Theoretical Analysis of Impact of Delayed Updates on Decentralized Federated Learning

Decentralized Federated learning is a distributed edge intelligence framework by exchanging parameter updates instead of training data among participators, in order to retrain or fine-tune deep learning models for mobile intelligent applications. Considering the various topologies of edge networks in mobile internet, the impact of transmission delay of updates during model training is non-negligible for data-intensive intelligent applications on mobile devices, e.g., intelligent medical services, automated driving vehicles, etc.. To address this problem, we analyze the impact of delayed updates for decentralized federated learning, and provide a theoretical bound for these updates to achieve model convergence. Within the theoretical bound of updating period, the latest versions for the delayed updates are reused to continue aggregation, in case the model parameters from a specific neighbor are not collected or updated in time

Typical Internal Defects of Gas-Insulated Switchgear and Partial Discharge Characteristics

Gas-insulated switchgear (GIS) is a common electrical equipment, which uses sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) as insulating medium instead of traditional air. It has good reliability and flexibility. However, GIS may have internal defects and partial discharge (PD) is then induced. PD will cause great harm to GIS and power system. Therefore, it is of great importance to study the intrinsic characteristics and detection of PD for online monitoring. In this chapter, typical internal defects of GIS and the PD characteristics are discussed. Several detection methods are also presented in this chapter including electromagnetic method, chemical method, and optical method

Rotavirus NSP1 contributes to intestinal viral replication, pathogenesis, and transmission

Rotavirus (RV)-encoded nonstructural protein 1 (NSP1), the product of gene segment 5, effectively antagonizes host interferon (IFN) signaling via multiple mechanisms. Recent studies with the newly established RV reverse genetics system indicate that NSP1 is not essential for the replication of the simian RV SA11 strain in cell culture. However, the role of NSP1 in RV infectio

Chemoresistance in Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), generally known as pancreatic cancer (PC), ranks the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the western world. While the incidence of pancreatic cancer is displaying a rising tendency every year, the mortality rate has not decreased significantly because of late diagnosis, early metastasis, and limited reaction to chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Adjuvant chemotherapy after surgical resection is typically the preferred option to treat early pancreatic cancer. Although 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin with irinotecan and oxaliplatin (FOLFIRINOX) and gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel can profoundly improve the prognosis of advanced pancreatic cancer, the development of chemoresistance still leads to poor clinical outcomes. Chemoresistance is multifactorial as a result of the interaction among pancreatic cancer cells, cancer stem cells, and the tumor microenvironment. Nevertheless, more pancreatic cancer patients will benefit from precision treatment and targeted drugs. Therefore, we outline new perspectives for enhancing the efficacy of gemcitabine after reviewing the related factors of gemcitabine metabolism, mechanism of action, and chemoresistance

Engineered Production of Fungal Anticancer Cyclooligomer Depsipeptides in Saccharo-Myces Cerevisiae

Two fungal cyclooligomer depsipeptide synthetases (CODSs), BbBEAS (352 kDa) and BbBSLS (348 kDa) from Beauveria bassiana ATCC 7159, were reconstituted in Saccharomyces cerevisiae BJ5464-NpgA, leading to the production of the corresponding anticancer natural products, beauvericins and bassianolide, respectively. The titers of beauvericins (33.82±1.41 mg/l) and bassianolide (21.74±0.08 mg/l) in the engineered S. cerevisiae BJ5464-NpgA strains were comparable to those in the native producer B. bassiana. Feeding D-hydroxyisovaleric acid (D-Hiv) and the corresponding L-amino acid precursors improved the production of beauvericins and bassianolide. However, the high price of D-Hiv limits its application in large-scale production of these cyclooligomer depsipeptides. Alternatively, we engineered another enzyme, ketoisovalerate reductase (KIVR) from B. bassiana, into S. cerevisiae BJ5464-NpgA for enhanced in situ synthesis of this expensive substrate. Co-expression of BbBEAS and KIVR in the yeast led to significant improvement of the production of beauvericins. The total titer of beauvericin and its congeners (beauvericins A, B and C) was increased to 61.73±2.96 mg/l and reached 2.6-fold of that in the native producer B. bassiana ATCC 7159. Supplement of L-Val at 10 mM improved the supply of ketoisovalerate, the substrate of KIVR, which consequently further increased the total titer of beauvericins to 105.76±2.12 mg/l. Using this yeast system, we functionally characterized an unknown CODS from Fusarium venenatum NRRL 26139 as a beauvericin synthetase, which was named as FvBEAS. Our work thus provides a useful approach for functional reconstitution and engineering of fungal CODSs for efficient production of this family of anticancer molecules

Advances in Left Bundle Branch Pacing: Definition, Evaluation, and Applications

Left bundle branch pacing (LBBP) emerged as a new physiological pacing strategy during the past several years. Recent observational studies have demonstrated the advantages of LBBP, including a high success rate, stable pacing parameters, and excellent clinical benefits. Widespread adoption of LBBP will depend on improvements in device/lead technology and further verification of its efficacy in large randomized clinical trials. In this review, we summarize recent advancements in LBBP, including the definition and evaluation of left bundle branch capture, LBBP applications, and future directions in this growing field

An Efficient Code-Based Threshold Ring Signature Scheme with a Leader-Participant Model

Digital signature schemes with additional properties have broad applications, such as in protecting the identity of signers allowing a signer to anonymously sign a message in a group of signers (also known as a ring). While these number-theoretic problems are still secure at the time of this research, the situation could change with advances in quantum computing. There is a pressing need to design PKC schemes that are secure against quantum attacks. In this paper, we propose a novel code-based threshold ring signature scheme with a leader-participant model. A leader is appointed, who chooses some shared parameters for other signers to participate in the signing process. This leader-participant model enhances the performance because every participant including the leader could execute the decoding algorithm (as a part of signing process) upon receiving the shared parameters from the leader. The time complexity of our scheme is close to Courtois et al.’s (2001) scheme. The latter is often used as a basis to construct other types of code-based signature schemes. Moreover, as a threshold ring signature scheme, our scheme is as efficient as the normal code-based ring signature

SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 variant infection of human colon epithelial cells

The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, characterized by multiple subvariants including BA.1, XBB.1.5, EG.5, and JN.1, became the predominant strain in early 2022. Studies indicate that Omicron replicates less efficiently in lung tissue compared to the ancestral strain. However, the infectivity of Omicron in the gastrointestinal tract is not fully defined, despite the fact that 70% of COVID-19 patients experience digestive disease symptoms. Here, using primary human colonoids, we found that, regardless of individual variability, Omicron infects colon cells similarly or less effectively than the ancestral strain or the Delta variant. The variant induced limited type III interferon expression and showed no significant impact on epithelial integrity. Further experiments revealed inefficient cell-to-cell spread and spike protein cleavage in the Omicron spike protein, possibly contributing to its lower infectious particle levels. The findings highlight the variant-specific replication differences in human colonoids, providing insights into the enteric tropism of Omicron and its relevance to long COVID symptoms