation indicators through factor analysis on seven primary indicators from InCite platform. Afterwards, we assign the weighted values to different indicators in order to get the evaluation scores and the ranking for each C9 League member. Then, we obtain the bibliographic data of the C9 League members for extracting the category classifications from the Web and transforming them into Degree-Granting and Personal Trainning Courses Catalogue (DPTCC). According to the original collaboration frequencies among C9 League members, we carry out the analysis on two-mode collaboration networks. Finally, we propose some suggestions on the future collaboration and development. Findings: There is correlation relationship between the outputs of scientific papers and influence indicators, so it is necessary to use the various indicators to acquire the more scientific evaluation. Meanwhile, league members are different in the discipline development level, and have inadequate collaboration with each other, which indicates that there exists the great potential for further collaborations. Research limitations: Despite the relative high quality SCI papers, preference for different disciplines of SCI and different discipline features for C9 members probably exert negative influence on evaluation results. Practical implications: We provide a research thought and an operational approach to the disciplines evaluation, which would promote more methods for scientific discipline evaluation and reasonable management for universities. Originality/value: There are more and more articles on the universities evaluation indexes, but rarely on the relationship among the indicators. Therefore, our approach would be helpful for the evaluation of university disciplines.</div

Prognosis Evaluation Using F-Alfatide II PET in a Rat Model of Spinal Cord Injury Treated With Estrogen

Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to severe dysfunction below injured segment and poses a great pressure to the individual and society. In this study, we applied 18 F-alfatide II positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) to monitor angiogenesis in an SCI model after estrogen (E2) treatment, as well as to evaluate the prognosis in a noninvasive manner. The SCI model was established with male rats and the rats were randomly divided into E2-treated group (SCI + E2) and E2-untreated group (SCI). Sham group was also used as control (Sham). The angiogenesis after SCI was monitored by 18 F-alfatide II PET/CT and verified by immunofluorescence of CD31 and CD61. We also evaluated the level of E2 and growth-associated protein 43 (GAP43) by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Finally, Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan (BBB) scores were determined to evaluate the exercise capacity of the rats in all 3 groups. Our results showed that the BBB score of SCI + E2 group was significantly different from that of SCI group ( P < .05) and Sham group ( P < .01). The uptake of 18 F-alfatide II was positively correlated with the expression level of GAP43, both of which reached the peak at day 7 after injury. CD31 and CD61 immunostaining further verified increased angiogenesis in E2-treated SCI lesions. We concluded that 18 F-alfatide II PET/CT can monitor the angiogenesis status after SCI in vivo and it may help clinician predict the progression of patients with SCI. This may benefit the study of vascular repair after SCI and provide a tool for evaluation of SCI treatment in clinical practices