15 research outputs found
Agents: An Open-source Framework for Autonomous Language Agents
Recent advances on large language models (LLMs) enable researchers and
developers to build autonomous language agents that can automatically solve
various tasks and interact with environments, humans, and other agents using
natural language interfaces. We consider language agents as a promising
direction towards artificial general intelligence and release Agents, an
open-source library with the goal of opening up these advances to a wider
non-specialist audience. Agents is carefully engineered to support important
features including planning, memory, tool usage, multi-agent communication, and
fine-grained symbolic control. Agents is user-friendly as it enables
non-specialists to build, customize, test, tune, and deploy state-of-the-art
autonomous language agents without much coding. The library is also
research-friendly as its modularized design makes it easily extensible for
researchers. Agents is available at https://github.com/aiwaves-cn/agents.Comment: Code available at https://github.com/aiwaves-cn/agent
DPHL: A DIA Pan-human Protein Mass Spectrometry Library for Robust Biomarker Discovery
To address the increasing need for detecting and validating protein biomarkers in clinical specimens, mass spectrometry (MS)-based targeted proteomic techniques, including the selected reaction monitoring (SRM), parallel reaction monitoring (PRM), and massively parallel data-independent acquisition (DIA), have been developed. For optimal performance, they require the fragment ion spectra of targeted peptides as prior knowledge. In this report, we describe a MS pipeline and spectral resource to support targeted proteomics studies for human tissue samples. To build the spectral resource, we integrated common open-source MS computational tools to assemble a freely accessible computational workflow based on Docker. We then applied the workflow to generate DPHL, a comprehensive DIA pan-human library, from 1096 data-dependent acquisition (DDA) MS raw files for 16 types of cancer samples. This extensive spectral resource was then applied to a proteomic study of 17 prostate cancer (PCa) patients. Thereafter, PRM validation was applied to a larger study of 57 PCa patients and the differential expression of three proteins in prostate tumor was validated. As a second application, the DPHL spectral resource was applied to a study consisting of plasma samples from 19 diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients and 18 healthy control subjects. Differentially expressed proteins between DLBCL patients and healthy control subjects were detected by DIA-MS and confirmed by PRM. These data demonstrate that the DPHL supports DIA and PRM MS pipelines for robust protein biomarker discovery. DPHL is freely accessible at https://www.iprox.org/page/project.html?id=IPX0001400000
High-performance piezoelectric composites via β phase programming.
Polymer-ceramic piezoelectric composites, combining high piezoelectricity and mechanical flexibility, have attracted increasing interest in both academia and industry. However, their piezoelectric activity is largely limited by intrinsically low crystallinity and weak spontaneous polarization. Here, we propose a Ti3C2Tx MXene anchoring method to manipulate the intermolecular interactions within the all-trans conformation of a polymer matrix. Employing phase-field simulation and molecular dynamics calculations, we show that OH surface terminations on the Ti3C2Tx nanosheets offer hydrogen bonding with the fluoropolymer matrix, leading to dipole alignment and enhanced net spontaneous polarization of the polymer-ceramic composites. We then translated this interfacial bonding strategy into electrospinning to boost the piezoelectric response of samarium doped Pb (Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3/polyvinylidene fluoride composite nanofibers by 160% via Ti3C2Tx nanosheets inclusion. With excellent piezoelectric and mechanical attributes, the as-electrospun piezoelectric nanofibers can be easily integrated into the conventional shoe insoles to form a foot sensor network for all-around gait patterns monitoring, walking habits identification and Metatarsalgi prognosis. This work utilizes the interfacial coupling mechanism of intermolecular anchoring as a strategy to develop high-performance piezoelectric composites for wearable electronics
Global Metabonomic and Proteomic Analysis of Human Conjunctival Epithelial Cells (IOBA-NHC) in Response to Hyperosmotic Stress
“Dry eye”
is a multifactorial inflammatory disease
affecting the ocular surface. Tear hyperosmolarity in dry eye contributes
to inflammation and cell damage. Recent research efforts on dry eye
have been directed toward biomarker discovery for diagnosis, response
to treatment, and disease mechanisms. This study employed a spontaneously
immortalized normal human conjunctival cell line, IOBA-NHC, as a model
to investigate hyperosmotic stress-induced changes of metabolites
and proteins. Global and targeted metabonomic analyses as well as
proteomic analysis were performed on IOBA-NHC cells incubated in serum-free
media at 280 (control), 380, and 480 mOsm for 24 h. Twenty-one metabolites
and seventy-six iTRAQ-identified proteins showed significant changes
under at least one hyperosmotic stress treatment as compared with
controls. SWATH-based proteomic analysis further confirmed the involvement
of inflammatory pathways such as prostaglandin 2 synthesis in IOBA-NHC
cells under hyperosmotic stress. This study is the first to identify
glycerophosphocholine synthesis and <i>O</i>-linked β-<i>N</i>-acetylglucosamine glycosylation as key activated pathways
in ocular surface cells under hyperosmotic stress. These findings
extend the current knowledge in metabolite markers of dry eye and
provide potential therapeutic targets for its treatment