Allele-specific induction of IL-1beta expression by C/EBPbeta and PU.1 contributes to increased tuberculosis susceptibility

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is associated with a spectrum of clinical outcomes, from long-term latent infection to different manifestations of progressive disease. Pro-inflammatory pathways, such as those controlled by IL-1beta, have the contrasting potential both to prevent disease by restricting bacterial replication, and to promote disease by inflicting tissue damage. Thus, the ultimate contribution of individual inflammatory pathways to the outcome of M. tuberculosis infection remains ambiguous. In this study, we identified a naturally-occurring polymorphism in the human IL1B promoter region, which alters the association of the C/EBPbeta and PU.1 transcription factors and controls Mtb-induced IL-1beta production. The high-IL-1beta expressing genotype was associated with the development of active tuberculosis, the severity of pulmonary disease and poor treatment outcome in TB patients. Higher IL-1beta expression did not suppress the activity of IFN-gamma-producing T cells, but instead correlated with neutrophil accumulation in the lung. These observations support a specific role for IL-1beta and granulocytic inflammation as a driver of TB disease progression in humans, and suggest novel strategies for the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis

Nonlinear AVA Inversion Based on a Novel Quadratic Approximation for Fluid Discrimination

Fluid discrimination plays an important role in reservoir exploration and development. At present, the fluid factors used for fluid discrimination are estimated by linear AVA inversion methods based on the linear approximations of the Zoeppritz equations. However, the Zoeppritz equations show that the relationship between prestack AVA reflection coefficients and reservoir parameters is highly nonlinear. Therefore, inversion methods based on linear approximations will seriously influence the nonuniqueness and uncertainty of inversion results. In this paper, a nonlinear inversion based on the quadratic approximation is carried out to reduce the nonuniqueness and uncertainty of fluid factor. Firstly, in order to directly invert the fluid factor, a novel quadratic approximation in terms of the fluid factor (ρf), shear modulus, and density on both sides of the reflection interface is derived based on poroelasticity theory. Then, a nonlinear inversion objective function is constructed using the novel quadratic approximation in a Bayesian framework, and the Gauss-Newton method is adopted to minimize this objective function. The synthetic data example shows that the new method can obtain reasonable fluid factor inversion results even in low SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) case. Finally, the proposed method is also applied to field data which shows that it can effectively discriminate reservoir fluids

Deep reinforcement learning for UAV routing in the presence of multiple charging stations

Deploying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for traffic monitoring has been a hotspot given their flexibility and broader view. However, a UAV is usually constrained by battery capacity due to limited payload. On the other hand, the development of wireless charging technology has allowed UAVs to replenish energy from charging stations.In this paper, we study a UAV routing problem in the presence of multiple charging stations (URPMCS) with the objective of minimizing the total distance traveled by the UAV during traffic monitoring. We present a deep reinforcement learning based method, where a multi-head heterogeneous attention mechanism is designed to facilitate learning a policy that automatically and sequentially constructs the route, while taking the energy consumption into account. In our method, two types of attentions are leveraged to learn the relations between monitoring targets and charging station nodes, adopting an encoder-decoder-like policy network. Moreover, we also employ a curriculum learning strategy to enhance generalization to different numbers of charging stations. Computational results show that our method outperforms conventional algorithms with higher solution quality (except for exact methods such as Gurobi) and shorter runtime in general, and also exhibits strong generalized performance on problem instances with different distributions and sizes.This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 62073341 and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of Central South University under Grant 2022ZZTS0191

Combination of Propylene Glycol Alginate and Lauric Acid on Water Retention and Mechanical Properties of Soy Protein Isolate-Based Films

本研究では，教師が生徒の心理的問題をどのように発見し対応しているかについてのインタビュー調査において，結果的に教師の未整理の困難体験が語られた，高等学校教員Ａ先生の事例を取り上げ，未整理の困難体験を抱え続けることの影響と，教師が改めてその体験をふり返り語ることの意味について事例的に分析した。面接では，新任時に関わった生徒Ｂとの体験が語られた。Ａ先生は，Ｂからの相談に繰り返し乗っていたが，Ｂは死にたいとよく言っており，Ａ先生は「脅かされているような感覚」を抱き続け，Ｂと適切な距離を見つけることができず，「共倒れ」しそうな状態にまで「追い詰められ」た。事例的に分析した結果，その体験は，一人で抱えてしまいがちな新任心性も相まって生じ，Ｂを傷つけたという罪悪感と恐怖心をＡ先生に植えつけ，現在にも影響を及ぼし続ける体験になったことが示唆された。一方で，その困難体験を語り直すことで，客観的に捉えられるようになり，その影響は残りつつも，それを引き受けた上で今後の教師人生を生きていこうとする姿勢が生まれたと考えられた。以上より，教師が教師としての未整理の困難体験をふり返り語ることの意味が示された。In this study, the influence of difficulties in teacher’s careers and the significance of personal reflections and descriptions regarding them were examined. We analyzed a case in which a teacher at a senior high school unintentionally related the difficulties that she encountered during her first year as a teacher during an interview about how teachers find and attend to students with psychological problems. She had listened to a particular student’s worries many times. She expressed that she felt “threatened” because he said he wanted to be dead numerous times. Because she could not keep an appropriate distance from him, she experienced nervous breakdown. It was possible that the experience was derived from being a first-year teacher (with its own set of problems), and that it marked a sense of guilt and fear about possibly hurting the student and precautions to protect herself from harmful influences with her mind. It was indicated that she took an objective view of the impact of her difficulties, and accepted them by looking back and talking about them. Accordingly, she began to move forward as a teacher and grow from her experiences. From this study, it was shown that it was significant for teachers to reflect upon and discuss the challenges encountered in their careers

Meta-optics empowered vector visual cryptography for high security and rapid decryption

Usual methods for optical encryption suffer from a tradeoff between the level of security and the complexity of operation given by multiple optical measurements or digital postprocessing. Here, the authors show a multi-d.o.f. metasurface-based vector optical manipulation protocol enabling secure decryption in real time

The interaction of macrophages and CD8 T cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid is associated with latent tuberculosis infection

ABSTRACTMycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection, including active tuberculosis (TB) and latent Mtb infection (LTBI), leads to diverse outcomes owing to different host immune responses. However, the immune mechanisms that govern the progression from LTBI to TB remain poorly defined in humans. Here, we profiled the lung immune cell populations within the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) from patients with LTBI or TB using single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq). We found that Mtb infection substantially changed the immune cell compartments in the BALF, especially for the three subsets of macrophages, monocyte macrophage (MM)-CCL23, MM-FCN1, and MM-SPP1, which were found to be associated with the disease status of TB infection. Notably, MM-CCL23 cells derived from monocytes after stimulation with Mtb were characterized by high levels of chemokine (CCL23 and CXCL5) production and might serve as a marker for Mtb infection. The MM-CCL23 population mainly recruited CD8-CCR6 T cells through CCL20/CCR6, which was a prominent feature associated with protection immunity in LTBI. This study improves our understanding of the lung immune landscape during Mtb infection, which may inform future vaccine design for protective immunity

Uniportal Thoracoscopic Wedge Resection of Lung Nodules: Paravertebral Blocks Are Better Than Intercostal Blocks

Background. Regional analgesia for tubeless, uniport, thoracoscopic wedge resection of benign peripheral nodules is generally performed by intercostal nerve block (INB). We examined the effectiveness of thoracic paravertebral block (PVB), in comparison to the traditional intercostal blocks, for the procedure. Methods. Between July 2016 and December 2016, 20 consecutive patients with solitary benign peripheral lung nodules underwent tubeless uniport thoracoscopic wedge resection using thoracic PVB (PVB group). The clinical outcomes were compared with those of 20 other consecutive patients who underwent the same procedure under the conventional INB, between January 2016 and July 2016 (INB group). In both groups, the procedures were performed without endotracheal intubation, urinary catheterization, or chest tube drainage. Results. The clinical data of patients in both groups were comparable in terms of demographic and baseline characteristics, operative and anesthetic characteristics, puncture-related complications, and postoperative anesthetic adverse events. No puncture-related complications occurred during the perioperative period in either group. The threshold values for mechanical pain at postoperative hours 4 and 8 were significantly higher in the PVB group than in the INB group. Furthermore, the incidence of nausea or vomiting in the PVB group was significantly less than that in the INB group. None of the patients required reintervention or readmission to our hospital. Conclusions. Tubeless uniportal thoracoscopic wedge resection for solitary benign peripheral lung nodules using thoracic PVB for regional analgesia is a feasible and safe procedure. Moreover, we found that thoracic PVB is less painful than INB.status: publishe