Federal Taxation: Formal Stockholder Vote Held Controlling in Determining When a Plan of Liquidation Is Adopted Under Section 337 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954

The correctness  of real-time systems does not only depend on the validity of the output, but also the temporal validity. Tasks are typically designed with strict deadlines and they need to respond in time, which are the timing constraints of real-time systems. Schedulability analysis is one of the approaches to study the workload of the task system. DRTRS (Digraph Real-Time task model with resource  sharing) is introduced to describe the system task model, abstracting away most functional behaviour and focus on the timing properties. We have also developed an efficient schedulability analysis under different resource  access protocols

Chaihu Guizhi Ganjiang Decoction Ameliorates Pancreatic Fibrosis via JNK/mTOR Signaling Pathway

Pancreatic fibrosis is a pathological characteristic of chronic pancreatitis (CP) and pancreatic cancer. Chaihu Guizhi Ganjiang Decoction (CGGD) is a traditional Chinese medicine, which is widely used in the clinical treatment of digestive diseases. However, the potential anti-fibrosis mechanism of CGGD in treating CP remains unclear. Here, we conducted a series of experiments to examine the effect of CGGD on the CP rat model and primary isolated pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs). The results revealed that CGGD attenuated pancreatic damage, decreased collagen deposition, and inhibited PSC activation in the pancreas of CP rats. However, compared with the CP group, CGGD had no effect on body weight and serum amylase and lipase. In addition, CGGD suppressed autophagy by downregulating Atg5, Beclin-1, and LC3B and facilitated phosphorylation of mTOR and JNK in pancreatic tissues and PSCs. Moreover, the CGGD-containing serum also decreased LC3B or collagen I expression after rapamycin (mTOR inhibitor) or SP600125 (JNK inhibitor) treatment in PSCs. In conclusion, CGGD attenuated pancreatic fibrosis and PSC activation, possibly by suppressing autophagy of PSCs through the JNK/mTOR signaling pathway

Static Priority Schedulability Analysis of Graph-Based Real-TimeTask Models with Resource Sharing

The correctness  of real-time systems does not only depend on the validity of the output, but also the temporal validity. Tasks are typically designed with strict deadlines and they need to respond in time, which are the timing constraints of real-time systems. Schedulability analysis is one of the approaches to study the workload of the task system. DRTRS (Digraph Real-Time task model with resource  sharing) is introduced to describe the system task model, abstracting away most functional behaviour and focus on the timing properties. We have also developed an efficient schedulability analysis under different resource  access protocols

Non-intrusive Patient Simulator for Medical Ventilator Software Verification

Testing distributed real-time systems has been pervasively proven a challenging task within numerous industries. When the real-time nature of a system is combined with safety critical medical systems, having a reliable test system is of major importance. However, the hardware dependency makes it very difficult to test medical ventilator software system in failure mode and requires manual manoeuvres, prohibiting test automation for numerous features. To achieve entire test automation, an embedded patient simulator is proposed in this thesis. A simulator that simulates a human lung runs separately on embedded platform and interacts with the ventilator so that all the hardware dependencies could be removed. It is of non-intrusive implementation and all the real-time properties  of the ventilator software system could be tested on target. Software-implemented fault injection is realized as well, which is a significant step to fault-tolerance testing for safety critical system

Non-intrusive Patient Simulator for Medical Ventilator Software Verification

Testing distributed real-time systems has been pervasively proven a challenging task within numerous industries. When the real-time nature of a system is combined with safety critical medical systems, having a reliable test system is of major importance. However, the hardware dependency makes it very difficult to test medical ventilator software system in failure mode and requires manual manoeuvres, prohibiting test automation for numerous features. To achieve entire test automation, an embedded patient simulator is proposed in this thesis. A simulator that simulates a human lung runs separately on embedded platform and interacts with the ventilator so that all the hardware dependencies could be removed. It is of non-intrusive implementation and all the real-time properties  of the ventilator software system could be tested on target. Software-implemented fault injection is realized as well, which is a significant step to fault-tolerance testing for safety critical system

Non-intrusive Patient Simulator for Medical Ventilator Software Verification

Testing distributed real-time systems has been pervasively proven a challenging task within numerous industries. When the real-time nature of a system is combined with safety critical medical systems, having a reliable test system is of major importance. However, the hardware dependency makes it very difficult to test medical ventilator software system in failure mode and requires manual manoeuvres, prohibiting test automation for numerous features. To achieve entire test automation, an embedded patient simulator is proposed in this thesis. A simulator that simulates a human lung runs separately on embedded platform and interacts with the ventilator so that all the hardware dependencies could be removed. It is of non-intrusive implementation and all the real-time properties  of the ventilator software system could be tested on target. Software-implemented fault injection is realized as well, which is a significant step to fault-tolerance testing for safety critical system

DataSheet1_DNA methylation regulator-mediated modification pattern defines tumor microenvironment immune infiltration landscape in colon cancer.docx

Emerging evidence implies a non-negligible role of DNA methylation in tumor immunity, however, its comprehensive impact on tumor microenvironment (TME) formation and immune activation remains unclear. In this study, we integrated 24 DNA methylation regulators among 754 colon cancer patients to distinguish different modification patterns via an unsupervised clustering method, and explore their TME immune characteristics. Three DNA methylation modification patterns with distinct prognosis and biological behaviors were identified, consistent with three known phenotypes of immune-inflamed, immune-excluded, and immune-desert. We then determined a DNA methylation gene signature and constructed a DNA methylation score (DMS) to quantify modification patterns individually through principal component analysis algorithms. DMS-low group had characteristics of specific molecular subtypes, including microsatellite instability, CpG island methylator phenotype positive, and mutant BRAF, presented by increased mutation burden, activation of DNA damage repair and immune-related pathways, highly TME immune cells infiltration, and hence, a preferable prognosis. Further, low DMS was also demonstrated to be correlated to better response and prolonged survival of anti-PD-L1 antibody, indicating that DMS could be considered as an effective predictive tool for immunotherapy. In conclusion, our work presented a landscape of different DNA methylation modification patterns, and their vital role in the formation of TME diversity and complexity, which could help to enhance understanding of TME immune infiltration characteristics and more importantly, guide immunotherapy strategies more effectively and personalized.</p

DataSheet2_DNA methylation regulator-mediated modification pattern defines tumor microenvironment immune infiltration landscape in colon cancer.xlsx

Emerging evidence implies a non-negligible role of DNA methylation in tumor immunity, however, its comprehensive impact on tumor microenvironment (TME) formation and immune activation remains unclear. In this study, we integrated 24 DNA methylation regulators among 754 colon cancer patients to distinguish different modification patterns via an unsupervised clustering method, and explore their TME immune characteristics. Three DNA methylation modification patterns with distinct prognosis and biological behaviors were identified, consistent with three known phenotypes of immune-inflamed, immune-excluded, and immune-desert. We then determined a DNA methylation gene signature and constructed a DNA methylation score (DMS) to quantify modification patterns individually through principal component analysis algorithms. DMS-low group had characteristics of specific molecular subtypes, including microsatellite instability, CpG island methylator phenotype positive, and mutant BRAF, presented by increased mutation burden, activation of DNA damage repair and immune-related pathways, highly TME immune cells infiltration, and hence, a preferable prognosis. Further, low DMS was also demonstrated to be correlated to better response and prolonged survival of anti-PD-L1 antibody, indicating that DMS could be considered as an effective predictive tool for immunotherapy. In conclusion, our work presented a landscape of different DNA methylation modification patterns, and their vital role in the formation of TME diversity and complexity, which could help to enhance understanding of TME immune infiltration characteristics and more importantly, guide immunotherapy strategies more effectively and personalized.</p

Crosstalk of PmCBFs and PmDAMs Based on the Changes of Phytohormones under Seasonal Cold Stress in the Stem of Prunus mume

Plants facing the seasonal variations always need a growth restraining mechanism when temperatures turn down. C-repeat binding factor (CBF) genes work essentially in the cold perception. Despite lots of researches on CBFs, the multiple crosstalk is still interesting on their interaction with hormones and dormancy-associated MADS (DAM) genes in the growth and dormancy control. Therefore, this study highlights roles of PmCBFs in cold-induced dormancy from different orgens. And a sense-response relationship between PmCBFs and PmDAMs is exhibited in this process, jointly regulated by six PmCBFs and PmDAM4–6. Meantime, GA3 and ABA showed negative and positive correlation with PmCBFs expression levels, respectively. We also find a high correlation between IAA and PmDAM1–3. Finally, we display the interaction mode of PmCBFs and PmDAMs, especially PmCBF1-PmDAM1. These results can disclose another view of molecular mechanism in plant growth between cold-response pathway and dormancy regulation together with genes and hormones