Distribution and prevalence of malaria parasites among long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) in regional populations across Southeast Asia.

BackgroundPlasmodium knowlesi and Plasmodium cynomolgi are two malaria parasites naturally transmissible between humans and wild macaque through mosquito vectors, while Plasmodium inui can be experimentally transmitted from macaques to humans. One of their major natural hosts, the long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis), is host to two other species of Plasmodium (Plasmodium fieldi and Plasmodium coatneyi) and is widely distributed in Southeast Asia. This study aims to determine the distribution of wild macaques infected with malarial parasites by examining samples derived from seven populations in five countries across Southeast Asia.MethodsPlasmodium knowlesi, P. cynomolgi, P. coatneyi, P. inui and P. fieldi, were detected using nested PCR assays in DNA samples from 276 wild-caught long-tailed macaques. These samples had been derived from macaques captured at seven locations, two each in the Philippines (n = 68) and Indonesia (n = 70), and one each in Cambodia (n = 54), Singapore (n = 40) and Laos (n = 44). The results were compared with previous studies of malaria parasites in long-tailed macaques from other locations in Southeast Asia. Fisher exact test and Chi square test were used to examine the geographic bias of the distribution of Plasmodium species in the macaque populations.ResultsOut of 276 samples tested, 177 were Plasmodium-positive, with P. cynomolgi being the most common and widely distributed among all long-tailed macaque populations (53.3 %) and occurring in all populations examined, followed by P. coatneyi (20.4 %), P. inui (12.3 %), P. fieldi (3.4 %) and P. knowlesi (0.4 %). One P. knowlesi infection was detected in a macaque from Laos, representing the first documented case of P. knowlesi in wildlife in Laos. Chi square test showed three of the five parasites (P. knowlesi, P. coatneyi, P. cynomolgi) with significant bias in prevalence towards macaques from Malaysian Borneo, Cambodia, and Southern Sumatra, respectively.ConclusionsThe prevalence of malaria parasites, including those that are transmissible to humans, varied among all sampled regional populations of long-tailed macaques in Southeast Asia. The new discovery of P. knowlesi infection in Laos, and the high prevalence of P. cynomolgi infections in wild macaques in general, indicate the strong need of public advocacy in related countries

Knowledge-refined Denoising Network for Robust Recommendation

Knowledge graph (KG), which contains rich side information, becomes an essential part to boost the recommendation performance and improve its explainability. However, existing knowledge-aware recommendation methods directly perform information propagation on KG and user-item bipartite graph, ignoring the impacts of \textit{task-irrelevant knowledge propagation} and \textit{vulnerability to interaction noise}, which limits their performance. To solve these issues, we propose a robust knowledge-aware recommendation framework, called \textit{Knowledge-refined Denoising Network} (KRDN), to prune the task-irrelevant knowledge associations and noisy implicit feedback simultaneously. KRDN consists of an adaptive knowledge refining strategy and a contrastive denoising mechanism, which are able to automatically distill high-quality KG triplets for aggregation and prune noisy implicit feedback respectively. Besides, we also design the self-adapted loss function and the gradient estimator for model optimization. The experimental results on three benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of KRDN over the state-of-the-art knowledge-aware methods like KGIN, MCCLK, and KGCL, and also outperform robust recommendation models like SGL and SimGCL

Sini San inhibits breast cancer cell migration and angiogenesis via the HIF 1 /VEGF pathway

Purpose: To investigate the effects of Sini San (SNS) on breast cancer (BC), and the mechanism of action.Methods: MDA-MB-231 and SK-BR-3 cells were used as breast cancer cell models. Cell viability, migration, and invasion were determined by CCK-8, Transwell and wound healing assays, respectively. SNS mechanism of action and its anti-cancer effect were investigated by network pharmacological analysis, and further verified by Immunoblot.Results: Sini San inhibited the proliferation of the breast cancer (BC) cells., and also suppressed the migration as well as the invasion of BC cells, and also restrained the angiogenesis of BC cells. In performing the network pharmacological analysis of Sini Powder in the treatment of BC, 337 drugdisease targets were obtained. PPI network was established through String, and GO and KEGG enrichment analysis was performed on the target sites. KEGG analysis showed that genes were enriched in HIF-1 and VEGF pathways.Conclusion: Sini San suppressed cell migration as well as angiogenesis via the HIF-1 /VEGF pathway&nbsp

An Improved ID-based Authenticated Group Key Agreement Scheme

Authenticated group key agreement problem is important in many modern collaborative and distributed applications. There are two ID-based authenticated group key agreement schemes have been proposed by Choi et al. and us, which are based on bilinear pairings and BD scheme. Recently, Zhang and Chen propose an impersonation attack on the two schemes, which means the schemes are not fully authenticated. In this paper, we propose an improved ID-based authenticated group key agreement scheme which can resist this attack

ID-based Authenticated Two Round Multi-Party Key Agreement

This paper proposes an ID-based authenticated two round multi-party key agreement among n parties. Several ID-based two-party and tripartite key agreement schemes were proposed recently. Our two round multi-party key agreement scheme utilizes the idea of the two-round group key exchange protocol of Burmester and Desmedt. The authenticity of the protocol is assured by a special signature scheme, so the messages carrying the information of ephemeral key can be broadcasted authentically by an entity. Security attributes of our protocol are presented, and computational overhead and band width of the broadcast messages are analyzed as well

Chameleon Signature from Bilinear Pairing

Chameleon signatures are non-interactive signatures based on a hash-and-sign paradigm, and similar in efficiency to regular signatures. The distinguishing characteristic of chameleon signatures is that there are non-transferable, with only the designated recipient capable of asserting its validity. In this paper, we introduce a new ID-based chameleon hash function based on bilinear pairing and build the ID-based chameleon signature scheme. Compared with the conventional chameleon hashing functions, the owner of a public hash key in the ID-based chameleon hashing scheme does not necessarily need to retrieve the associated secret key. The scheme enjoys all the attributes in the normal chameleon signature and the added characteristics of ID-based cryptography based on bilinear pairing

Ecosystem multifunctionality, maximum height, and biodiversity of shrub communities affected by precipitation fluctuations in Northwest China

IntroductionDryland ecosystems face serious threats from climate change. Establishing the spatial pattern of ecosystem multifunctionality, maximum height and the correlation of biodiversity patterns with climate change is important for understanding changes in complex ecosystem processes. However, the understanding of their relationships across large spatial areas remains limited in drylands.MethodsAccordingly, this study examined the spatial patterns of ecosystem multifunctionality, maximum height and considered a set of potential environmental drivers by investigating natural shrub communities in Northwest China.ResultsWe found that the ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) and maximum height of shrub communities were both affected by longitude, which was positively correlated with the precipitation gradient. Specifically, the EMF was driven by high precipitation seasonality, and the maximum height was driven by high precipitation stability during the growing season. Among the multiple biodiversity predictors, species beta diversity (SD-beta) is the most common in determining EMF, although this relationship is weak.DiscussionUnlike tree life form, we did not observe biodiversity-maximum height relationships in shrub communities. Based on these results, we suggest that more attention should be paid to the climatical fluctuations mediated biodiversity mechanisms, which are tightly correlated with ecosystem’s service capacity and resistance capacity under a rapid climate change scenario in the future

Ancestry, Plasmodium cynomolgi prevalence and rhesus macaque admixture in cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) bred for export in Chinese breeding farms

Background: Most cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis) used in the United States as animal models are imported from Chinese breeding farms without documented ancestry. Cynomolgus macaques with varying rhesus macaque ancestry proportions may exhibit differences, such as susceptibility to malaria, that affect their suitability as a research model. Methods: DNA of 400 cynomolgus macaques from 10 Chinese breeding farms was genotyped to characterize their regional origin and rhesus ancestry proportion. A nested PCR assay was used to detect Plasmodium cynomolgi infection in sampled individuals. Results: All populations exhibited high levels of genetic heterogeneity and low levels of inbreeding and genetic subdivision. Almost all individuals exhibited an Indochinese origin and a rhesus ancestry proportion of 5%-48%. The incidence of P. cynomolgi infection in cynomolgus macaques is strongly associated with proportion of rhesus ancestry. Conclusions: The varying amount of rhesus ancestry in cynomolgus macaques underscores the importance of monitoring their genetic similarity in malaria research

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Phylogenetic relationship and characterization of the complete mitochondrial genome of Cheilomenes sexmaculata (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)

Cheilomenes sexmaculata is a common natural enemy for aphid and psyllid in agricultural systems in South China. In this study, we sequenced and analyzed the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) of C. sexmaculata. This mitogenome was 17,297 bp long and encoded 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs) and two ribosomal RNA unit genes (rRNAs). Gene order was conserved and identical to most other previously sequenced Coccinellidae. All PCGs of C. sexmaculata have the conventional start codon for invertebrate mitochondrial PCGs (ATN), with the exception of cox1 (AAT) and nad3 (TTG). Except for seven genes (cox1, cox2, cox3, nad3, nad5, nad4 and nad6) end with the incomplete stop codon T−, all other PCGs terminated with the stop codon TAA or TAG. The whole mitogenome exhibited heavy AT nucleotide bias (78.0%). Phylogenetic analysis positioned C. sexmaculata in a well-supported clade with Aiolocaria hexaspilota. The relationships (Sticholotidinae + (Coccinellinae + (Scymninae + Epilachninae))) were supported in Coccinellidae, and Halyziini was paraphyletic to Coccinellini within Coccinellinae