Trace element zinc and skin disorders

Zinc is a necessary trace element and an important constituent of proteins and other biological molecules. It has many biological functions, including antioxidant, skin and mucous membrane integrity maintenance, and the promotion of various enzymatic and transcriptional responses. The skin contains the third most zinc in the organism. Zinc deficiency can lead to a range of skin diseases. Except for acrodermatitis enteropathic, a rare genetic zinc deficiency, it has also been reported in other diseases. In recent years, zinc supplementation has been widely used for various skin conditions, including infectious diseases (viral warts, genital herpes, cutaneous leishmaniasis, leprosy), inflammatory diseases (hidradenitis suppurativa, acne vulgaris, rosacea, eczematous dermatitis, seborrheic dermatitis, psoriasis, Behcet's disease, oral lichen planus), pigmentary diseases (vitiligo, melasma), tumor-associated diseases (basal cell carcinoma), endocrine and metabolic diseases (necrolytic migratory erythema, necrolytic acral erythema), hair diseases (alopecia), and so on. We reviewed the literature on zinc application in dermatology to provide references for better use

Augmenting Large Language Model Translators via Translation Memories

Using translation memories (TMs) as prompts is a promising approach to in-context learning of machine translation models. In this work, we take a step towards prompting large language models (LLMs) with TMs and making them better translators. We find that the ability of LLMs to ``understand'' prompts is indeed helpful for making better use of TMs. Experiments show that the results of a pre-trained LLM translator can be greatly improved by using high-quality TM-based prompts. These results are even comparable to those of the state-of-the-art NMT systems which have access to large-scale in-domain bilingual data and are well tuned on the downstream tasks.Comment: Accepted to Findings of ACL 202

Optimal mathematical programming and variable neighborhood search for k-modes categorical data clustering

The conventional k-modes algorithm and its variants have been extensively used for categorical data clustering. However, these algorithms have some drawbacks, e.g., they can be trapped into local optima and sensitive to initial clusters/modes. Our numerical experiments even showed that the k-modes algorithm could not identify the optimal clustering results for some special datasets regardless the selection of the initial centers. In this paper, we developed an integer linear programming (ILP) approach for the k-modes clustering, which is independent to the initial solution and can obtain directly the optimal results for small-sized datasets. We also developed a heuristic algorithm that implements iterative partial optimization in the ILP approach based on a framework of variable neighborhood search, known as IPO-ILP-VNS, to search for near-optimal results of medium and large sized datasets with controlled computing time. Experiments on 38 datasets, including 27 synthesized small datasets and 11 known benchmark datasets from the UCI site were carried out to test the proposed ILP approach and the IPO-ILP-VNS algorithm. The experimental results outperformed the conventional and other existing enhanced k-modes algorithms in literature, updated 9 of the UCI benchmark datasets with new and improved results

A Chitinase from Aeromonas veronii CD3 with the Potential to Control Myxozoan Disease

Background: The class Myxosporea encompasses about 2,400 species, most of which are parasites of fish and cause serious damage in aquaculture. Due to the concerns about food safety issues and limited knowledge of Myxozoa life cycle and fish immune system, no chemicals, antibiotics or immune modulators are available to control myxozoa infection. Therefore, little can be done once Myxozoa establishment has occurred. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this paper we isolated Aeromonas veronii CD3 with significant myxospore shell valvedegrading ability from pond sediment. A 3,057-bp full-length chitinase gene was consequently cloned, and the corresponding mature, recombinant chitinase (ChiCD3) produced by Escherichia coli had substantial chitinase activity. The deduced sequence of ChiCD3 contained one catalytic domain, two chitin-binding domains, and one putative signal peptide. ChiCD3 had an optimal activity at 50uC and pH 6.0, and retained more than 50 % of its optimal activity under warm water aquaculture conditions (,30uC and pH,7.0). After incubation with ChiCD3, 38.064.8 % of the myxospores had damaged shell valves, whereas myxospores incubated with commercially available chitinases remained intact. Conclusion/Significance: This study reveals a new strategy to control myxozoan disease. ChiCD3 that has capacity to damage the shell valve of myxospores can be supplemented into fish feed and used to control Myxozoa-induced disease

Molecular dynamics simulations on the Escherichia coli ammonia channel protein AmtB: Mechanism of ammonia/ammonium transport

Molecular dynamics ( MD) simulations have been performed at the atomic level to study the ammonium/ammonia transport across the Escherichia coli AmtB membrane protein. Although ammonia primarily exists in the form of NH4+ in aqueous solution, the recent X-ray structure determination of AmtB reveals that the ammonium/ammonia transporter proteins are ammonia-conducting channels rather than ammonium ion transporters [Khademi, S.; et al. Science 2004, 305, 1587; Zheng, L.; et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2004, 101, 17090]. Our simulations showed that the entrance of NH4+ into the periplasmic recruitment vestibule requires only 3.1 kcal/mol of energy. This is consistent with the X-ray crystal structure, where one NH4+ is captured in the binding vestibule. In this vestibule, NH4+ loses one water of hydration, but the loss is compensated by a hydrogen bond, first with the backbone carbonyl oxygen of Phe161 then with the hydroxyl group of Ser219, as well as the stabilizing pi-cation interactions with the aromatic rings of Trp148 and Phe107 in the AmtB protein. In the end of this recruitment vestibule, the phenyl ring of Phe107 dynamically switches to an open state. This is correlated with a slight rotation and shifting of the indole ring of Trp148, which eventually creates a slot for the initially buried carboxylate group of Asp160 to become exposed to the bulk solvent. A hydrogen bond wire between NH4+ and the carboxylate group of Asp160 via two water molecules was observed. Thus, Asp160 is most likely the proton acceptor from NH4+. This explains the high conservation of Asp160 in Amt proteins and why the D160A mutant would completely quench the activity of AmtB [ Javelle, A.; et al. J. Biol. Chem. 2004, 279, 8530; Marini, A. M.; et al. Curr. Genet. 2006, 49, 364]. Once NH4+ deprotonates, the phenyl ring of Phe215 rotates to open, and the subsequent passage of NH3 through the channel is straightforward

Variation-aware supply voltage assignment for minimizing circuit degradation and leakage

As technology scales, Negative Bias Temperature Instability (NBTI) has become a major reliability concern for circuit designers. And the growing process variations can no longer be ignored. Meanwhile, reducing leakage power remains to be one of the design goals. In this paper, we first present a platform for NBTI-aware statistical timing and leakage power analysis. A variation-aware supply voltage assignment (SVA) technique combining dual Vdd assignment and dynamic Vdd scaling techniques is proposed to minimize NBTI degradation and leakage. Based on the statistical platform, we analyze the impact of Vth variations on NBTI degradation and leakage. The experimental results show that our SVA technique can mitigate on average 52.98 % of NBTI degradation with little or without leakage power increase; furthermore, it can reduce on average 32.46 % more leakage power compared with the pure single Vdd scaling technique. Compared with scheduled voltage scaling technique [9], our dynamic scaling technique is more effective because the circuit delay will exactly meet the specification at each dynamically decided time node during circuit operation

Laser dressing technology for micro-grooves on the surface of metal-bonded diamond wheels

In order to solve the difficult problem of dressing micro-grooves on the surface of metal-bonded diamond wheel, an infrared nanosecond laser was used to carry out the dressing test. The influences of laser average power, pulse repetition frequency, laser ablation time and other factors on the material removal of metal-bonded diamond grinding wheel was investigated. A gradient step laser dressing process was proposed for U-shaped and V-shaped grinding wheel micro-grooves. The results show that the actual contour of the grinding wheel micro-groove after dressing is compared with the designed contour, the maximum absolute value of the relative error of the actual width at the top and bottom is 4.4%, and the maximum absolute value of the relative error of the actual depth is 9.6%. The edge of the sapphire wafer with a diameter of 4 inches (10.16 cm) is chamfered with the V-shaped micro-groove of the trimmed grinding wheel. The sharp edge of the wafer is trimmed into a regular shape, and the symmetry of the edge contour is good, which is consistent with the micro-groove contour of the surface of the laser trimmed grinding wheel. The feasibility of laser shaping and dressing of the micro-groove on the surface of metal-bonded diamond grinding wheel is verified