246 research outputs found
Effect of human activated NRAS on replication of delNS1 H5N1 influenza virus in MDCK cells
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>RAS, coded by <it>ras </it>proto-oncogenes, played an important role in signal transmission to regulate cell growth and differentiation. Host activation of RAS was significant for IFN-sensitive vaccinia virus (delE3L) or attenuate influenza virus in unallowable cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Huamn <it>NRAS </it>gene was activated by mutating in codon 61. Then the activation of NRAS was detected by western blot in MDCK cells. The delNS1 H5N1 influenza virus with deletion of NS1 eIF4GI binding domain was weak multiplication in MDCK cells. And the replication of delNS1 virus and expression of IFN-beta and IRF-3 were detected by Real-time PCR in MDCK cells infected with delNS1 virus. It was found that the delNS1 virus had a significant increase in MDCK cells when the NRAS was activated, and yet, expression of IRF-3 and IFN-beta were restrained.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study demonstrated that activated NRAS played an important part for delNS1 virus replication in MDCK cells. Activated NRAS might be down-regulating the expression of antiviral cellular factors in delNS1 virus infected cells.</p
SE-KGE: A Location-Aware Knowledge Graph Embedding Model for Geographic Question Answering and Spatial Semantic Lifting
Learning knowledge graph (KG) embeddings is an emerging technique for a
variety of downstream tasks such as summarization, link prediction, information
retrieval, and question answering. However, most existing KG embedding models
neglect space and, therefore, do not perform well when applied to (geo)spatial
data and tasks. For those models that consider space, most of them primarily
rely on some notions of distance. These models suffer from higher computational
complexity during training while still losing information beyond the relative
distance between entities. In this work, we propose a location-aware KG
embedding model called SE-KGE. It directly encodes spatial information such as
point coordinates or bounding boxes of geographic entities into the KG
embedding space. The resulting model is capable of handling different types of
spatial reasoning. We also construct a geographic knowledge graph as well as a
set of geographic query-answer pairs called DBGeo to evaluate the performance
of SE-KGE in comparison to multiple baselines. Evaluation results show that
SE-KGE outperforms these baselines on the DBGeo dataset for geographic logic
query answering task. This demonstrates the effectiveness of our
spatially-explicit model and the importance of considering the scale of
different geographic entities. Finally, we introduce a novel downstream task
called spatial semantic lifting which links an arbitrary location in the study
area to entities in the KG via some relations. Evaluation on DBGeo shows that
our model outperforms the baseline by a substantial margin.Comment: Accepted to Transactions in GI
Semantically-Enriched Search Engine for Geoportals: A Case Study with ArcGIS Online
Many geoportals such as ArcGIS Online are established with the goal of
improving geospatial data reusability and achieving intelligent knowledge
discovery. However, according to previous research, most of the existing
geoportals adopt Lucene-based techniques to achieve their core search
functionality, which has a limited ability to capture the user's search
intentions. To better understand a user's search intention, query expansion can
be used to enrich the user's query by adding semantically similar terms. In the
context of geoportals and geographic information retrieval, we advocate the
idea of semantically enriching a user's query from both geospatial and thematic
perspectives. In the geospatial aspect, we propose to enrich a query by using
both place partonomy and distance decay. In terms of the thematic aspect,
concept expansion and embedding-based document similarity are used to infer the
implicit information hidden in a user's query. This semantic query expansion 1
2 G. Mai et al. framework is implemented as a semantically-enriched search
engine using ArcGIS Online as a case study. A benchmark dataset is constructed
to evaluate the proposed framework. Our evaluation results show that the
proposed semantic query expansion framework is very effective in capturing a
user's search intention and significantly outperforms a well-established
baseline-Lucene's practical scoring function-with more than 3.0 increments in
DCG@K (K=3,5,10).Comment: 18 pages; Accepted to AGILE 2020 as a full paper GitHub Code
Repository: https://github.com/gengchenmai/arcgis-online-search-engin
Continuous monitoring of the isotopic composition of surface water vapor at Lhasa, southern Tibetan Plateau
The stable isotopes (δ18O and δD) of water vapor are used to characterize continuous variations in large-scale and boundary-layer atmospheric processes. We presented continuous measurements of δ18O in surface water vapor at Lhasa, southern Tibetan Plateau, from October 2018 to September 2019 to investigate how large-scale and local atmospheric processes influence variations in water vapor δ18O at different time scales. The water vapor δ18O measurements reveal different seasonal characteristics and diurnal patterns. At the seasonal scale, δ18O exhibits a W-shape with two maxima in May–June and October as well as two minima in July–August and February. The diurnal variations in the water vapor δ18O and meteorological data throughout the year present distinct occurrences of maxima and minima during different periods. We found that the significant seasonal variability is mainly associated with the transition between the Indian summer monsoon and the westerlies, which transport distinct moisture to the southern Tibetan Plateau. The local temperature, specific humidity and boundary layer height impact the diurnal variations in water vapor δ18O to some extent with remarkable seasonal differences.publishedVersio
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Multi-functional anodes boost the transient power and durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.
Proton exchange membrane fuel cells have been regarded as the most promising candidate for fuel cell vehicles and tools. Their broader adaption, however, has been impeded by cost and lifetime. By integrating a thin layer of tungsten oxide within the anode, which serves as a rapid-response hydrogen reservoir, oxygen scavenger, sensor for power demand, and regulator for hydrogen-disassociation reaction, we herein report proton exchange membrane fuel cells with significantly enhanced power performance for transient operation and low humidified conditions, as well as improved durability against adverse operating conditions. Meanwhile, the enhanced power performance minimizes the use of auxiliary energy-storage systems and reduces costs. Scale fabrication of such devices can be readily achieved based on the current fabrication techniques with negligible extra expense. This work provides proton exchange membrane fuel cells with enhanced power performance, improved durability, prolonged lifetime, and reduced cost for automotive and other applications
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Assisted High-Speed Train Communications: Coverage Performance Analysis and Placement Optimization
Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) emerges as an efficient and
promising technology for the next wireless generation networks and has
attracted a lot of attention owing to the capability of extending wireless
coverage by reflecting signals toward targeted receivers. In this paper, we
consider a RIS-assisted high-speed train (HST) communication system to enhance
wireless coverage and improve coverage probability. First, coverage performance
of the downlink single-input-single-output system is investigated, and the
closed-form expression of coverage probability is derived. Moreover, travel
distance maximization problem is formulated to facilitate RIS discrete phase
design and RIS placement optimization, which is subject to coverage probability
constraint. Simulation results validate that better coverage performance and
higher travel distance can be achieved with deployment of RIS. The impacts of
some key system parameters including transmission power, signal-to-noise ratio
threshold, number of RIS elements, number of RIS quantization bits, horizontal
distance between base station and RIS, and speed of HST on system performance
are investigated. In addition, it is found that RIS can well improve coverage
probability with limited power consumption for HST communications.Comment: 14 figures, accepted by IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog
68Ga-labeled WVP peptide as a novel PET probe for molecular biological diagnosis of unstable thoracic aortic aneurysm and early dissection: an animal study.
OBJECTIVE
Type IV collagen (Col-IV) is a prospective biomarker for diagnosing and treating of unstable thoracic aortic aneurysm and dissection (TAAD). This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of 68Ga-labeled WVP peptide (68Ga-DOTA-WVP) as a novel Col-IV-targeted probe for TAAD biological diagnosis using PET/CT.
METHODS
WVP peptide was modified with bifunctional chelator DOTA for 68Ga radiolabeling. Immunohistochemical staining was used to evaluate the expression and location of Col-IV and elastin in aortas treated with 3-aminopropionitrile fumarate (BAPN) at different time points (0, 2, and 4 weeks). The imaging performance of 68Ga-DOTA-WVP was investigated using Micro-PET/CT in a BAPN-induced TAAD mouse model. The relationship between 68Ga-DOTA-WVP uptake in aortic lesions and the serum levels of TAAD-related biomarkers including D-dimer, C-reactive protein (CRP), and serum soluble suppression of tumorigenicity-2 (sST2) was also analyzed.
RESULTS
68Ga-DOTA-WVP was readily prepared with high radiochemical purity and stability in vitro. 68Ga-DOTA-WVP Micro-PET/CT could detect Col-IV exposure of unstable aneurysms and early dissection in BAPN-induced TAAD mice, but little 68Ga-DOTA-WVP uptake was shown in the control group at each imaging time point. The differences of Col-IV expression and distribution of 68Ga-DOTA-WVP both in TAAD and control groups further verified the imaging efficiency of 68Ga-DOTA-WVP PET/CT. Additionally, a higher sST2 level was found in the imaging positive (n = 14) than the negative (n = 8) group (9.60 ± 1.14 vs. 8.44 ± 0.52, P = 0.014).
CONCLUSION
68Ga-DOTA-WVP could trace the exposure and abnormal deposition of Col-IV in enlarged and early injured aortas, showing a potential for biological diagnosis, whole-body screening, and progression monitoring of TAAD
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