The Role of Polo-like Kinase 1 (PLK1) in Homologous Recombination During Mammalian Spermatogenesis

Failure in accurate segregation of chromosomes during meiosis causes aneuploidy, the main contributor to infertility, spontaneous abortions, and developmental defects. A molecular understanding of the factors that regulate chromosome dynamics during meiosis is necessary to better understand the cellular origins of these aneuploidy events. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) participates in processes during the cell cycle, such as DNA replication, mitotic entry, chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. In this study, we focused our attention on the role of PLK1 during a DNA damage repair event, homologous recombination. Previous studies have shown that PLK1 has a central role in regulating an early recombination intermediate, RAD51, as well as in influencing Class II MUS81-EME1 crossover pathway. We used a germ-cell-specific conditional knockout strategy, driven by Spo11-Cre recombinase, to assess the role of PLK1 in regulating the transition from prophase to metaphase in mouse spermatocytes. Our results showed Plk1 conditional knockout mice were infertile and displayed severe meiotic aberrancies, including enlarged primary spermatocytes and increased apoptotic cells. Interestingly, we observed alterations in recombination protein foci numbers occurring during homologous recombination. These results underscore the importance in maintaining strict temporal control of PLK1 activity during spermatogenesis

Exploring Progress in Multivariate Time Series Forecasting: Comprehensive Benchmarking and Heterogeneity Analysis

Multivariate Time Series (MTS) widely exists in real-word complex systems, such as traffic and energy systems, making their forecasting crucial for understanding and influencing these systems. Recently, deep learning-based approaches have gained much popularity for effectively modeling temporal and spatial dependencies in MTS, specifically in Long-term Time Series Forecasting (LTSF) and Spatial-Temporal Forecasting (STF). However, the fair benchmarking issue and the choice of technical approaches have been hotly debated in related work. Such controversies significantly hinder our understanding of progress in this field. Thus, this paper aims to address these controversies to present insights into advancements achieved. To resolve benchmarking issues, we introduce BasicTS, a benchmark designed for fair comparisons in MTS forecasting. BasicTS establishes a unified training pipeline and reasonable evaluation settings, enabling an unbiased evaluation of over 30 popular MTS forecasting models on more than 18 datasets. Furthermore, we highlight the heterogeneity among MTS datasets and classify them based on temporal and spatial characteristics. We further prove that neglecting heterogeneity is the primary reason for generating controversies in technical approaches. Moreover, based on the proposed BasicTS and rich heterogeneous MTS datasets, we conduct an exhaustive and reproducible performance and efficiency comparison of popular models, providing insights for researchers in selecting and designing MTS forecasting models

Durability of viscoelastic fibre prestressing in a polymeric composite

Viscoelastic fibre prestressing (VFP) is a promising technique to counterbalance the potential thermal residual stresses within a polymeric composite, offering superior mechanical benefits for structural engineering applications. It has been demonstrated that the time required for desirable creep strain can be significantly reduced by implementing higher creep stresses, while its long-term reliability is still unknown. Here, we developed the prestress equivalence principle, and investigated the durability of viscoelastic fibre prestressing within a composite, in order to further enrich the prestress mechanisms. The effectiveness of the prestress equivalence principle was refined through Charpy impact testing of prestressed samples with various prestrain levels. The durability was investigated by subjecting samples to both natural aging (up to 0.5 years) and accelerated aging (by using the time-temperature superposition principle). It is found that the prestress equivalence principle offers flexibilities for viscoelastically prestressed polymeric matrix composite (VPPMC) technology; the impact benefits offered by VFP are still active after been accelerated aged to an equivalent of 20,000 years at 20˚C, inferring long-term reliability of VFP-generated fibre recovery within a polymeric composite. These findings demonstrated that both materials and energy con-sumptions could be conserved for advanced composites. Therefore, they promote further steps of VPPMC technology towards potential industrial application especially for impact protections

The effects of different surgical approaches on the psychological status, medical coping mode and quality of life of patients with lung cancer

ObjectiveThis study aimed to compare the effects of robot-assisted thoracic surgery (RATS), video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS), and thoracotomy on the psychological status, medical coping mode, and quality of life of patients with lung cancer.MethodsA total of 158 patients with lung cancer were selected from the thoracic surgery center of a third-grade hospital in Hunan Province, China, from September to November 2020. The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire (MCMQ), and Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) were used to assess the effects of the surgical approaches on the study parameters before and 48–96 h after surgery. The t-test and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.ResultsThe results revealed that the patients’ depression increased, their short-term quality of life decreased, and they tended to adopt a positive coping mode after surgery (p < 0.05). The RATS and VATS groups differed in avoidance dimension of medical coping modes (p < 0.05). The VATS and thoracotomy groups differed in the body pain dimension of quality of life (p < 0.05). Different surgical approaches had no effect on the psychological status, medical coping modes except the avoidance dimension, and quality of life except the body pain dimension.ConclusionSurgical approaches have little effect on the psychological status, medical coping modes, and quality of life of patients with lung cancer; however, their depression increased and quality of life decreased after the surgery