Effect of Vitamin D on the HMGB1/RAGE Pathway and Adipokines Levels in Obese Asthmatic Mice

Compared to common asthma, obese asthma is difficult to control. Previous studies have shown that vitamin D (Vit D) has a therapeutic effect on asthma. Nevertheless, the action mechanism of Vit D for obese asthma are not well known. In this study, we, therefore, induced obesity and established an obese asthma mouse model using ovalbumin (OVA) stimulation and applied treatment with Vit D (100 ng/kg). Accordingly, thirty mice were randomly divided into 5 equal groups of normal control, asthma, obese asthma, asthma+Vit D, and obese asthma+ Vit D. The levels of inflammatory factors and adipokines were measured by the ELISA assay; then the quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) method was used to evaluate the expression of high mobility group box 1(HMGB1) and receptor for advanced glycation end products [RAGE] genes.T he results showed that OVA sensitization significantly increased airway resistance, the levels of inflammatory cytokines, and HMGB and RAGE expression in asthmatic and obese asthmatic mice, as compared to the control group. Also, these changes in the obese asthmatic group were notably higher than those in the asthmatic one. In addition, the treatment of asthmatic and obese asthmatic mice with Vit D significantly reduced the raw, serum and BALF levels of inflammatory cytokines, as well as the expression of HMGB1 and RAGE mRNA. To conclude, the present study showed that vitamin D might attenuate lung injury by up-regulating HMGB1 and RAGE expression. Our findings, thus, may offer new concepts and approaches for the treatment and prevention of obese asthma

TKwinFormer: Top k Window Attention in Vision Transformers for Feature Matching

Local feature matching remains a challenging task, primarily due to difficulties in matching sparse keypoints and low-texture regions. The key to solving this problem lies in effectively and accurately integrating global and local information. To achieve this goal, we introduce an innovative local feature matching method called TKwinFormer. Our approach employs a multi-stage matching strategy to optimize the efficiency of information interaction. Furthermore, we propose a novel attention mechanism called Top K Window Attention, which facilitates global information interaction through window tokens prior to patch-level matching, resulting in improved matching accuracy. Additionally, we design an attention block to enhance attention between channels. Experimental results demonstrate that TKwinFormer outperforms state-of-the-art methods on various benchmarks. Code is available at: https://github.com/LiaoYun0x0/TKwinFormer.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

Visual-aural attention modeling for talk show video highlight detection

In this paper, we propose a visual-aural attention modeling based video content analysis approach, which can be used to automatically detect the highlights of the popular TV program - talk show video. First, the visual and aural affective features are extracted to represent and model the human attention of highlight. For efficiency consideration, the adopted affective features are kept as few as possible. Then, a specific fusion strategy called ordinal-decision is used to combine the visual, aural attention models and form the attention curve for a video. This curve can reflect the change of human attention while watching TV. Finally, highlight segments are located at the peaks of the attention curve. Moreover, sentence boundary detection is used to refine the highlight boundaries in order to keep the segments' integrality and fluency. This framework is extensible and flexible in integrating more affective features with a variety of fusion schemes. Experimental results demonstrate our proposed visual-aural attention analysis approach is effective for talk show video highlight detection. ?2008 IEEE.EI

PuzzleFlex: kinematic motion of chains with loose joints

This paper presents a method of computing free motions of a planar assembly of rigid bodies connected by loose joints. Joints are modeled using local distance constraints, which are then linearized with respect to configuration space velocities, yielding a linear programming formulation that allows analysis of systems with thousands of rigid bodies. Potential applications include analysis of collections of modular robots, structural stability perturbation analysis, tolerance analysis for mechanical systems, and formation control of mobile robots.Comment: Accepted at the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA

Biosynthesis of depsipeptides with a 3-hydroxybenzoate moiety and selective anticancer activities involves a chorismatase.

Neoantimycins are anticancer compounds of 15-membered ring antimycin-type depsipeptides. They are biosynthesized by a hybrid multimodular protein complex of nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) and polyketide synthase (PKS), typically from the starting precursor 3-formamidosalicylate. Examining fermentation extracts of Streptomyces conglobatus, here we discovered four new neoantimycin analogs, unantimycins B-E, in which 3-formamidosalicylates are replaced by an unusual 3-hydroxybenzoate (3-HBA) moiety. Unantimycins B-E exhibited levels of anticancer activities similar to those of the chemotherapeutic drug cisplatin in human lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and melanoma cells. Notably, they mostly displayed no significant toxicity toward noncancerous cells, unlike the serious toxicities generally reported for antimycin-type natural products. Using site-directed mutagenesis and heterologous expression, we found that unantimycin productions are correlated with the activity of a chorismatase homolog, the nat-hyg5 gene, from a type I PKS gene cluster. Biochemical analysis confirmed that the catalytic activity of Nat-hyg5 generates 3-HBA from chorismate. Finally, we achieved selective production of unantimycins B and C by engineering a chassis host. On the basis of these findings, we propose that unantimycin biosynthesis is directed by the neoantimycin-producing NRPS-PKS complex and initiated with the starter unit of 3-HBA. The elucidation of the biosynthetic unantimycin pathway reported here paves the way to improve the yield of these compounds for evaluation in oncotherapeutic applications

Estuarine plastisphere as an overlooked source of N2O production

“Plastisphere”, microbial communities colonizing plastic debris, has sparked global concern for marine ecosystems. Microbiome inhabiting this novel human-made niche has been increasingly characterized; however, whether the plastisphere holds crucial roles in biogeochemical cycling remains largely unknown. Here we evaluate the potential of plastisphere in biotic and abiotic denitrification and nitrous oxide (N2O) production in estuaries. Biofilm formation provides anoxic conditions favoring denitrifiers. Comparing with surrounding bulk water, plastisphere exhibits a higher denitrifying activity and N2O production, suggesting an overlooked N2O source. Regardless of plastisphere and bulk water, bacterial and fungal denitrifications are the main regulators for N2O production instead of chemodenitrification. However, the contributions of bacteria and fungi in the plastisphere are different from those in bulk water, indicating a distinct N2O production pattern in the plastisphere. These findings pinpoint plastisphere as a N2O source, and provide insights into roles of the new biotope in biogeochemical cycling in the Anthropocene